CONGRESS WEIGHS CUT IN INTELLIGENCE BUDGET AMID DISPUTE OVER BILL

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00965R000201830042-5
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: January 24, 2012
• Sequence Number: 42
• Publication Date: September 27, 1986
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

ST Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/01/24: CIA-RDP90-00965R000201830042-5
ARTICLE APPLAp NEW YORK TIMES
ON PAGE~A_ r__~ 1-1
Congress Weighs Cut in Intelligence Budget
Amid Dispute Over Bill
between the Central Intelligence
Agency and the Senate over the annual
bill for intelligence programs comes as
Congress is weighing sharp reductions
in President Reagan's proposed budget
for the C.I.A. and other agencies.
The bill authorizes the intelligence
agencies to establish and extend pro-
grams in 1987 and sets limits on the
subsequent appropriation of funds in
separate legislation. Spending figures
for intelligence are kept secret, but
members of Congress said the House's
version of the authorization bill would
reduce overall spending on intelligence
after inflation was taken into account.
Representative Lee H. Hamilton,
chairman of House Select Committee
on Intelligence, said recently that the
House version of the bill included cuts
that "will impair, but not cripple intel-
ligence by eliminating or slowing many
collection and processing programs
and by denying personnel increases to
handle new intelligence programs."
The Senate version would increase
the spending ceiling, the members
said. But several senators said that
William J. Casey, the Director of Cen-
tral Intelligence, was not helping his
agency with his sharp objections to
provisions in the Senate version that
are sponsored by Senator Jesse Helms,
Republican of North Carolina.
"If he doesn't stop beating up on us,
he can find someone else to carry his
water for him on the budget," one!
Senator said.
The Helms provisions cal on the
agency to prepare reports on a variety
of topics and to reassess their conclu-
By STEPHEN ENGELBERG
Special to TM New York Timm
WASHINGTON, Sept. 26 - A dispute
sions on a list of more than two dozen
intelligence issues, according to Con-
gressional officials. The officials said
the amendments also seek to enhance
the role of the Defense Intelligence
Agency, a Pentagon unit.
One Senate aide played down the im-
portance of the Helms amendments,
saying the reports could be easily pre-
pared and did not represent any threat
to the C.I.A.'s fundamental powers or
place among this country's intelligence
agencies.
But Mr. Casey said in an interview
Thursday evening that he had objected
to the amendments because they
amounted to an attempt by Congress at
"micromanagement" of his agency.
The authorization bill is worked out
in private through months of hearings
and negotiations between the intelli-
gence agencies and the Congressional
committees that oversee them. The bill
includes directions to the C.I.A. and
other agencies and is typically not
amended on the floor. Most of Its provi-
sions are classified and can be exam-
ined only by members of Congress and
their staffs.
Differences between the House and
Senate versions are expected to be re-
solved soon by a conference commit-
tee.
Senator Sees Budget Peril
In a speech on the Senate floor, Sena-
tor Dave Durenberger, a Minnesota
Republican who heads the Senate Se-
lect Committee on Intelligence, under-
scored the budget pressures facing the
intelligence agencies this year.
He said spending on intelligence fell
last year, when inflation is taken into
account, for the first time In eight
years. For seven consecutive years
Previously, he said, the budget for intel-
ligence has risen after inflation, a
growth that Congressional aides said
has more than doubled the amount
spent for intelligence.
Senator Durenberger said last year's
budget "forced the cancellation of a
number of important activities and the
deferral and stretchout of many
others."
Senator Durenberger noted that the
intelligence budget was being pinched
by reductions in military spending sup-
ported by the Congress. Much of the
money for the intelligence agencies is
hidden in the military programs bill.
An example of the connection be-
tween the two budgets emerged on the
House floor last week when Represent-
ative Hamiliton amended the House in-
telligence measure, lowering its totals
to conform with a cut in the military
bill from $292 billion to $286 billion.
Geoab of Dispute
Senator Helms is not a member of
the Senate Select Committee on Intelli-
gence. Senate aides said the wording of
his amendments was negotiated be-
tween his staff and the staff of the Sen-
ate panel. One Senate aide said the
aides to the intelligence committee
took the teeth out of the original draft
of the amendments. This included
dropping a proposal that would have
banned the C.I.A. from conducting
major paramilitary operations like
support of the rebels in Afghanistan or
Nicaragua.
Senate aides said the amendments
were then presented to the C.I.A. Mr.
Casey initially approved them in a tele-
phone conversation with Mr. Helms but
changed his mind when he saw how
they were worded. Mr. Casey next took
the highly unusual step of arranging
for the white House to have another
Senator, Paul Laxalt, Republican of
Nevada, block action on the bill.
In effect, this placed Mr. Casey at
odds with Mr. Durenberger, who was
trying to steer the bill through Con-
gress.
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/01/24: CIA-RDP90-00965R000201830042-5