CIA'S FBIS AND FENCE HEAD HERE

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00965R000504160048-7
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: February 9, 2012
• Sequence Number: 48
• Publication Date: September 17, 1986
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

Declassified and Approved For Release 2012/02/09: CIA-RDP90-00965R000504160048-7
RESTON TIMES
17 September 1986
CIA's FBIS and fence head here
December transfer eyed
By CARLOS MONCADA and
THOMAS GOSLING
TIMES STAFF WRITERS
The CIA's Foreign Broadcast In-
formation Service, in a controversial
move, will relocate to an office com-
plex near Reston's planned Town
Center, according to informed gov-
ernment sources.
Sources told The Times this week
the broadcast service plans to shift
operations to the future Reston Cor-
porate Center on Sunset Hills Road,
apparently because of overcrowding
at its present headquarters in the
Ames Bldg., in Rosslyn.
The RCC is just south of the 85-
acre Town Center site.
Rumors of a CIA move to Reston
began earlier this year, but this was
the first confirmation that FBIS
would be an occupant of the Res-
ton office complex.
FBIS translates news from
foreign radio and television
broadcasts for CIA analysts and
members of the federal govern-
ment involved in foreign affairs.
Maryland-based Mulligan-
Griffin & Associates Inc., devel-
opers of the office complex, has
refused to discuss details of the
plans, saying only that the first
two buildings-already com-
plete-total 250,000 square feet
of space.
The CIA will neither confirm
nor deny the relocation. It also
has refused to discuss plans to
expand a federal microwave
communications tower two miles
from the office complex on Fox
Mill Road.
Some sources said the reloca-
tion could take place as early as
December, although it could not
be determined how many work-
ers will be employed at the com-
plex.
Concerns over the planned
relocation, and a request to erect
a security fence, sparked pro-
tests from community leaders at
a meeting with federal govern-
ment representatives last week.
Community leaders claim the
security fence is not in keeping
with the flavor of Reston's
planned neighborhood.
Residents also found them-
selves hard pressed to under-
stand why the super-secret
agency has proposed moving into
a complex that will be part of a
major area attraction.
"I think the CIA has come to
the wrong location, because (the
office complex is) located near
the core of the Town Center,"
Joseph Stowers, co-chairman of
Reston's planning and zoning
committee, told members of the
Reston Community Association
Monday.
Centreville Supervisor Mar-
tha V. Pennino said she sug-
gested at last week's meeting
the nearby U. S. Geological Sur-
vey site as an alternative loca-
tion for the communications
tower. She said that federal rep-
resentatives have agreed to con-
sider it.
A retired CIA employee, in a
1980 book on the intelligence
service, said FBIS (pronounced
"fibis") "translates into English
and summarizes on a daily basis
everything of significance that
has appeared on radio and TV
and in major press outlets of na-
tions throughout the world."
FBIS also keeps track of ra-
dio broadcasts from Soviet bloc
countries to their neighbors in
support of local communist par-
ties and front groups, according
to Cord Meyer, the book's au-
thor.
Meyer says that FBIS works
jointly with the British Broad-
casting Corporation to gather in-
formation, then trades with the
BBC on a daily basis.
Declassified and Approved For Release 2012/02/09: CIA-RDP90-00965R000504160048-7