A COUP FOR THE KGB?

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00552R000404280017-7
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: July 22, 2010
• Sequence Number: 17
• Publication Date: October 8, 1984
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

'STAT
1
Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010/07/22 : CIA-RDP90-00552R000404280017-7
ARNOLD BUICHMAN
the intelligence-gathering program on
keeping track of tfw L Q L'''a anything." In any case, the congres-
Before his arrest, Barnett had sional probes and, later in-house
of of Fe erast u ea agent ves the applied for a staff position on the CIA purges, particularly of the
Federal Bureau of Inet Senate Select Committee on Intelli- counterintelligence function,
gation as an alleged Soviet gence-.With-his qualifications he; weakened U.S. intelligence to an
Tspy is shocking enough.
might have been hired, had there alarming degree.
What must transform another one ' been a staff vacancy at the time. The question today is whether or
inthosecidents into almost a m ma roajoor concern West Since the Senate Committee as well not the CIA or FBI have an effective
n as its opposite number in the House counterintelligence capability. In
about
is this: I Ric U.S. a e iMel er, the e 20-year are privy to secret CIA covert 1981, Newton S. Miler, former chief
Ric BI nt ap th ended in activities, penetration of either of of operations. in the CIA counter-
acanF agent documents to Soviet the e those committees would have been intelligence staff under the contro-
s slipping cnother KGB coup. What was
spi pies, wasassigned assigned to to the theFBI coun- p? versial James Angleton, told a
terintelligence section. already a major coup was turning a conference of the Consortium for
Any KGB penetration of a west- CIA agent into a KGB informer who the Study of Intelligence that such
ern intelligence agency is 'a had revealed the identities of 30 a Cl capability was then lacking.
worrisome matter. However, when covert CIA employees. Neither the CIA nor the FBI, he
Soviet penetration is uncovered in The objective of counterintelli- said, was neutralizing Soviet and
counterintelligence, the entire gence is to ensure that the other Soviet-bloc activity in the United
intelligence edifice becomes sus- sections, say, of CIA-that is, those States, the KGB's No. 1 target.
pect. To understand why such which run covert operations, clan- Whether there has been any
apprehension is in no way exagger- destine collection, and analysis and improvement in the situation since
ated needs an explanation as to the estimates - are to be trusted. Thus ? the Reagan administration took
functions of counterintelligence. if CI is penetrated, it can mean that over is unknown to the writer.
The basis for CI can best be there is no way of knowing whether However, what is known is that
understood in terms of the Latin the other divisions have been for some years after these congres-
maxim, quis custodiet ipsos cus- "turned around" and are being run sional investigations and Justice
todes? - who will police the police- by the KGB. For some years, Brit- Department actions restricting
men? CI functions are fourfold: ish counterintelligence was in the
1. To protect our own intelligence hands of Kim Philby, the Soviet intelligence activities, the training
operations from enemy pen- agent, with disastrous conse- and recruiting of counterintelli-,
etration. quences for British intelligence. gence personnel was- inadequate,
2. Tb seek out enemy deception Richard Helms, CIA director according to Kenneth deGraffen-
and disinformation. from 1966-1972, has said: reid, now on the National Security
3. To uncover secret political "Counterintelligence is terribly Council staff and earlier on the Sen
operations directed against the important, because without an ate Select Committee. Thus the
admirable,
United States and its allies. effective counterintelligence pro- apprehension, however ever ad
4. TO prevent spies and terrorists gram - both in the CIA and the FBI of p raises FBI a counterintelligence oper-
ques-
from enjoying any successes. -the problem of double agents and oft an n atone rople,
CI overseas operations are run infiltrators is insurmountable." ions about U and therefore of counterespionage capability while CI I domestic Central Intelligence Agency, Over the last decade, U.S. intelli- intelligence in toto.
wt FBI. It may ays are
have gence agencies have been weak- Tb put it-simply, the crisis of U.S.
dire
d by t estic ened, first, because of their own intelligence is a crisis of counterin-sec- tions been of a combination e FBIthat hat led It may CI
to the the free-wheeling misbehavior and, telligence.
belated both
arrest October second, because of understandable
David H. Barnett', a former r CIA A -
belated atth h . congressional investigations into agent, who confessed that he had this misbehavior. The late Sen. Arnold Beichman, visiting
Frank Church, who chaired one of scholar at the Hoover Institution, is
for some 20 years been selling CIA a founding member- of the Consor-
secrets to the KGB. Barnett is now tium for the Study of Intelligence.
serving a tail sentence.
Agent, saia in II
arrest raises question the xaspe ration, " I once eriw a r are
of exasperation, " wonder f we are
3`m competent to manage an
WASHINGT0N TIMES
8 October 1984
Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010/07/22 : CIA-RDP90-00552R000404280017-7