LEAHY: U.S. INTELLIGENCE SHOULD STEP UP RECHECKS OF SECURITY CLEARANCES

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP91-00587R000200880039-4
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 2
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: July 14, 2010
• Sequence Number: 39
• Publication Date: August 8, 1986
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

STAT
JI/AI
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ASSOCIATED PRESS
8 August 1986
LEAHY: U.S. INTELLIGENCE SHOULD STEP UP RECH
CLEARANCES
BY MICHAEL J. SNIFFEN
WASHINGTON
The first defection to Moscow by a former CIA officer shows that U.S. spy
gencies should step up reinvestigations of employees' security clearances,
enate Intelligence Committee vice chairman Patrick Leahy says.
The Vermont Democrat said ex- CIA agent Edward Howard, 34, had done "serious
damage" to U.S. spying in the Soviet Union, but he and other U.S. officials
refused to spell out the harm for fear of telling the Soviets even more.
Asked about a published report that Howard "wiped out (the CIA's) Moscow
station," a senior U.S. intelligence official, requesting anonymity, replied,
"Maybe it would be good for the Soviets to believe that."Meeting reporters i the
Capitol Thursday, Leahy said, "Both the CIA and the FBI realize there were
problems in handling this case and steps have been taken by ( CIA Director
William) Casey and (FBI Director William) Webster to correct them and not sweep
them under the rug."Leahy said there was no way to halt defections, but he said
they might be limited if U.S. intelligence agencies would "do a better job of
on-going screening and on-going checks of people with access to classified
information."Casey conceded this summer that every U.S. intelligence agency is
years behind schedule in reinvestigating its employees for security risks.
A congressional source, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said that since
the spate of spy cases last year, U.S. agencies were "giving greater emphasis to
re-checking the employees they've already hired."This source declined to
describe other changes, "because you don't want to broadcast to the other side
what you've done." But Leahy said there have been changes in internal procedures
at the CIA and FBI and improved liaison between the two agencies.
The government has acknowledged that a year after he was fired by the CIA
in June 1983, Howard, still smarting over his dismissal, had told former agency
co-workers that he had contemplated entering the Soviet Embassy in Washington
and telling what he knew. This information was not given to the FBI for more
than a year.
Leahy said he expects the Soviets "will do a great deal to show him living
well and to trumpet him. I expect to see him brought out a lot to make all kinds
of statements. I caution you to take them with a grain of salt. They will try to
make it a very big event to try to get others to defect."He said the timing of
the Soviet announcement about Howard in the Soviet newspaper Izvestia may have
been designed to deflect attention from the defection to the United States on
Monday of two tightrope walkers with the Moscow Circus.
Howard had been trained to become a clandestine CIA agent in Moscow posing
as a U.S. Embassy budget officer. He was fired before beginning that job because
a polygraph test suggested he had used illegal drugs and engaged in petty theft.
The FBI was put on Howard's trail last fall by Soviet KGB defector Vitaly
Yurchenko, who himself returned to the Soviet Union last year.
Last September, Howard, then a budget analyst for the New Mexico legislature,
eluded FBI agents watching his house
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ore he was charged with selling
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STAT
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Last October, U.S. sources said he had been spotted in Finland and was
presumed to have gone to the Soviet Union. Sources close to the Howard family
have since said his credit cards were being used in Costa Rica, but one federal
official said he might have given them to someone else to confuse his pursuers.
U.S. intelligence officials were quick to point out that as one put it,
Howard "was the first ex- CIA official that's ever wound up in Moscow. Scores
have come the other way."Leahy said, "Whenever the (Soviet) KGB (spy agency) has
had someone defect to the United States, it has caused damage to the Soviet
Union, so it's only logical to assume that when we have a defector it damages
the United States.
"You just have to assume it's serious damage, but I don't think the extent of
the damage will ever be made public. Nor should it be." Leahy said.
Noting that Howard's defection has been reported by Izvestia, assistant FBI
director William Baker said, We certainly give a lot of credence to the
Soviets' public remarks. We have no reason to believe they are untrue."He would
not discuss the damage Howard had done.
STAT
IA spokeswoman Kathy Pherson would not comment on the Moscow report.
Jst year, U.S. sources said the CIA had lost contact with a Soviet citizen
in Moscow who had long provided valuable information about high-technology
electronics and aviation research.
Other published reports suggested that Howard had known the method by which
the CIA contacted this spy aria others working for the United States inside the
Soviet Union.
One published report said that since Howard's work for the Soviets became
public, five U.S. intelligence officers in the Soviet Union had been apprehended
by Soviet authorities while on spying errands and expelled from the country.
Three expulsions of U.S. diplomats have been publicly reported by the U.S.
government during that period.
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