SON OF OPERATION CHAOS

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00552R000505410130-4
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: August 10, 2010
• Sequence Number: 130
• Publication Date: March 12, 1981
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010/08/10: CIA-RDP90-00552R000505410130-4 STAT
AM Z= 01 P?ii$
NEW YORK TIMES
12 MARCH 1981
Son Hof Operation Chaos
In the name of anti-terrorism, some people in the gan, and he joined in thisunanimous recomrnendation:I
Reagan Administration are pushing a proposal to put % "Presidents should refrain from directing
the Central Intelligence Agency back into the business the C.I.A. to perform what are essentially inter-
of spying on Americans. In the name of decency, the nal security tasks. The C.I.A. should resist any
President should shoot it down. efforts, , whatever their origin; to involve it
Only that would reaffirm the commitments, made again in such improper activities.'.
by both Presidents Ford and Carter, to maintaining That remains good advice for the President and the
effective intelligence without- sacrificing American C.I.A. But look at what has been suggested: Eliminate
freedoms. the rule that requires agents investigating citizens to
The circulating proposal would revive the time, not use the least intrusive means possible ... Downgrade
long past, when the C.I.A. thought nothing of opening the Attorney General's role as a check on the legality of
the mail of innocent citizens, illegally searching homes spying techniques . - . Scratch the need to show cause
and infiltrating political organizations. When Presi- that a surveillance target is engaged in subversion.
dents finally cracked down on those abuses it cost the In the. last .day or so, some important second
nation nothing in security. thoughts have surfaced. Adm. Bobby Inman, who is
Yet the agency, responding to a Reagan White leaving the directorship of the National Security
House call for ideas to combat terrorism, proffered a Agency to become the No. 2 man at C.I.A., says he
new executive order that would clearly bend the Con- fears that some people will hastily commit themselves
stitution. ideologically before they understand the facts. He is
There is a dismaying callousness implied here. Do right. But the larger lesson remains unchanged: Such.
.those promoting the idea think the nation has already turnabouts dramatize once again the need for having
forgotten the Huston plan that figured so prominently Congress fix the rules, instead of leaving them vulner-
in the Nixon impeachment proceedings? Do they think able to the stroke of a White.House pen.
people do not remember Operation Chaos, in which the Those who are pushing the changes say that in-
C.I.A. collected files on 13,000 people and indexed creased terrorism at home and abroad makes them
300,000 names in a fruitless effort to link domestic .necessary. But Operation Chaos, and the Nixon Admin-
dissenters with foreign espionage? ` istration's short-lived Huston plan, were also justified
amounts to an open call for Government lawlessness.
Cleaning up after Chaos required a Presidential At least Tom Huston, who urged President Nixon
commission, headed by former Vice President Nelson to permit break-ins and harassment of political dissi-
Rockefeller, which said the C.I.A. had far exceeded its dents, conceded that his proposals were illegal and, if
legitimate and lawful function. One commission tnem- discovered, a potential source of embarrassment. Does
ber (identified by it as a political commentator and an Administration headed by a? former member of the
former California Governor) was named Ronald Rea- Rockefeller Commission feel no such embarrassment? .
Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010/08/10: CIA-RDP90-00552R000505410130-4