REPORTERS AND THE CIA THEY KEEP IN TOUCH-BUT AT ARM'S LENGTH

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP91-00901R000600400020-9
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 4
• Document Creation Date: December 20, 2016
• Document Release Date: July 24, 2006
• Sequence Number: 20
• Publication Date: September 22, 1986
• Content Type: NSPR

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22 September 1986
Reporters and the CIA
They keep in touch-but at arm's length
JOHN PIIILBY
A tame courtship compared with the KGB's game: Philby
Exactly what are the relations between
American reporters and the CIA? Al-
though U.S. officials confirm that
Nicholas Daniloff had no intelligence ties
whatsoever, his ordeal has churned up that
sensitive question-and the answer isn't
always simple. Clearly, there is no compar-
ing the KGB's systematic use of journalists
as full-time spies and the CIA's occasional,
informal cultivation of newsmen. Moscow
is also the place where reporters are least
likely to knowingly contact CIA agents,
precisely because of the danger of getting
framed. Elsewhere, however, U.S. corre-
spondents have traded tips with intelli-
gence sources. While those exchanges have
become more guarded since the anti-CIA
backlash of the 1970s, America's "spooks"
and "hacks" still find ways to keep in touch
while staying at arm's length.
By the KGB's standards, the CIA's
courtship of journalists has never been
very ardent. Stanislav Levchenko, a for-
mer KGB officer who defected to the West
in 1979, estimates that at least half of
Soviet reporters are paid intel-
ligence agents. Philip Knight-
ley, a British writer who has
done extensive research on the
KGB'-particularly on its noto-
rious "turning" of British offi-
cial Kim Philby-says all Sovi-
et newsmen are required to
pass on information. Often, the
size and perks of the Soviet
press corps are clues to their
real function. In Beirut in the
late 1960s the Tass bureau
rarely produced articles and
its correspondents almost nev-
er attended briefings or cov-
ered breaking news. But the
bureau had six staffers (com-
pared with three for United
Press International) and the
Tass bureau chief drove a new
Citroen DS 21.
'Symbiotic relationship': While it
has never engaged in that kind
of exploitation, until a decade
ago the CIA did cut deals with
reporters. And at the time,
both parties were quite recep-
tive to those arrangements.
and people others couldn't get access to,
without using the CIA flag." The only thing
the agency didn't ask its journalistic con-
tacts to do was report disinformation. "The
rule we had," says Colby, "was that you
didn't say anything about what they should
write to their home editors."
The rules began to change, however, in
the mid-1970s. Ex-CIA agent Philip Agee
published a book naming scores of intelli-
gence officers under embassy cover. Sud-
denly spies around the world stopped re-
turning reporters' phone calls. Congress
also began to pressure the CIA to clean up
its abuses. In 1976 the Senate intelligence
committee released a report disclosing that
the agency had covert relations with about
50 journalists or employees of U.S. publica-
tions. It didn't name names. The New York
Times subsequently published a story iden-
tifying several reporters and the organiza-
tions they worked for.
'life or deo&' exception: Later that year
George Bush, then head of the CIA, issued a
regulation barring any direct ties between
the agency and American news organiza-
tions. When Adm. Stansfield Turner re-
placed Bush in 1977, he distributed a one-
page memo restating that position and
adding one caveat empowering the director
to make exceptions in what he considered
"life or death" situations. Today, Langley
officials refuse to discuss the ties-with-jour-
nalists issue. But privately sources confirm
CIA Director William Casey has reaf-
firmed the Turner orders.
David Atlee Phillips, a former Since the crackdown both U.S. spies and
CI agent w o worked under journalists have become more cautious
journalistic cover in Chile, about their dealings. NEWSWEEK'S Jerusa.
says he knows of only a- few lem bureau chief Milan J. Kubic reports
other reporters who actually that wh
h
en
e first arrived in Israel, he
joined the agency. "In 98 per- called the CIA station chief in Tel Aviv,
cent of the cases," he says, "it was whose name he had gotten from another
a symbiotic relationship." Occasionally journalist. The officer nervously denied
older reporters, some of whom had served any agency connection and hung up. Israeli
in World War II or Korea, passed on tips intelligence sources also insist that for
out of a sense of patriotic duty. Columnist the last 10 years they haven't discovered
Joseph Alsop once captured that senti- any links between U.S. correspondents in
ment, saying he had helped the CIA from Israel and the CIA. When London bureau
time to time and was "proud to have done chief Tony Clifton visits Washington, some
it." Other reporters simply regarded intel- CIA sources he knows from the Third
ligence agents as more informed and reli- World refuse to see him. If they hadn't
able than other U.S. officials. Just before already, many reporters have also adopted
the fall of Saigon, for instance, U.S. Em- Clifton's rule for dealing with CIA officers:
bassy officers were telling newsmen th
t
a
the North Vietnamese had no chance of
taking the city-while the spies were ad
vising them to pack their bags and evacu-
ate their families.
For its part, the agency once found jour-
nalists useful for a variety of purposes. It
asked some to carry out "drops," just like
case officers. Mostly it traded for informa-
tion and access-sometimes with cash,
sometimes with other information. As for-
mer CIA Director William Colby puts it:
"What we used them for was to get to places
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tell them only what you were already plan-
ning to print.
American correspondents in Moscow
have become particularly circumspect. As
recently as five years ago a group of re-
porters in the Soviet capital regularly
played touch football against U.S. Embas-
sy staffers, a game both sides jokingly
referred to as "spiers vs. liars." Because of
the risk of getting branded as CIA agents,
the joke is now wearing thin. The journal-
ists assume-as do their counterparts the
world over-that some embassy officials
are CIA officers and that some of their
discussions with the embassy will be re-
ported to Langley. But most correspond-
ents avoid trying to figure out who the
intelligence agents are. The embassy en-
courages this see-no-evil relationship, re-
fusing to say anything about espionage
cases. At a briefing last week in Moscow,
an official even declined to talk about the
CIA rule against ties with reporters. "We
just don't comment on intelligence mat-
ters," the official said.
Bugged offices: Because the Soviets are
perfectly capable of planting evidence to
make Americans look like spies, Moscow
correspondents are also on constant alert
against setups. They assume that their of-
fices, homes and cars are bugged. They
carefully screen unfamiliar Soviets who
ask for meetings to complain about lost
apartments, denied visas or relatives sent
to the gulag. Since Daniloff's arrest, Mos-
cow reporters have become even more vigi-
lant. Some are agreeing to meet fewer Sovi-
et strangers. Others see them only in their
offices. Even with longtime acquaintances
they are on guard. As Anna Christenson of
UPI puts it, the Daniloff affair "adds a
horrible edge of suspicion to a meeting.
You're always thinking, 'Maybe the KGB
got to them'."
To avoid more Daniloff cases, some
U.S. reporters want Washington to press
Moscow for stronger guarantees of press
freedom. One possibility would be a
strengthening of the 1975 Helsinki ac-
cords, which assure reporters of the right to
travel between East and West and to work
freely. "I can see the necessity," says The
Washington Post's Gary Lee, "of the Sovi-
ets and the Americans having very specific
rules on how to work [as a correspondent]."
But Moscow reporters are-also determined
not to let Daniloff's framing intimidate
them. As one of them puts it, "If we did that,
we would all be writing about the 'Red
October Potato Farm' and its new harvest-
er."American correspondents aren't about
to start reporting disinformation instead of
news-and that is what will always set
them apart from the journalistic apparat-
chiks of the KGB.
MARK WHITAKER with RICHARD SANDZA
in Washtngton. STEVEN STRASSERin.Voscoir.
TONY CLIFTON in London and MILAN J. KURIC
to Jerusalem
01
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APP~AA~~~ 21 September 1986 , VY '
Reporters,
spies have
close ties
Their `affinity'
breeds suspicion
By FRANK GREVE
Herald Washington Bureau
WASHINGTON - While no
evidence has been offered that
U.S. News & World Report corre-
spondent Nicholas Daniloff spied
for the CIA in Moscow, It Is not
surprising that Soviet officia
suspect American reporters
espionage.
Indeed, reporters and C1?'
agents historically have been tb
chummy that Joseph Fromm, then
chief foreign editor for U.S. News,
told a congressional committee in
1977 that "a foreign government
could be forgiven for assuming
that there is some kind of informal
link."
Fromm's testimony came amid -a
series of embarrassing disclosures
about the CIA's use of reporters as
informants, conduits of disinfor-
mation, spies - and even spy
masters. The disclosures produced
reforms and a climate of mutual
suspicion that shattered what
Washington Post reporter Ward
Just calls "the natural affinity
between journalists and spies."
And yet, while reporters and
CIA operatives are separated to-
day by CIA regulations, they are
not,divorced. Though agency rules
bar the actual hiring of accredited
American journalists for., covert
missions, informal information-
trading - what former CIA
Director William Colbty terms
"mutual back-scratching' - still
is encouraged.
"We'd be stupid to cut that off,"
Kathy Pherson, the CIA's media
director, said last week. "Journal-
ists have the same rights as any
other American citizen."
In addition, CIA Director Wil-
liam Casey can declare exceptions
to the reporter-hiring ban in "an
emergency involving human lives
or critical national interests." For-
mer Director Stansfield Turner
authorized three such- exceptions
4involving Iran - between
1980.
Editors `naive'
Turner told. a convention of
newspaper editors in 1980 that
they were "naive" to think any
formal regulation could end alli-
ances between reporters and the
CIA. "I think a lot of correspon-
dents are patriotic enough' to
serve the CIA - perhaps without
even informing their superiors,
said Turner, adding he "would not
hesitate" to approach them.
Many analysts believe Turner's
remarks were Intended to improve
the cover available to CIA agents
by forcing foreign counterintelli-
gence agencies to include report-
ers as suspects.
Soviet officials hardly needed
the encouragement. In the past 30
years, they have expelled 28 U.S.
correspondents who, in that closed
and suspicious society, must adopt
the nosy and secretive habits of
spies to do their jobs.
Last week, Daniloff said he may
have triggered Soviet suspicions
when he "worked energetically
and probed deeply" to report on
such subjects as Soviet military
units in Afghanistan, nuclear
waste dumps and the shooting
down of Korean Airlines Flight
007.
Such topics involved "secret
information," according to Foreign
Ministry spokesman Gengadi Ger-
asimov.
Daniloff denied "any connection
with any government agency" and
Soviet allegations that he "acted
on instructions" from two former
U.S. Embassy diplomats identified
by Soviet officials as CIA spies.
But he did not address the question
of whether the two men, had been
sources or acquaintances.
"It's a fair supposition that, in a
community like Moscow, he might
have made their acquaintance,"
ventured U.S. News senior editor
James C. Kilpatrick. "Other for-
mer Moscow correspondents have
told me they knew nearly every-
one in the U.S. Embassy."
No special relationship
He added that the magazine's
policy is "that our correspondents
should have no special relationship
of any kind with any intelligence
agency. It's a no-no." Kilpatrick
acknowledged that the policy does
not rule out CIA personnel as
sources: "The operant word is
special.,,
Intelligence sources say, howev-
er, that Moscow long has been
considered too risky for "deep
cover" CIA operations, including
those that might involve a report-
er. Significantly, although exposes
during the late 1970s named
dozens of reporters and news
organizations that had cooperated
with the CIA for pay or patrio-
tism, no Moscow-based American
correspondent ever has been
linked publicly to the agency.
Much of what Is known about
reporter-spy relations comes from
an extraordinary series of House
and Senate Intelligence Committee
hearings held In 1977, plus the
CIA's published regulations and a
Freedom of Information Act law.-
suit settled in 1982.
Together these sources establish
that, through the mid-'70s, hun-
dreds of American reporters
worked hand-in-glove with the
CIA, and dozens were employed
by the agency.
A few, like the late columnist
Joseph Alsop, admitted volunteer-
ing their services: "I've done
things for them when I thought
they were the right thing to do,"
Alsop said in 1977. "I call it doing
my duty as a citizen." Others, like
New York Times columnist C.L.
Sulzberger, acknowledged helpful-
ness on a "totally informal" basis.
ABC correspondent Sam Jaffe
said he had helped the agency -
but denied reports that he had
been paid to do so. CBS boss
William Paley recalled meeting
with top CIA officials to discuss
opening a CBS News bureau
abroad as a cover for an agency
recallti whether tthednehe could not
two k had
done so.
Scores of reporters acknowl-
edge that they were debriefed by
the CIA after visits to Communist
countries.
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Didn't name names
In 1982, the CIA described how
It had used reporters, without
naming names. The disclosure, in
an affidavit, was part of the
settlement of a Freedom of Infor-
mation suit by Judith Miller, a
former Progressive magazine re-
porter now working for The New
York Times, that sought details of
the agency's relationship with
journalists.
"Some, perhaps a plurality,
were simply sources of foreign
intelligence; others provided cover
or served as a funding mecha-
nism" for agency activities, the
affidavit said.
"Some provided nonattributable
material for use by the CIA,
collaborated in or worked on
CIA-produced materials or were
used for the placement of CIA-pre-
pared material in the foreign
media," it continued.
"Others assisted in nonmedia
activities by spotting, assessing or
recruiting potential sources or by
handling other agents, and still
others assisted by providing access
to individuals of Intelligence Inter-
est or by generating local support
for U.S. policies and activities."
It concluded: "Finally, with
respect to some of these individu-
als, the CIA simply provided
informational assistance or re-
quested assistance in suppressing a
media item such as a news story."
The term "handling other
agents" means directing and sup-
porting spies, debriefing them,
writing reports based on their
findings and paying the agents,
according to a guide published by
the McLean, Va.-based Association
of Former Intelligence Officers.
Besides using reporters, the CIA
sometimes dispatched its own
employees on intelligence missions
abroad "who 'served as real or
pretended journalists," according
to testimony by Colby, the former
CIA director, before the House
Intelligence Committee in Decem-
ber 1977.
In a few cases, he said, Ameri-
can reporters were told by the CIA
what to report in their dispatches.
Colby said photographers, driv-
ers and other unaccredited person-
nel working for American news
bureaus abroad - Includigg some
free-lance writers - were still
considered fair game for agency
employment (though more recent
regulations require the prior con-
sent of the news organization's top
management).'
Recruiting foreigners
Colby also successfully opposed
restrictions on reMitment of for-
eign reporters or exploiting for-
eign news media. "I believe that
we should not disarm ourselves in
this contest in the hopes that the
rest of the world will be gentler,"
he said.
These days, reporters and CIA
officials recoil when asked to
discuss journalist-spy ties. In Mos-
cow, for example, U.S. briefers
won't even talk about the CIA rule
against hiring reporters, saying,
"We just don't comment on intelli.
gence matters."
Clearly, however, contacts still
are frequent between CIA nercnn.
nel and American --journalists
abroad. "I consider, and most
foreign correspondents consider,
intelligence people good sources of
information," Fromm, now a con-
tributing editor to U.S. News, said
Friday.
""I was just in Japan and Korea,
and a New York Times correspon.
dent was with me. He asked me
who the CIA station chief In Seoul
was, figuring he was probably the
best source of information. There's
nothing Illegitimate about it,"
Fromm added, even though, in
Soviet eyes, such contact might
make the reporter seem to be "an
unpaid spy."
The somewhat different point of
view of a CIA station chief was
argued in an affidavit contained in
,the Miller lawsuit.
The unnamed chief said an agent
would approach a correspondent
"because he's the guy who knows
where all the skeletons are, what's
the real story on so-and-so. They
make an appointment. They talk.
The agency man has information
to make him look good. If those
meetings don't prove fruitful to
the agency man, they will end. So
it behooves the journalist to make
them useful."
Fromm himself acknowledged
the point in his December 1977
testimony before the House Intelli-
gence Committee. "Obviously, the
CIA's interest is to get information
from a correspondent beyond that
which he, would report or have
reported, because otherwise they
could get it," he said.
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