CIA AND NSA CHIEFS APPEAL FOR MEDIA COOPERATION IN KEEPING SPY SECRETS

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00552R000404660014-8
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 3
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: June 29, 2010
• Sequence Number: 14
• Publication Date: May 29, 1986
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

anitized Copy Approved for Release 2010/06/29: CIA-RDP90-00552R000404660014-8
ASSOCIATED PRESS
29 May 1986
CIA AND NSA CHIEFS APPEAL FOR MEDIA COOPERATION IN KEEPING SPY SECRETS
BY MICHAEL J. SNIFFEN
WASHINGTON
The directors of the CIA and th
N
e
ational Security Agency shifted gears
Thursday and appealed for news organizations to cooperate in efforts to stem
intelligence leaks they claim have cost both human lives and billions of
taxpayer dollars.
CIA Director William Casey and NSA chief Lt. Geri. William Odom, ina unique
Joint interview a IA headquarters, played down their recent threats of
criminal prosecution against news organizations and even backed slightly off a
warning they had issued only the ni
ht b
g
efore to reporters covering the
espionage trial of former NSA communications expert Ronald Pelton.
Casey, Odom and Casey's deputy Robert M
. Gates agreed to the interview with
The Associated Press
in Gates'
d
"
,
wor
s,
to lower the noise level, turn down the
volume and have a serious dialogue.""We haven't made ourselves always as clear
as we might be,"Casey said. "And I think that certainl the
hysterical about the thing, saying we're trying to tear up the First Amendmenty
and scuttle the freedom of. the press. We're not trying to do that."The
intelligence officials appealed to reporters working on stories which involve
intelligence-gathering techniques to call the CIA for guidance on which
details might risk lives or compromise expensive information-gathering
equipment.
"We're saying that you can write about the whole range of national security
issues without revealing unique, fragile national intelligence sources," Gates
said.
Casey added, "We will work with you on that line. 1 wish you'd make clear the
narrow line we're treading here and the sensitivity we have to the broader
rights and needs and contributions of the press."Casey and Odom said they were
led to take their extraordinary actions of the last several weeks because, Odom
said, "A series of recent signals intelligence leaks over the last six months is
the most serious we can remember in a long, long time."Casey added, "Every
method we have of obtaining intelligence: our agents, our relationships with
other intelligence services, our photographic, our electronic, our
communications capabilities have been damaged. Everyone of them ryas been
severely damaged by disclosures of sensitive information that lets our
adversaries defe-a-t those capabilities and to literally take them away from us.
"This is costing the taxpayers billions and billions of dollars arid, more
importantly, Americans' and our national security are at risk. We can't permit
this to continue. To do so would undercut our national security severely, our
personal safety, hopes for arms control and our efforts to establish and
maintain peace around the world."Casey and Gates both s
had not been heard from after disclosures in this country. bethe were en ede 1 ned etos who
provide details.
The interview came as administration sources, insisting described the Justice Department as extremely reluctant to omplyr~wmthyCase 's
recent request that NBC News be prosecuted for reporting that Pelton told the
Soviet Union about an expensive technical method of eavesdropping involving the
use of American submarines. g
Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010/06/29: CIA-RDP90-00552R000404660014-8
 Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010/06/29: CIA-RDP90-00552R000404660014-8
Although Odom presented a legal memorandum arguing that news organizations
could be prosecuted under a 1950 statute for publishing material about U.S.
communications intelligence, the Justice Department has used the law only
against government employees who spied and never against a news organization.
The Justice Department sources said that although the law might apply in some
circumstances to news organizations, the Justice Department believed that it
would be very difficult to win a conviction of such a defendant.
Odom said he would recommend prosecution of journalists with "the greatest
reluctance" and that the combination of the law and his oath to protect
intelligence sources presented him with "a very uncomfortable dilemma."A day
earlier, Casey and Odom had cautioned reporters at the Pelton trial in Baltimore
"against speculation and reporting details beyond the information actually
released at trial."Legal experts, inside and outside the' government, quickly
pointed out that the government had no power to_c.equlate "speculation" by news
organizations.
Although they complained about the criticism of their statement, both Casey
and Odom tempered the remarks a bit on Thursday.
"If I had it to do over again, I might not use that word,"Casey said. "I
might use extrapolation. "Odom added, "There's nothing in there that 'says we're
going to try to prosecute anybody based on speculation."They were asked why in
the Pelton trial the government is attempting to protect information that is
widely known to U.S. reporters and widely believed to be known to the Soviet
Union - such as the wiretapping by U.S. agents of telephones at the Soviet
Embassy here.
Gates responded: "How does any member of the press know what the Russians
know'' Does anyone in the media have any penetrations ^f the (Soviet) kGB (spy
agency)' And they don't know the degree to which the information they provide
amplifies on what a spy may have given', confirms what a spy may have given or
updates what a spy has given up."Odom added that the government was faced with
the danger of giving up seemingly innocuous pieces of information "fact by fact
until you cross through the line without every knowing it, arid the
accumulation of Facts adds up to a new body of inFoormation."He said, however,
that he had a responsibility not to clarify in public, as opposed to within tie
administration or in secret testimony to Congress, how that process may have
occurred with past leaks.
And the ofF-rcials were reluctant to provide publicly what Casey said were
"dozens even hundreds of examples of damage from leaks." He did say that after
news organizations reported about U.S. eavesdropping on a communication line in
Beirut "that traffic stopped, undermining our ability to deter future attacks,
which did occur. 'Casey said providing examples was very difficult because it
tended to confirm information for adversaries. He acknowledged, however, that
any trial of a news organization would likely provide similar confirmation.
Thus, he said, a decision to go to trial would involve a difficult balancing
of competing interests.
The officials said they also were attempting to curb leakers inside the
government. Among the actions they said were being debated were a greater use or
polygraphs in leak investigations and a more active effort in such probes by the
FBI.
2
Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010/06/29: CIA-RDP90-00552R000404660014-8
 Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010/06/29: CIA-RDP90-00552R000404660014-8
3.
Casey laid the blame for increased leaks on "a breakdown in discipline in the
government primarily." He said this coincides with a rise in "the tempo of
threats in this terrorist rampage."Nevertheless, Casey acknowledged that every
U.S. intelliga!1ce'agency he is familiar with as Director of Central Intelligence
is behind sched a on reinvestigating its employees for security risks. ,It
takes a long time to catch up," he said.
Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010/06/29: CIA-RDP90-00552R000404660014-8