JOINT PANEL APPROVES DEATH FOR MILITARY SPIES

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00965R000504210025-6
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: January 24, 2012
• Sequence Number: 25
• Publication Date: July 27, 1985
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

STAT
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/01/24: CIA-RDP90-00965R000504210025-6
3
ARTICLE
OW PAGE
WASHINGTON POST
27 July 1985
,joint Panel Approves
Death for Military Spies
Pentagon's Polygraph Authority Doubled
By Ruth Marcus
Wahington Pat Staff Writer
A House-Senate conference com-
mittee considering the $302.5 bil-
lion military spending bill has voted
to adopt a provision permitting im-
position of the death penalty under
military law for espionage com-
mitted during peacetime, and to
double the Pentagon's authority to
conduct lie detector tests.
Adopting an amendment that was
passed overwhelmingly by the
House, the conferees considering
the fiscal year 1986 Defense De-
partment authorization bill ap-
proved a measure to permit execu-
tion of military personnel convicted
of espionage during peacetime. Un-
der current law, the maximum pen-
alty is 10 years' imprisonment.
However, the conferees rejected
a Senate-passed measure that
would have made mandatory a sen-
tence of either life in prison or ex-
ecution for those convicted under
civilian law of spying for the Soviet
Union or one of its allies.
Instead, the conferees, who
reached their final agreement
Thursday night, went along with a
House measure directing Secretary
of Defense Caspar W. Weinberger
to study and report to Congress on
the advisibility of restoring capital
punishment in espionage cases.
Weinberger has said he strongly
supports such a move.
On the issue of he detectors, the
conferees voted to continue next
year a year-old pilot program under
which the Pentagon is authorized to
conduct 3,500 "counterintelligence"
polygraphs to ferret out spies and
potential spies in the military and
among employes of defense con-
tractors.
The lie detector measure ap-
proved by the conference commit-
tee would expand the scope of the
existing polygraph program to in-
clude those authorized to see "top
secret" information as well as those
with clearance for "special access"
programs, the highest category of
classified information.
..In the subsequent fiscal year, the
program would be doubled to per-
mit the Pentagon to conduct 7,000
such lie detector tests.
The bill now returns to the full
House and Senate for final approval.
According to the most recent
Pentagon figures, 98,700 Defense
dkpartment employes and another
9,576 contractor employes hold
"special access" clearances, and
454,851 Defense Department em-
ployes and 128,405 contractor em-
ployes are cleared to see "top se-
cret" information.
L. Britt Snider, the Defense De-
partment's director for counterin-
telligence and security policy, said
the Pentagon expects to conduct
600 of the 3,500 polygraphs author-
ized for this fiscal year. But Snider
said that the Pentagon might be
able to conduct all of the 7,000
tests permitted in 1987 if the agen-
cy is able to meet its goal of train-
ing 40 additional examiners.
Action on the death penalty and
polygraph measures was shaped by
the recent arrests of John Anthony
Walker Jr. and three other Navy
men on charges of funneling nation-
al defense secrets to the Soviet
Union. The arrests and ensuing re-
ports about the extent of possible
damage to national security spurred
Congress to take steps to combat
espionage.
The final version of the bill also
authorized $595,000 next fiscal
year for research into polygraphs.
Under an amendment that won
overwhelming approval in the
House, the Pentagon would have
been given authority to subject to
polygraphs any of the 4.3 million
military and civilian employes
cleared to see classified informa-
tion. Lie detector tests would have
been mandatory for those seeking
the high-level "special access" clear-
ance, and congressional approval to
conduct such tests, which has been
a source of struggle in the past be-
tween legislators and the Pentagon,
would have been continuing rather
than limited to the next two years.
The conference committee com-
promised between the House meas-
ure and the existing pilot program
by expanding the use of lie detec-
tors to include the "top secret" cat-
egory and by increasing the number
of tests that could be conducted in
1987, but restricting authorization
to two years.
"I think it's a pretty good com-
promise," Sen. Sam Nunn (D-Ga.),
the ranking minority member of the
Senate Armed Services Committee
and one of the chief architects of
the final agreement, said in an in-
terview yesterday.
If the Pentagon were permitted
to subject to lie detector tests all
employes with clearances, "I think
it would have been unworkable,"
Nunn said. He said that if such a
large number of people were pos-
sible subjects, the threat of being
required to take a polygraph "would
have been so remote" that the pro-
gram's "deterrent effect" would
have been minimal.
But Rep. C.W. Bill Young (R-
Fla.), who sponsored the House
amendment, said he was "disap-
pointed" by the final outcome. He
noted that under the compromise,
Navy Seaman Michael Lance Walk-
er, one of the men charged with
espionage, would not have been
subject to a polygraph because he
held only a "secret" clearance.
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/01/24: CIA-RDP90-00965R000504210025-6