PENTAGON LIE DETECTORS DEFENDED, ASSAILED

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP91-00561R000100040003-4
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: February 23, 2012
• Sequence Number: 3
• Publication Date: December 10, 1982
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/02/27: CIA-RDP91-00561 R000100040003-4
Ci; PAG
WASHINGTCN :POST
10 DECEMBEF 1982,
Pentagon Lie Detectors Defended, Assailed
By George C. Wilson
waahington Post Staff Writer
The Pentagon said yesterday
that it planned to widen the use of
lie detectors to combat espionage.
while a law professor charged that
the real objective is to intimidate
defense employes who might give
out embarrassing information.
"Although the proposed policy
changes admittedly would permit a
greater use of the polygraph within
defense. the effect of these changes
is neither as dramatic nor perva-
sive as one might believe from the
press coverage," retired Army Gen.
Richard G. Stilwell, deputy under-
secretary of defense for policy, told
the House Judiciary subcommittee
on civil and constitutional rights.
Stilwell said "a substantial ex-
pansion- of the use of lie detectors
"is likely to occur" only within
those defense agencies doing intel-
ligence work, conducting "sensi-
tive" research or involved with op-
erations requiring "compart-
mented" access, such as the Iran-
ian rescue mission in 1980.
"We believe the polygraph can
help us to ferret out those who
might take the risk" of disclosing
sensitive information to "a hostile
government," Stilwell said.
He confirmed that the directive
would empower Pentagon execu-
tives to ban people who refused to
take lie detector tests from certain
sensitive jobs and that employes
holding "special" intelligence cre-
dentials would have to undergo
such examinations to keep those
clearances. He added that people
with special intelligence clearances
would be tested at random, prob-
ably with computers making the
selections.
Outside of those special catego-
ries, people could refuse to take
polygraphs without penalty, Stil-
well said. "It is not our desire to
clamp down on leakers" that mo-
tivated the directive authorizing
wider use of lie detectors, Stilwell
said; the aim is to provide "greater
assurance" that defense employes
in sensitive positions "are not spy-
ing for a hostile government."
Pentagon spokesman Henry E.
Catto Jr. on Nov. 18 went beyond
that scope, declaring that wider
use of polygraphs was under con-
sideration partly because "we want
to discourage people with hidden
agendas" from leaking information
"outside the democratic process." ,
William H. Taft IV, Pentagon
general counsel, said he is still re-
viewing the proposed polygraph
directive and would probably sug-
gest changes to safeguard further
the privacy and civil rights of in.
dividuals to be covered.
Christopher H. Pyle, who
teaches constitutional law at Mt.
Holyoke College and has made a
speciality of studying the use of
polygraphs, said the draft directive
suggests that "this administration
is less interested in national secu-
ril:y than it is in political security."
The proposed widened uses of
polygraphs by the Pentagon "are
part of a much larger policy involv-
ing efforts to classify more infor-
mation, to restrict access to clas-
sified information, to restrict of-
ficial contacts with the press and
repeal the Freedom of Information
Act."
He said the draft directive "pays
lip service to the principle of vol-
unteerism," permits "much more
intrusive" interrogation than cur-
rent rules permit. and allows per-
scnal information obtained
through lie detector tests "to lie
around forever" rather than be de-
stroyed.
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/02/27: CIA-RDP91-00561 R000100040003-4