GOLDWATER WRITES CIA DIRECTOR SCORCHING LETTER

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP87B00858R000200170020-4
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: November 17, 2010
• Sequence Number: 20
• Publication Date: April 11, 1984
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

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1) L~c~1O v] f jQ
APR 1984
Goldwater ITites CW Iireio,-
The tat of a ktter, dated April 9 and made
alai abk yesterday, /man Sea. Bony Goldwa-
ter (R Ariz , chairnat of the Senate Intelfi-
genet C mmittee, to CIA Director William J.,
Dear, Bill:
1111'' M weekend, I've been trying to
"Olrt bow t co most easily tell you my
46" the, dii ooeery of the president
howne WPMv4 mining some of the harbors of
America.
Ca" It gets down to one, little, simple phrase: I
am plumed off!
I understand that you had briefed the Houm$''
on this matte. I've heard that. Now, during the
Important debate we had last week and the
eN ek' I4hrre, . on whether we would increase
funds for the Nicaragua prograw, we .
doing all right until a member of the committee
charged that the president had approved the
neg. I strongly denied that because I had
never heard of it. I found out the next day that
the CIA had, with the written approval of the
president, engaged in such mining, and the ap-
proval came in February!
Bill, this is no way to run a railroad, and I
find myself in a hell of a quandary. I am forced
to apologize to "the members of the Intelligence
Committee because :I did' not know the facts on
this. At the same tine, my counterpart in the
House did know.
'The president has''asked us to back his for-
eign ` . Bill, how can we back his foreign
policy whon we dotl know what the hell he is
doing? Lebanon;. yek we, all knew that he sent
troops over there. But mine the harbors in Nie-
"",
Barry Goldwater
Chairman
EKecutire Registry
3 4 LI
Letter
law. It is an act of war. For the life of me, I
don't see how we are going to explain it.
My s9nple guess is that the House is going to
defeat this supplemental and we will not be in
any position to put up much of an argument
after we were not given the information we
were entitled to receive; particularly, if my
'memory serves me correctly, when you. briefed
us on Central America just a couple of weeks
ago. And the order was signed before that.
I don't like'this. I don't like it one bit from
need president or from you. I don't think we a lot o( lengthy explanations. The deed
has been done and, in the future, if anything
like this happens, Fm going to raise one hell of
a lot of fume about it in public.
8,
Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010/11/17: CIA-RDP87B00858R000200170020-4