SITUATION REPORT
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Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST):
CIA-RDP88-01315R000400420004-1
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RIFPUB
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K
Document Page Count:
8
Document Creation Date:
December 16, 2016
Document Release Date:
November 12, 2004
Sequence Number:
4
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Publication Date:
November 1, 1978
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REPORT
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Volume 1, Number 3
A Quarterly Publication of the Security and Intelligence Fund
The disgraceful and dangerous decline of the
prestige and vigilance of our intelligence
community has never been so marked as at this
hour. Only the other day in Washington, on
October25, there was this astonishing admission
before the National Press Club by Admiral
Stanfield Turner, head of the long trusted
service created by the Congress 31 years. ago to
serve as the "eyes and ears" of our national
security systems
"in the nineteen months that I have been
Director of the Central Intelligence Agency, I
have come into the habit of screening the press
clips first thing every morning. I almost hold my
breath until I know if today's disclosures include
some of our sensitive sources of intelligence.
Sometimes it comes out as a leak, sometimes
from the forced testimony of one of our officers
in court and sometimes from the suppoena of a
document or notes."
Then Admiral Turner went
something even more dismaying:
"Allied intelligence services are losing
confidence that we.. can keep a secret. We
suspect that some are holding back information.
One recently withdrew a proposal for a joint
covert action which would have been beneficial)
to both nations. it did so when reminded that 11
must notify eight committees of Congress of
every covert action. They could not imagine that
the plan would not leak."
Three days later, in Chicago, Director of the
Federal Bureau of investigation, judge William
H. Webster, in a talk on the subject of law
enforcement, at a luncheon sponsored by that
City's Crime Commission, cited statistics that
were hardly less disturbing. The Associated Press
in its report on )udge Webster's remarks quoted
him as saying that some 1,900 "spies" from the
Soviet bloc--meaning the Soviet Union plus its
satellites - are already operating inside our
borders, that their numbers have doubled over
the past twelve.years, and that 100 new ones had
entered the country during the three preceding
months.* "They are here," he said gravely,
noting that their work "is not something that
occurs only in a James Bond movie." He
proceeded to list their primary fields of interest
- not. only the classical secrets in the.Pentagon,
but also our most valuable technological secrets
in microelectronics, lasers, computers, nuclear
energy and aerospace. -
There is certainly no want of recent public
documentation of the causes for their concern.
In Admiral Turner's situation, there was the
electrifying arrest late in August by the FBI, of
the junior CIA watch officer, William Kampiles,
who allegedly stole one of the Agency's three
top-secret manuals describing the technical
characteristics of our most advanced
reconnaissance satellite, the KH-11, and sold it
to the KGB. (At the start of Kampiles' trial, in
Hammond, Indiana, on November 6, the
Department of justice made the staggering.
disclosure that a survey of government agencies,
all supposedly under iron-clad security, has
revealed that 13 other copies are missing from
the safes and cannot be accounted fore
In Judge Webster's situation, there was the
highly publicized conviction by a New Jersey
jury on October 30, of two Soviet KGS
employees of the United Nations, Valdik Enger
and Rudolf Chernyayev, who were sentenced to
fifty years in jail for trying to buy from a U.S.
naval officer the secret details of an anti-
submarine weapon system. And, finally, again
relative to Admiral Turner's responsibilities,
there is the acutely embarrassing and costly
behavior of the renegade CIA officer; Philip
Agee, who is making a career out of exposing
CIA operations, real or falsified, and of blowing
the cover of the Agency's officers engaged in
*The FBI's public relations office subsequently stated
that judge Webster spoke from notes and that the
figure of 1900 was used only in connection with the
Soviet officials accredited to this country. The Bureau
stood by his count of the latest augumentation in the
ranks of Soviet bloc spies, however.._...:... ... . .... ....:.;
The Situation?teport h published quarterly by the Security and Intelligence Fund for its members.
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A reasonably attentive citizen who has
tracked the fall of the fortunes of the CIA and
the FBI since the onslaught of the Church and
Pike committees of the Congress three years
ago, could have hardly escaped a sense of irony,
even a trace of crude hypocrisy, in the
complaints of these foremost custodians of the
national security. For on the same day that
Admiral Turner was wringing his hands in the
presence of the Washington press corps over his
inability to stopper the leakage of the national
secrets and three days before judge Webster
was supplying the senior members of the
Chicago bar with the latest count on the swelling
number of "spies" in our midst, President Carter
signed a bill that all but extinguishes the
Presidential authority, under the constitutional
sanction afforded the Executive power, to put
suspected leakers and would-be traitors under
timely surveillance. Both of them in their high
office appeared as witnesses in enthusiastic
support of that bill. They spoke up for its claimed
merits before the concerned committees of
Congress. Now the realities they rashly chose to
ignore are crowding them and they do not seem
to know how to cope with the growing threat to
the nation, committed as they seemingly have
been to the administration's course of populist
expediency that has gravely weakened the
capabilities of its own intelligence and security
agencies to meet it.
A LOST BATTLE
This particular piece of legislation,
introduced in the Senate as 5-1566 and in the
House as HR-7308, has become known as the
Electronic Surveillance bill. Defined narrowly, it
.stipulates the conditions under which the
counterintelligence services are permitted to
put wire-taps and other forms of surveillance on
foreign and American individuals, or groups,
suspected of being engaged in espionage. From
Franklin Roosevelt's time, - Presidents have
considered themselves empowered under the
authority vested in them by the Constitution to
order such eavesdropping in the interest of
national security. Six years ago, however, the
Supreme Court ruled that the practice was
unconstitutional when used against Americans,
and resident aliens unless authorized by a
Federal court, and furthermore, the President's
right to use it even against foreigners without
sanction of the courts was suddenly thrown into
question.
Now the Congress has attempted to resolve
the issue, at least for the time being, by
subjecting this extremely delicate and
indispensible counterintelligence function to a
process that can only be described as a triumph
of civil libertarian faith over the realities of
espionage and subversion. Where the target is a
foreigner, or a foreign establishment, a warrant
for the wire-tap must now be obtained from a
rotating panel of seven Federal judges
nominated by the Chief Justice of the Supreme
Court. Additionally, the several Congressional
committees concerned with intelligence must
be made privy to the operation and their
approval sought at the risk of the high likelihood
of leakage which such a process invites. Where
the designated target is an American, the
restrictions are even more severe. The
Government is obliged to produce proof that a
crime of espionage or terrorism is in all
probability in preparation, if not actually in
process -- proof no self respecting KGB agent is
hardly likely to leave strewn about.
Senator Edward Kennedy of Massachusetts
pushed the measure through the Congress. He
had the help of a powerful coalition of anti-
CIA/FBI lobbies, led by the American Civil
Liberties Union and the Center for National
Security Studies, a left-wing political action
group headed by Morton Halpern whose role In
the publication of the Pentagon Papers
established him as a master wrecker of national
The Situation Report is published quarterly by the Security and Intelligence Fund, Inc., Suite
500, 499 South Capitol Street, S.W., Washington, D.C. 20003. Phone (202) 484-1560.
Chairman ._.._....._...._._ ..................... James Angleton
President Ambassador Elbridge Durbrow
The Situation Report is available by subscription or through Security and Intelligence Fund
membership. Annual subscription rates: United States, U.S. possessions and Canada, $5 per year.
Additional copies are available at $.25 each postpaid.
Copyright ? 1978 by the Security and Intelligence Fund, Inc. All rights reserved, however, any
material herein may be reproduced if context is preserved and if attributed to the Security and
Intelligence Fund. Printed in U.S.A.
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Our first two Situation Reports analyzed its the front-line supporters of the bill inside the
inherent faults at considerable length. Right up Government: they and their aids drafted it.
to the last hour, in the closing days of the 2nd Outside, its most ardent backers include the
session of the 95th Congress, there was a good American Civil Liberties Union, and Mr.
chance that the bill could be killed. Senator Halpern's newly formed Center for National
Wallop of Wyoming and Representative Security Studies. Hardly less active is the
McClory of Illinois labored sturdily and Committee for Public justice, a group which
brilliantly in opposition, but a filbuster being would abolish all intelligence operations within
mounted to stave off a vote failed to develop our borders. Featured among its founders is the
because of missed signals: and on Monday writer Lillian Hellman, equally celebrated in
evening, October 9, half and hour before both communist and anti-communist circles for
midnight, the bill was passed. her resort to the Fifth Amendment some years
While an important battle has been lost, the ago before Congress when confronted with the
campaign has not, fortunately for the question of whether she was a communist or
intelligence community. The Electronic consorted with communists.
Surveillance measure represents only a fraction, The ostensible purpose of the authors of S-
albeit a significant fraction, of the omnibus bill 2525 is to confer a new charter on the
for reorganizing the entire intelligence intelligence community, one that will govern its
community and setting the boundaries of its operations and the scope of its responsibilities.
work and authority. That measure is designated What is bewildering is that they have set out to
as S-2525; its formal name is the National do all this without first defining the magnitude
Intelligence and Reform Act and the Electronic of the threat with which it is expected to
Surveillance law constitutes Title III of its six contend. I n point of fact, Executive Order 12036,
constituent parts. The principal objective of the drafted largely by the same people and issued by
whole Act, set forth in Title 1, is to herd the entire President Carter on January 26, is already
intelligence community with its diverse talents operating inside the community with all the
and departmental interests, into one vast force of a charter. Passage of the bill will, in
bureaucratic corral responsible to a single super practical terms, codify in formal legislation what
Director who would be responsive in more or is already in action and, if anything,. further
less equal measure to eight committees of tighten the constraints on the intelligence
Congress as well as to the President. Titles IV, V, community. For us, the members of this Fund,
and VI define the separate functions to be the controlling factor in the strategy seeking a
assigned to the Central Intelligence Agency, the thoroughgoing recasting of the legislation is the
Federal Bureau of investigation and the National fact that the struggle has just begun; the lost
Security Agency respectively, while Title 11 action over the Electronic Surveillance bill, Title
proposes.to narrow their authority to act against ,111, was only a skirmish. Titles 1,11, IV,V, and VI
Americans suspected of being engaged in have not yet reached the floor of either house.
espionage. In a word, it seeks to fence in the In fact, none of the bill has yet been reported
counterintelligence function, the primary out of committee. So nothing beyond recall has
defense against spies, traitors and subversives. been settled. The fate of S-2525 moves into the
Your Fund, in earlier Situation Reports, new Congress, which looks to be more sensible
analyzed S-2525 in its many faulty, even .in the matter of security issues than did the last.
dangerous aspects, and solicited your support In the course of the coming debate, which is
for its defeat. The bill is a distillation of the certain to be prolonged and. bitter, the bill, a
phobias and fantiasies entertained by the huge document currently running to some 263
Church and Pike Committees which separately pages, should be thoroughly rewritten, Title Ill
set out to prove, in their sensation-seeking along with the rest.
hearings in 1975, that the American intelligence That is the comforting . circumstance --
community and the CIA in particular had rung perhaps the only one --.. in the existing
amok and (in the words of Senator Church) was . legislative situation to keep in mind. The
behaving like "a rogue elephant", indifferent to campaign against S-2525 has only just begun.
the will of Congress and out of the President's
control. Senator Church,. Vice President SPIES AND LEAKERS
Mondale who was Church's principal lieutenant Undoing the damage inflicted upon the
during the hearings, and Mr. David Aaron, then national intelligence functions by the Church
a member of Mondale's staff and now a deputy _ and Pike Committees and their liberal-left allies
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is at best bgp1p0rr&y6i88F ~f i f g
process. Much more than their capability to
collect information abroad and mount covert
political actions in support of allied
governments has been lost or all but crippled.
The government's ability to protect secrets
associated with our military resources and
strategic plans and policies has also been gravely
weakened. 5-2525, for example, would provide
stern criminal sanctions for "egregious
intrusions" by the intelligence community on
the privacy of Americans, but it is all but muteon
the sanctions that should be allowed the
government in fending off or punishing those
Americans who intrude on the national security
by leaking classified information in quarters not
entitled to it or passing it on to foreign agents.
This neglected side of the great question of
the proper role of national intelligence in a
democratic society has been the subject of a
year's study by the Senate intelligence
Committee's subcommittee on Secrecy and
Disclosure. Its report was published on October
10. The findings, reflecting the civil libertarian
biases of its majority members, were hardly
sensational. In its examination of some 40 cases
involving violations of national security statutes
it was unable to find a single example of the
successful prosecution of a leaker of classified
information to a publication. in classical
espionage situations, where such information
was passed on to foreign agents, the
subcommittee discovered that prosecution was
often stayed because a trial and a successful
prosecution would compel the exposure of
classified information harmful to the national
security.
About all that the subcommittee's learned
report does for the enlightenment of the public
in a difficult problem affecting the condition of
our national - security, is to confirm an
unmanageable phenomenon that had been in
view ever since the leak of the Pentagon papers.
It is that there has been, among other damaging
consequences, a disastrous breakdown in the
administration of 'the criminal espionage
statutes, most conspicuously in cases of leaks.
The trouble arises in large degree because of an
impasse between the Department of Justice,
charged with enforcing the criminal law, and the
directors of the various intelligence agencies,
charged with protecting sources and methods.
it stands to reason that the more sensitive the
information, the more difficult it is for the
intelligence community to open to the law
enforcement branch the material the latter must
have to bring leakers and spies to justice. "The
IA-1 8 vaRq 4A8jP2dd6W jo the law," the
Subcommittee observes rather sanctimoniously,
"and protection of national security is a fairly
fragile one". But not so fragile, let us pray, that
the dilemma cannot be resolved short of moving
on to a system of secret trials of the kind
permitted under the British Official Secrets Acts.
Senator Wallop, a member of the
subcommittee, has proposed one way around
the problem, in the case of leakers. It is that the
question of whether a leak of classified
documents was or was not made, be decided in
public trial. The question of the harm done to
the national security, a consideration apart from
the question of the accused's guilt or innocence,
or even his motive, would be tried in camera by
a judge cleared for access to pertinent secrets,
with or without a cleared jury, but with cleared
attorneys. But the majority members, while
conceding that "a major recasting" of the
espionage acts may be overdue, were prepared
to settle for marginal changes, such as one that
would give judges more authority in excluding
sensitive evidence in espionage cases. They did
agree, however, that something has to be done
about punishing those who willfully disclose the
names of American intelligence agents. it's
about time.
PHILIP AGEE'S NASTY WAR
Because of these frustrations, present and in
the making, a feeling of anxiety bordering on
paralysis has gripped our intelligence services,
and most acutely our first line of defense -
counterintelligence. A dismaying example in
full public view is the helplessness of the Central
Intelligence Agency's leadership in the face of
the malign challenge of the man named Philip
Agee, long a trusted undercover officer on the
covert side of the house. Mr. Agee's case
deserves close study by those of us who are
alarmed by the sudden vulnerability of the CIA
to destruction by deserters from its own long
unbroken ranks. For his effrontery offers
chilling instruction in how closely, in the fog of
legalisms that has settled over the statutory
authority and sanctions of the national security
bodies, a mischevious man can sail so close to
the wind in a betrayal vergingon treason and get
away with it.
Mr. Agee is 43. It has been reported that he
has taken up a furitive residence in Rome. He
left the CIA in 1968, while posted in Mexico City,
after 11 years of service, mostly in Latin America.
His marriage had failed, he was discontented
and his estranged wife was threatening to
expose his calling. (By his own account, he was
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Committee, where he worked with friendly 170 CIA colleagues and friendly agents, all
agents who had access to members of the Soviet previously under essential and presumably
delegation, which also served as cover for the inviolable cover, whom he has worked with in
KGB.) The respite afforded the CIA by his going Latin America, or knew, or speculated about.
was short-lived. Three years later Mr. Agee Worse still, he revealed, in detail, a number of
threw off his old CIA cover himself, crossed over intelligence operations which he was sworn, by
to the other side and set about the shabby the oath of his employment, never to divulge.
business of exposing to our foes the names and THE COSTLY CONSEQUENCES
activities of his brother officers in the
traditionally reticent profession of intelligence, Because Mr. Agee placed his book with a
and whatever information he was able to ferret British publisher, Penguin, the Government
out about others, who were strangers to him. Agency was powerless to stop him, his oath
Where he has been cunning has been in notwithstanding. Few books by an unknown
evading the stigma of traitor. He has not openly writer have caused so much damage to a
renounced his allegiance to the United States, as national institution. To our general misfortune,
ordinary defectors do. Nor has he called the Mr. Agee knew a great deal about American
country an enemy, as an avowed traitor would political and intelligence anti-communist
do. The sinister and unique path which Mr. activities in Latin America - their aims and
Agee treads, still holding American citizenship, scope, as well as the managers. His disclosures
stops short of all that. His betrayal, he would forced an emergency recasting of the Agency's
have innocents believe, is concerned only with establishment south of the Rio Grande. In
the business of his former agency which he . money terms, the out-of-pocket costs to the tax-
describes as "the secret police of American payer of shifting officers whose covert
capitalism". His single minded aim, so he avows, assignments have been bared, and pensioning
is to destroy that agency, if he can, for the higher off or transplanting active agents of influence
purpose, in his distorted vision, of purifying-the whose usefulness had been destroyed, ran to
American role in the world. millions of dollars. (More than 100 agents, some
Mr. Agee's weapons are a typewriter, the of them highly placed in their own countries,
classified information in his head, and a driving and all sharing American aims, either broke off
ambition, as he recently put it, "to bring about the collaboration in fury or had to betakenfrom
the abolition of the CIA and a total end to the roster because they became marked men.)
American interference in the affairs of other The careers of CIA officers, many of them in the
countries". He has published two books, prime of usefulness, were summarily
contributed many articles to the radical press, interrupted and diverted; and the anguish
and launched a radical magazine, all aimed at visited upon their families, not to mention the
achieving his declared purpose by (1) fanning physical danger to them, that went with
the liberal-left's outcry against the agency; (2) exposure, must be included in the final cost. (A
luring the Congressional committees and the year before, in 1974, the CIA Station Chief in
press into never-ending "exposures" of CIA Athens, Greece, Mr. Richard Welch, was
people and their activities and (3) mobilizing a assassinated after a now defunct radical journal,
world-wide campaign from within and without CounterSpy, with which Agee had become
to reduce it to impotence. associated, put him in the bull's eye by naming
His first book, which- purports to be him as a CIA officer.
autobiographical, is entitled "Inside the Even so, the costliest consequences of Philip
Company: CIA Diary", published in 1975. It Agee, in the long run, was the damage to the
appears to have been written, in its various parts, agency's reputation among the friendly
in Mexico City, Paris and London; financed by intelligence services with whichithadworkedin
communist and probably KGB sources, and mutual trust and confidence for three decades.
fleshed out with information, more than a little Senior officials of the Agency confirm that
of it either false or mendaciously misleading, Admiral Turner was telling an unpleasant truth
acquired bytheauthor'sclandestineexcursions, when he admitted that a number of these
under various aliases, to Soviet bloc sources in services have lately been less than forthcoming
Moscow,. Havana, Mexico City and other Latin with information valuable to the common
American capitals. interest. The reason for their caution is hardly
As a piece of literature, "Inside the surprising: our friends have lost confidence in
Company" is not a work of art. Its sensational the ability of the American government, in the
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present climate of our politics, to ho the
malcontents in the rank of its intelligence
services to their oaths of secrecy.
In the welter of mischief, the Department of
Justice chose to stand aloof at that juncture, Mr.
Agee having decided to stay out of its
jurisdiction by giving the American shores a
wide berth. It was our European allies who
finally moved to put him out of bounds.
Between June, 1977, and May, 1978, five NATO
governments declared his personna non grata,
one after the other - Britain in June, 1976, the
French in August, the West Germans in
December, the Dutch, who had given him
sanctuary after the British deported him, the
folowing March and the Norwegians in May.
The Germans gave no reasons for running
Agee off the promises. Nor did the Norwegians
feel it necessary to explain why they turned him
back at the frontier. The Dutch ruled only that
his conduct "could be detrimental to ... good
relations with other powers" and the French
noted cryptically Agee's "past behaviour" and
the unwanted "consequences that some of his
current activities" could engender.
It is the British handling of Agee which
affords us Americans a reasonable model for
grasping the constitutional nettle which a
depriving action of this sort demands, pitting as
it does the security of the state against the civil or
First Amendment rights of the individual. In
November, 1976, the Home Secretary, Mr.
Merlyn Rees, put Agee on notice that he
proposed to send him packing under the 1971
Immigration Act. That law allows the Home
Secretary, as the Cabinet member charged with
defending internal security within the United
Kingdom, to deport an undesirable alien
without a public disclosure of his reasons. It
suffices for him to lay the evidence before an
independent advisory panel, made up in Mr.
Agee's case, of a distinguished lawyer, a retired
senior Civil Servant and a retired trade unionist.
The defendant is free to make his
representations before the panel in camera, but
the panel is not bound on its side to expose the
merits of the case laid before it. The panel thus
serves as a shield for the sources of the
Government's intelligence, usually the highly
competent counter-intelligence service, MI-5.
By bringing forward dozens of witnesses and
a troupe of left-wing lawyers, including the
former U.S. Attorney General, Ramsay Clark,
Mr. Agee managed to drag out the hearings into
May, 1977. His British prosecutors never told
him in detail why they werethrowing him out. In
an obvious ploy to elicit a response, he
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speculated in a press interview that the
provocation could have been his visit to Jamaica
during-the previous September, when he raised
the charge that the CIA had plotted to unseat
the popular Prime Minister of the former British
possession, Michael Manley, and he named U.S.
Embassy officials as the alleged plotters. That
would itself have been cause enough for a
friendly country to find him unwelcome; but
Agee's wild shot drew no return fire. In
Parliament, the House of Commons upheld the
order of expulsion by 138 to 4, and the Home
Secretary threw Agee out of Britain under the
shadow of a finding that he "had maintained
regular contacts harmful tothe United Kingdom
with foreign intelligence officers" and
"disseminated information that endangers
British security".* - -
"OUR" MAN IN HAVANA
All this was so much water on Agee's wheel.
He was acquiring an international reputation as
a CIA turncoat. While the British findingwasstill
in suspense, he gave an interview on Australian
television in which he credited five alleged CIA
officers in Canberra, whom he named, with
masterminding the overthrow of the left-wing
Whitlam Labor government two years earlier.
And a month later, a radical magazine in Athens,
"Anti", brought out an article by him which
identified as CIA officers some 64 Americans
attached to the American Embassy in Athens
together with 175 more whom he alleged to
have served there earlier --under diplomatic
cover. He supplied what read like plausible
descriptions of various intelligence operations
in which they were engaged and, for good
measure, in still other "revelations", he turned a
lurid eye on U.S. intelligence operations in Sub-
Sahara Africa, and Indonesia. .. :_
Now in full cry, Agee has returned to his
relentless pursuit of a wounded and rattled
quarry. In July, he re-emerged from the shadows
of Europe into the Havanna sun where he
attended the 11th World Youth Festival, a
periodic gathering of radical youths from both
sides of the iron Curtain. While Fidel Castro is
the host, the festivities are manipulated behind
his facade by the Soviet bloc KGB and its Cuban
counterpart - the DGI. The purpose is to bring
eager apprentice revolutionaries from the West
-Expelled with Agee was another American leftist,
Mr. Mark Hosenball, a writer-reporter whose forte
was slandering the CIA. His crime was gathering
information "prejudicial to the safety of servants of
the Crown" - i.e., matter relating presumedly to
sources and methods essential to British intelligence.
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Counter'pyana,IIKeILb p1Cucaca~an~saw ..._, ----.- r
trade are the names and activities of CIA people. A few years ago, Agee s current line of
"We do not believe", Mr. Agee said, "that one mischief was foreshadowed by the publication
can separate the dirty work of the CIA from the in East Germany, under KGB auspices, of an
people who perform it". The third enterprise anonymous work, "Who's Who in the CIA",
was the founding of.an international network of which also named American officers serving in
volunteer informers, calling themselves foreign missions - some falsely, with the
Counter Watch. Their assignment is to spy on deliberate purpose of discrediting proper
CIA people wherever they may be and keep the humanitarian or cultural activities. One man so
editors advised of all the damaging "poop" they identified, an AID official in Uraguay, one
pick up. Daniel A. Mitrione, was assassinated by
The second book was already on the presses guerrillas whowereled to believe that they were
in New York before Agee traveled to Havana to doing in a CIA spy.
ballyhoo it. It is a mastadon of its species, filling it is unlikely, at this late stage, that Agee has
1004 pages. A huge appendex lists the names of anything left in the storehouse of his memory of
some 700 foreign service and military officers value to his KGB controls. As one American
attached to American embassy in.Western commentator put it, "he's run out of gas". But as
Europe who are identified, by no means a symbol and a conduit he continues to be
accurately, as CIA undercover officers. The first valuable to our enemies. Because our
half is padded out with an anthology of articles, government appears to have no remedy in law
mostly published earlier in radical journals in for the problem which an Agee presents, he
Europe, all defamingthe Agency. There is even a escaped unscathed from his perfidious
piece which undertakes to teach how the cover activities, he remains -a walking symbol of the
of a CIA officer can be penetrated by careful inability of the American Government to bring
analysis of embassy directories and military staff faithless servants to heel. An Agee on the loose
listings. The book is outrageously priced at makes other intelligence agencies mistrustful of
$24.95, but subscribers to the journal can have it the seriousness of American interest in
for only $1.0. The royalities are to support the protecting its security systems. An Agee stands
general aim which Mr. Agee has restated in his on the international stage of subversion as an
journal. "Together", he says "people of many "agent of influence" -- perhaps, even a
nationalities and varying' political beliefs can recruiter for the KGB, with his bold appeal for
cooperate to weaken the CIA and its surrogate volunteer informers inside the intelligence
intelligence services, striking a blow at political services, and his promise to use the royalties
oppression and economic injustice." One. way from his writings,. however meager in fact, to
to ensure its defeat, he advises, is mount tide would-be defectors over the costs of their
Covert Action Information Bulletin. It is those activities o t e w g p
intended to fill the void left by the shutdown of to deplore. So in this matter his real allegiance
Approved For a~ 01/ 3: road. If
into fraternal association with th~ ~5c?a~~-F R ~a1511f)030 64 b
in the international communist apparatus. Agee peaceful demonstrations don't force their
was attended by a retinue of American radicals, departure, then, he adds, "those whom the CIA
all specialists in the defamation of the American has most oppressed will find other ways of
intelligence services. They had come to the fighting back" --- a clear incitement to violence.
Festival, Agee explained in a press conference, AGEES REAL ROLE
to teach the others how they could defeat CIA
operations against their countries - So there haunts our gates an expatriate
machinations which in his warped vision "are whose obsession is to make the CIA fail. That
aimed at all humanity". From his squalid Agency is not his only target. He is bent, as well,
platform, Mr. Agee announced three on undermining our national foreign
enterprises which have already, so soon after intelligence communications system, the
their unveiling in Havana, inflicted fresh harm National Security Agency. His radical
and hazard on his former agency. One was the publications are exhorting their volunteer
imminent publication of his second book, informers to pass on whatever they are able to
"Dirty Work: the CIA in Western Europe". find out about this highly sensitive organization
written in collaboration with a left-wing -- its people and their work. The NSA happens
journalist, Louis Wolf. Another was the to be perhaps the top priority target of the KGB
launching of a new bi-monthly magazine, itself. The NSA's sole business is unrelated to
f h CIA hick A ee rofesses
demonstrations against American Embassies and passage.
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Can't h44~Aiiti-9~eles~IQ0~~9g#,13
member of the Senate Intelligence Committee,
has suggested that Agee be stripped of his
citizenship. Senator Lloyd Bentson believes he
should be jailed. The difficulties here are three:
he still remains outside U.S. jurisdiction; his
publisher was under no obligation, as hewas, to
safeguard national secrets; and the Department
of Justice concluded long ago, that it could not
bring Agee to trial under the Espionage Act
without opening the CIA's treasury of secrets to
his defense counsel, thereby furnishing him
with fresh ammunition.
THE TASK OF THE NEW CONGRESS
A shrewd observer in the Congress tells us,
"the year 1978 may go down in history as the
year when the tide reversed itself. It is the year
when the majority in Congress, from fearingthat
the CIA was a rogue elephant, came to fear that
it was becoming a paper tiger; that it had been
weakened to a point where it is no longer able to
serve the country as it was meant to do, and the
country has been put in danger."
True, the Russians helped to bring matters to
this sorry pass. Through their agents and
A- f i -t4 1. 9 9 ylhave helped to
sow the seeds of unworthy mistrust of the
intelligence agencies which bore their bitter
harvest in the Congressional hearings and the
flood of leaks. But the worst of the damage we
inflicted on ourselves.
Now that the threat is finally being
recognized, it falls to the new Congress to repair
the damage that has been done. The CIA, with
its sister intelligence agencies, is the only
community equipped to adivse the President,
the National Security Council, the State and
Defense Departments on the scope, the pace
and direction of the threat - its political
character and its military power.
The immediate need is to restore the good
name and the legal sanctions of the intelligence
services, to give them the means to protect their
people, their methods, and their means. Only
Congress can do that for them with the help of
the President. Let ' the pending charter be
rewritten toward this sensible end. Otherwise,
Congress may find itself presiding over the
funeral of the national intelligence
establishment.
and INTELLIGENCE
Suite 500
499 South Capitol St., S.W.
Washington, D.C. 20003
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