DEAR CIA: THE QUESTION IS, WHY?

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00806R000201180097-3
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: July 19, 2010
• Sequence Number: 97
• Publication Date: September 12, 1980
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010/07/19: CIA-RDP90-00806R000201180097-3
PHILADELPHIA BULLETIN
12 September 1980
ROW E WI
ear
]A:, The qut~stbj i is, why?
For 11 years the and in that way further international understanding and
mighty Central rti~ peace. Thus, ever since WSP was founded in 1961, its
Intelligence Agency American women have exchanged letters and visits with
invested a lot of money
Russian women.
and effort to "infiltrate" And, beginning in 1961, the CIA intercepted and made
and to intercept the mail copies of their mail. Those copies were in the files:
of a small Philadelphia- "Dear Madame Popova. Thank you for the fantastic
based organization two weeks' hospitality ...
called Women Stri ke for "We would like to continue to receive your newsletter.
Peace. ? Since we have no American dollars, we will send you
It was completely illegal for the CIA to do this - a fact children's books and records ... "
acknowledged by the CIA's agreement-'this week to pay A WSP member visiting Russia writes back home: "I
Women Strike for Peace $5,000 in damages.- but it was was taken in by two women doctors who immediately
also (and some may think this is even worse) incredibly decided I was too thin and insisted on feeding me candy.'
inept. Imagine the CIA accumulating this sort of thing for 11
Members of Women Strike for Peace (WSP) learned
that the CIA had been spying on them in 1975, when a years!
commission headed by then Vice President Nelson Wouldn't you think that somewhere along the line,
Rockefeller issued a report that both mentioned and they'd have realized it wasn't worth bothering with -- C
even if it were legal to bother with it?
condemned it. The CIA, it seems, had been spying on Did those CIA agents think they were reading a code?
many American organizations in direct violation of its Were they so paranoid that they thought any American
charter. (Domestic investigations are supposed to be exercising his or her Constitutional right to disagree had
handled by the FBI.) to be a foreign agent?
Recalls Mrs. Ethel Taylor, national coordinator of Or were they merely afraid they might lose some of
WSP: "We were appalled, of course, and Immediately their budget if they admitted such a group wasn't
filed suit. And we demanded a copy of our CIA file under dangerous?
the terms of the Freedom of Information Act." Last question: Can people who think this way be
That file is fascinating. . trusted to do real intelligence work? (They knew what
It tells of a woman (her name is blacked out) who was was happening at Women Strike for Peace but not in
paid by the CIA to "infiltrate" WSP. (That certainly
wouldn't have been hard to do. Anyone who walks in off Th
I is story is worth reviewing now, I think, because
the street is welcome.) This "agent" reported such Congress is currently considering legislation designed to
tidbits as a decision to #,rent buses to take members to, "protect and strengthen" the CIA.
Washington to demonstrate against the Vietnam War." The CIA claims it can't do its job unless it can be
The CIA could have found that out by reading any local secretive. But this was the job it did when it was
newspaper. The CIA did not have tolsend in a spy or ' secretive.
clandestinely steam open mail to get at WSP's If the CIA's idea of "intelligence" is to save letters
newsletters. Anybody can get on that mailing list. from nice ladies in Philadelphia that say "I am fine, how
collection of 15,000 women at best who believe in the ideal ,
protection" ... we do. `
its T
'60
th
i
s,
e
ng
of international disarmament. Dur
members frequently participated in protests against the
Vietnam War. They marched. They sat in. They were
never violent. And they were definitely never secretive.
A basic tenet of the organization is that ordinary
citizens in all countries should get to know one another
Rose DeWolf's opinion column also appears on Monday and ;
Wednesday in Focus.
Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010/07/19: CIA-RDP90-00806R000201180097-3