4 U.S. AGENCIES SAID TO TARGET WHISTLEBLOWER

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00965R000100150123-2
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: September 5, 2012
• Sequence Number: 123
• Publication Date: February 19, 1982
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

STAT
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/09/05: CIA-RDP90-00965R000100150123-2
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4 U.S. Agencies
Said to Target
Whistleblower
Four government agencies are
ganging up to discredit a lone whis-
tleblower. He is Ralph Sharer,- the -
counterintelligence expert who- un-
covered shocking evidence that the,
Soviet KGB had obtained top-secret
documents from the General Ac-
counting Office. _.-
Sharer's report on the KGB 'pen-
etration obviously shook GAO high-
er-ups, who responded first by ex-
iling him to a do-nothing job and
then by arranging his transfer to the
National Aeronautics and Space Ad-
ministration. It wasn't long before
,the indefatigable Sharer found ev-
idence of waste and corruption at
NASA. The agency's reaction was to
order Sharer fired on questionable
charges.
The third federal agency embar-
rassed by Sharer is the FBI, which
has spent two years in a vain effort
to uncover the Soviet espionage at
, the GAO. The G-men are now 'trying
to pretend they never heard of Shar-
er, even though they earlier thought
highly of him. ? ..-:
Most disturbing of all is the latest_
THE WASHINGTON POST
19 February 1982
action by the Office of Special Coun-
sel, the- independent agency created
specifically to protect government
employes who blow the whistle on
misconduct by their superiors.
When I first broke the story of
Sharer's troubles, I praised the OSC
for standing behind Sharer. The
counsel's office. did what -it's sup-
posed to do: It obtained an injunc-
tion forbidding NASA to fire Sharer
until a thorough investigation of his
'charges had been made.
But now, Lregret to say, the OSC
has suddenly knuckled under and
withdrawn its protection without
having looked into Sharer's allega-
tions against NASA.
Sharer will get his full investiga-
tion, however. The Senate Govern-
mental Affairs Committee is already
looking into the bureaucratic vendet-
ta against him, and the Senate In-
telligence Committee has been asked
by Sen. William V. Roth Jr. (R-Del.)
to conduct a. thorough investigation
of the KGB:GAO scandal.
Sharer himself has provided an
excellent map for Senate investiga-
tors trying to find they way through
the jungle of bureaucratic cover-up
and obfuscation. It's a 200-page re-
port, including substantiating 'doc-
uments, which details both his' GAO
and his NASA investigations,_ and
the reprisals he suffered for his
dii-
"gflC0 My associates Indy Badhwar
and Dale YarAtta.have seen Shar- .
er's report, and it's a bombshell that
could brow up a lot of high-level.
swivelchairs.
Sharer tells how, working first on
his own and then with the FBI, he
established that someone inside the.
GAO was feeding a known Soviet
KGB: official, Vladimir Kvasov, thern
publication numbers of extremely!
sensitive-. reports on military pr
grams being audited by the agency.
The Soviet spy then asked for and
, Obtained the reports at the GAO.
documents counter. He unwittingly.
gave the game away by requesting
sozne reports before they' had even
been published.
Sharer recounts the attempted
cover-up-of the spy scandal by top
GAO officials, his banishment- to a
study of marine mammals, and his'
eventual transfer to NASA. There he
discovered that his colleagues in the.
inspector general's office were guilty.:
of the same, kind of cheating they:
were supposed to be uncovering in
other departments of the agency. In
retaliation, NASA held up his salary;
he has not been, paid for four:
months.
The Sharer report then tells how
his NASA bosses got another IG'S
office, the Housing and Urban De-
velopment Department's; to "inves-
tigate" his charges.. Instead, the
HUD team-whitewashed its fellow
IG office' and delivered a personal
attack-on Sharer.
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/09/95: CIA-RDP90-00965R000100150123-2