FUROR HITS CIA SOURCES, COLBY SAYS

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Collection: 
Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): 
CIA-RDP99-00418R000100100033-5
Release Decision: 
RIPPUB
Original Classification: 
K
Document Page Count: 
4
Document Creation Date: 
December 22, 2016
Document Release Date: 
May 11, 2012
Sequence Number: 
33
Case Number: 
Publication Date: 
March 20, 1975
Content Type: 
OPEN SOURCE
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STAT Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/05/11: CIA-RDP99-00418R000100100033-5 IIW - &el Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/05/11: CIA-RDP99-00418R000100100033-5 Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/05/11: CIA-RDP99-00418R000100100033-5 Q and A tar 1its I 19 ~~Jflcy CIA Dunces, Ccy Says . William Colby, director of the Cen- tral Intelligence Agency, was interview- ed by Washington Star Staff Writer Je- remiah O'Leary. Question: Clark Clifford, who as counsel to President Truman partici- pated in writing the law which estab- lished the CIA, said recently that the ground rules need to be updated, to be renovated. Do you concur with that view? Colby: Well, I've made certain recommendations for changing our act already. A year and a half ago when I was confirmed. I suggested that we add the word "foreign" to the word "intelligence" wherever it ap- pears in our act so it's clear it's for- eign intelligence that's the job of this agency and not domestic. I recom- mended other things to clarify exactly what the CIA ought to be able to do in the United States and what it should not be able to do in the United States. Q: That requires an act of Con- gress? A: Yes. It hasn't been passed, but there was legislation last year - I supported it - and I'm sure these (congressional investigating) com- mittees will get into a rather funda- mental look at some of these ques- tions. Q: Would you ever go out of the business of operating in terms of your own security within the United States, in places like New York where the U.N. is located, or in places like Miami, where there are. many Cubans? A: Well, I think, in the first place, that we ought to be able to collect for- eigi intelligence in America. I think we ought to collect it voluntarily from Aritericans, and we ought to be able to collect it from foreigners. Q: Interviewing returned travel- ers ? A: That sort of thing, yes. We do a great deal of that, and there are an awful lot of Americans who very kindly help us and support us on this. We do make commitments that we won't expose them as our sources. That's going to be one of the things I'm insisting on - that we not expose them in the course of these investiga- 20 MARCH 1975 tions. And I think I've received a very sympathetic response from Sen. Church on this. If there's a reasona- ble basis for our withholding an iden- tity or something, he certainly has given every indication that he will give full consideration to that. Q: Given the scrutiny by the, Rockefeller commission, by several committees of Congress, by the press - can the CIA operate effectively as a clandestine service under these conditions? A: Well, it's having a hard time. We have a number of individual agents abroad who have told us that they really don't want to work for us anymore. Q: Agents? A: Foreigners, working foreigners. We have had a number of Americans who have indicated that they don't want to work with us anymore - not employes, but Americans who have helped us in various ways. We have a number of foreign intelligence serv- ices that have indicated great con- cern about collaboration with us - whether this will be exposed, and they will be subjected to intense: criticism in their country. I think this is a very serious problem for our country. We are in the process of los- ing some of the information that otherwise we would be getting. Q: You mean that some of these other services and other individuals are no longer confident? A: They're beginning to pull back, or some of them have just stopped working with us. And, of course, more serious and yet not measurable is the number who would have agreed to work with us, but now won't agree to work with us. I have seen a couple of cases where individuals had indi- cated they thought they would work with us, and then came around here very recently and said, "I know I did agree, but I don't think I will." Q: Have your actual operations overseas been .affected by the current furor? A: Oh, yes, I think the current furor has laid a par- ticular problem on us in that people exaggerate CIA. I see that in Mexico there was an accusation this week that we organized the excitement at the universi- ty, which, of course, we had nothing to do with. We also have the problem that CIA is used as a shibboleth to shout about in various coun- tries around the world. And I think we have a more seri- ous problem: We have to consider carefully whether we want to help somebody and take a risk of destroy- ing him in the process of helping him. Because if it leaks that we helped him at this stage, we may destroy his political position entire- ly. Q: What has been the ef- fect of books like that of Philip Agee which give names and a great number of identities? A: Well, I think that's absolutely unconscionable and reprehensible for an officer who served with us, accepted our discipline, agreed with our activities, signed a very warm and friendly letter on his resig- nation indicating that he valued highly his associa- tion with us, and that he would forever maintain the relationship as one of pride and trust, that if he could ever do anything for us he would be happy to . . . I've got an idea or so as to what he might do. He has named every name he could think of that was anyhow associ- ated with us. There is-at least one family who has been put under consider- able pressure as a result of this. A girl hounded out of school because her father's name appears in it. We have had to make rather massive changes in our situation in that area to pre- vent people being subjected to hardships because of this revelation. And the danger is that this kind of thing can go into. the whole action of various terrorist move- ments. Mr. Mitrione, as you know, was murdered in Latin America. There is a school of thought that says that was a patriotic act be- , cause he was alleged to be a CIA officer. He was not a CIA officer. And I contend that that kind of a murder is totally unjustifiable. But Mr. Agee has put a number of people under direct threat of exactly that thing happening to them. A: Well, the fact is, as I've said many times - I don't want to talk about the details of our activity there - CIA had nothing to do with the coup that over- threw Mr. -Allende.' It had nothing to do with the mili- tary at that time. We had a program of trying to sup- port and assist some of the democratic forces looking to the elections of 1976, which we hoped they would win against Mr. Allende. The fact was. however, his policies were such that he generated so much confu- sion in the country - not created by CIA - that the military did move against him. If you ask whether that was a CIA success or failure, I would say it was a failure, because the pro- gram we had in mind did not take place, which was that the democratic forces would succeed eventually through elections in Chile. Q: Was the agency aware that the Chilean armed forces intended to move when they did? A: We had certain intelli- gence coverage of it and we had a series of alerts indi- cating that it was about to happen. They key to it was whether several different forces would get together to do it, and we had several in- dications that they would on a certain date and then they didn't. And then they would; on another date, and then they didn't. And then that they would in September and they did. Q: Did the junta ask the United States or the CIA whether the new regime - would be recognized? A: They certainly did not ask the CIA, and I don't know of any other requests. Q: There have been a number of reports that you gave a verbal addendum to President Ford after sub- mitting your 50-page report involving the word "assas- sination." Did you make such a report? A: I think I'll let the President speak for himself Q: A couple of years ago, on that. He has spoken on it, there was a similar furor and I think it's appropriate. and public investigation in-, Otherwise, I frankly think volving the agency and ITT 'that this is a subject that I in Chile. l hat is the truth. would like to just stay in a about the agency's role in total no comment position. Chirp 7 Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/05/11: CIA-RDP99-00418R000100100033-5 e d- ! _L-9 1111 IIIIIIIIIII[IIIII .I III III' material still be segregat- ed. And I look forward to the day after the investiga- tions when we have one large bonfire and destroy it all. Because I don't think that we ought to have it and I think that the best disposi- tion is to get rid of it. Q: Under the Organiza- tion Act of 1947, is mail cover in the United States illegal? Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/05/11: CIA-RDP99-00418R000100100033-5 Q: Well, there have been a number of allegations that the agency either had knowledge or discussions involving assassinations, the ones that took place in- volving Trujillo and Lumumba,. and plans or plots involving Castro and Duvalier. What's your re- sponse to that? A: Well, again, I really don't want to comment about that subject. It will be reported fully to the select A: In my view, we should committees. This is not a subject that I think we not do it. And that is why I would do any good to the recommended its termina- United States by talking tion in 1973 and it was about. terminated by Dr. Schles- abinger. Q: Can you say flatly that Q: But that's not quite re- the CIA has never planned sponsive. Is it illegal under the assassination of any for6 the mandate? eign leader? A: Again, I just don't want to comment at all on it. Q: You've discounted re- ports of sweeping CIA domestic activity but the issue remains very much alive. What's likely to be the upshot of that? A: I think that the results of the investigation will rather clearly show that I'm right, that the program that we undertook to identi- fy foreign links with Ameri- can dissident movements 1 was not a massive one, in i the numbers involved; was not a domestic one, because it was basically foreign; and it wasn't illegal be- cause it was under our charter and our National Security Act. So it was nei- ther massive, illegal nor domestic. It was an intelli- gence operation. Q: A great deal of the controversy focuses on files) with the names of U.S. citi- zens. What steps have been taken, if any, to cleanse these files? A: Opening mail is, I be- lieve, illegal. Reading the addresses off mail I think would depend on the author- ity of the organization in question. We're not doing it - but I could imagine that it would be, legitimate to look at the addresses of peo- ple in contact with known foreign intelligence serv- ices or something of that nature. A: No, it's not. It depends on why. As I told Mrs. Abzug, if we were watching a foreign organization over- seas seas and she ran into con- tact with it and it was re- ported, I would probably have her name in the files. And we so did. We had her name for that reason. We have coverage of foreign meetings, things like that abroad. A certain number of Russians, a certain num- ber of Frenchmen, a certain number of something else - and maybe five Americans will go and the names of all will come back and be card- ed and be recorded. We would not do anything with' them. But in any indication of any security problem, we would pass them to the FBI. At that time, as a counter- intelligence program, we were vigorously looking to see whether any foreign countries had support or manipulation of our antiwar and various other dissident movements. We concluded after our investigations that they did not. There wasn't any substantial foreign assistance coming to this. But we did look into it to see whether that was so or not. Q: But is a mail cover a possible subject for crimi- nal prosecution? A: I do not believe so. And I do not believe that the people who are involved even in the opening will be prosecuted. Q: Is the maintenance of files containing the names of Americans illegal under the mandate? A: Well, some time ago - for the last three years - we have been cleansing some of these records. Some of our security files, some of the other things that had material in it that' really should not have been' in it. We obviously cannot do that now, because the investigations are under way and we cannot be in the position of destroying potential evidence for these, investigations. But I have directed that this kind of Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/05/11: CIA-RDP99-00418R000100100033-5 Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/05/11: CIA-RDP99-00418R000100100033-5 years. After that, MCC can license the results to anyone. Said Inman: "Our job is to develop the technology. How the companies use it commercially is up to them. There is certainly no guarantee that all companies will profit equally." No matter which companies even- tually profit, however, much of the credit must go to Inman, most ob- servers said. Inman is said to have shepherded many skittish companies through the sometimes-traumatic ex- perience of sharing technology with their competitors, and was ultimate- ly responsible for persuading them to provide some of their more talent- ed researchers. Inman minimized such competi- tive problems, but he acknowledged that some companies were initially afraid that participation in MCC would lead to the loss of trade se- crets. Moreover, he allowed that some: firms "undoubtedly" offered their best researchers financial in- centives for not joining MCC. "There is always a tendency to send who's available, not who's best," be said. But Inman apparently solved that problem by hiring officials who were not employees at shareholder firms. Six of MCC's seven project directors were "outside hires," he said, as are about 60 percent of MCC's t88 researchers. In all, the company has 269 employees. "That was unexpected,", he said. "At first, we expected that our talent would come from the shareholder companies." Talented researchers from non- shareholder companies gave Inman leverage. Several of the sharehold- ing companies were reported to have expressed concern that those outside hirings would dilute their influence within MCC. Inman would not com- ment directly, but noted that the percentage of MCC employees from shareholder companies has risen during the last year. Despite some fears to the contrary, Inman said he had never encoun- tered a situation in which an em- ployee of a shareholding company was poaching on a project in which j that company was not involved. price for joining MCC is too high for companies to .torn lust to j:ind out what the competition is up to " said Inman who in addition to his CIA work also served as-director ofndthe National Security gencv. "A if we did find someone collect- ing information on a project that they were not a party to, we'd send them home immediately." Inman has also been credited with easing early concerns about possible antitrust problems with MCC. In the developmental stages, those worries may have frightened away compa- nies such as Westinghouse, Bur- roughs and Xerox, according to some observers. But Inman, through his contacts in Washington, helped push legislation that eliminated that threat. In spite of his successes so far, Inman was cautious about the fate of MCC. He noted that some of the lead- ing companies in computer research - most notably, IBM and AT&T - have not joined MCC, apparently be- cause . their research efforts could profit little from information from other companies. Too, he said, many of MCC's projects could be risky. "Sometimes I wonder if our goals are too ambitious," he said. "In many areas, we are trying to leapfrog out into technologies that are decades away. There will be failures. "But I'm confident that we can develop technology as good as the Japanese and their Fifth Generation project," he said, referring to the Japanese computer-development plan. "In something like this, you're never as far along as you'd like to be, but we're certainly ahead of where I thought we'd be 15 -months ago." Certainly, there is no disappoint- ment among state officials and resi- dents of Austin, a central Texas city that 'is bracketed by the Colorado River and a series of lakes known as the Highlands. Gov. White is among the many Texas officials who are promoting Austin and the University of Texas as a Southern alternative to Stanford University and Silicon Val- ley - Silicon Hills is the Texas catch- word and MCC was the crown jewel in that campaign. Wilson, the governor's adviser, said an economic survey done by Texas Commerce Bancshares, a. Houston bank-holding company, esti- mated that MCC could directly create as many as 10,000 new jobs in elec- tronics in the Austin area with the the only down note." next seven years. Lee Cooke, president of the Austin Chamber of Commerce, said MCC al- ready had begun to show the expect- ed "magnet effect," drawing other .high-technology firms and their em- ployees into the area. The city's popu- lation is now 400,000, Cooke said, compared with 341,000 in 1980..Cooke estimated that MCC's economic rip- ple effect could reach $500 million. Indeed, Austin's economic boom has produced some unwanted side effects. "Real estate prices are soaring in Austin," Inman said. "In fact, that's Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/05/11: CIA-RDP99-00418R000100100033-5