CARTER OFFICIALS WEIGHED PROSECUTIONS

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00552R000605830011-9
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: August 24, 2010
• Sequence Number: 11
• Publication Date: September 30, 1981
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010/08/24: CIA-RDP90-00552R000605830011-9
ARTICLE APPEARED
ON PAGE
THE WASHINGTON POST
30 September 1981
Carter vloncia
osecullow.
By George Lardner Jr.
Wa. bington Past StaU WrkWC.
Top Justice Department officials in the Carter
administration considered prosecuting CIA per-
sonnel for civil rights violations against renegade
CIA officer Philip.Agee, according to documents
filed in federal court here yesterday. ?. - ;,
The records indicated that the idea was re-
jected primarily because of sensitivity of the dis-
closures that would have to be made. . _:
Agee's lawyers- submitted the heavily sanitized
documents to V.S. District Court Judge Gerhard
A. Gesell in -an effort to win reinstatement of
Agee's freedom-of information lawsuit against the
CIA.
They said the documents, obtained as a result
of their continuing litigation against the ? Justice
Department, showed "without any possibility of
contradiction that the CIA's activities against Mr.
Agee were so serious that the Department of Jus-
tice conducted an investigation to determine if
CIA personnel should be prosecuted."
The lawyers, Melvin L. Wulf and William
Schaap, added that "what. those activities might
have been are left to our imagination," but they
said they felt sure "they would not consist of such
everyday CIA activities such as physical and elec-
tronic surveillance or interception of Mr. Agee's
mail."
A CIA spokesman said the agency would have
no comment.
One knowledgeable source, however, insisted
that the speculation of Agee's lawyers about "ac-
tivities intended to, do physical harm" was exag-
gerated.
.It was what they would call run-of-the-mill
stuff, possible electronic surveillance and consid-
eration of physical searches of Agee's premises
overseas ... yes, black-bag jobs. They thought
they were stopping more agents from being ex-
d
pose
. - - -
A former CIA officer who quit the agency in
1968 and is now one of its most outspoken ene-
mies, Agee, who now lives in Hamburg, has made
l
'a career of exposing the names of CIA personne
-
W - caww....---?O --- -------
. The government has listed numerous occasions
between 1971 and mid-1978 when Agee identified I
160 alleged CIA officers operating in
more than
.
countries from Australia to Switzerland. %
He filed his freedom-of-information suit against
the CIA and other government agencies in Decem-
ber, 1979, primarily,. he has said, to- find out de-
tails about what he called "a massive violation of
my civil and constitutional rights?'
In July, however, Gesell dismissed the CIA as a
defendant after conducting a random in camera
inspection of the agency's records on Agee. In Ge-
sell's ruling he said he could not resolve the ques-
tion of whether "some kind of illegality may have
occurred," but he said he was "entirely satisfied
... that no [FOIA] exemption is being claimed as
a pretext to conceal misconduct."
Lawyers Wulf and Schaap, the latter of whom
is co-editor of the anti-CIA publication "Covert
Action Information Bulletin," contended that the
documents they got from the Justice Department
this month indicated that "very serious miscon-
duct" was being concealed and that "the court it-
self must consider whether it has not been misled
by the CIA and the Department of Justice."
One documenmt dated only "8/21," evidently
prepared when the Justice Department was still
contemplating prosecution of Agee, concluded
that "prosecution is impossible without disclosing I
the illegal acts."
Another, dated Jan. 19,1977, from the attorney
general to Robert L. Keuch, the deputy, assistant
in charge of the Criminal Division, said:
"My understanding is that the Criminal Divi-
sion is investigating whether the activities of the
CIA involved any criminal violation and is also
considering referring the matter to the Civil''
Rights Division."
The same question, "whether to prosecute CIA
officials for civil rights violations against Philip
Agee,". was mentioned again in a Jan. 16, 1978,.
memo from Drew S. Days, then assistant attorney;
general in charge of civil rights, to then acting:
deputy attorney general Benjamin R. Civiletti.
Still another document, dated April 14, 1978,
from, the Justice Department's internal security
section, reaffirms the earlier decision not to pros-
ecute Agee, even in light of his "latest activities,"
because of the fact that "Agee could still discover
information which the CIA has informed us can-
not be revealed.
Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010/08/24: CIA-RDP90-00552R000605830011-9