U.S. MIDEAST

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00552R000303570094-2
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: January 12, 2011
• Sequence Number: 94
• Publication Date: September 27, 1984
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2011/01/12 : CIA-RDP90-00552R000303570094-2 STAT
ASSOCIATED PRESS
27 September 1984
U.S. MIDEAST
BY W. DALE NELSON
WASHINGTON
As Congress moves to approve anti-terrorism money an
Reagan administration, Democrats are charging that President Reagan shamed his
office by blaming the Beirut bombing on neglect of the CIA by former President
Carter.
At the White House today, Reagan said the media distorted his remarks. And,
Vice President George Bush, at a campaign stop today in Saginaw, Mich., said
Reagan was not trying to imply that the Carter administration was responsible
for the bombing.
Reagan, in response to a question about the need for increased security in
the wake of the bombing, referred in Bowling Green, Ohio, Wednesday to "the
effects today of the near destruction of our intelligence capability in recent
years - before we came here."
At about the time Reagan spoke, the Democrat-dominated House Foreign Affairs
and House Judiciary committees were recommending swift congressional approval of,
his request for $366 million to improve embassy security, plus a trio of
anti-terrorist laws.
When word of Reagan's remarks reached Washington, however, Democrats in the
Senate reacted in terms of outrage.
Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan, D-N.Y., saying that he spoke "through clenched
teeth," told the Senate, "I believe an apology is in order. If none is
forthcoming, a motion of censure is in order."
Moynihan, vice chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, said that
intelligence budgets, after declining steadily for a number of years, had
increased. each year since Carter submitted his first full budget in January
1979.
CIA budgets are classified, but Moynihan said upward or downward trends in
intelligence spending may be made public.
Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., a member of the Intelligence Committee, called
Reagan's comment "outrageous and beneath the dignity of the office of president
of the United States."
"It is a slur on our intelligence officers and a slur on those who died,"
Leahy said. "I can't think of any time in the 10 years I have been in the Senate
when I have been so angry as I am now. How dare he try to escape his
responsibilities? If he does not immediately retract his statement, we should
rise up and say, 'For shame, Mr. President, for Shame, you shame your office."'
Reagan, posing for pictures in the Rose Garden today with President Fernando
Belaunde Terry of Peru, told reporters questioning him as he returned to his
office: "I will answer your questions about the .-ay you have distorted my
remarks about the CIA. "
Contimied
Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2011/01/12 : CIA-RDP90-00552R000303570094-2