FORMER DIRECTOR OF CIA SPEAKS FOR DEFENSE CUTS

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP99-00418R000100150016-9
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: May 15, 2012
• Sequence Number: 16
• Publication Date: February 27, 1990
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

ST Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/05/15: CIA-RDP99-00418R000100150016-9
The Washington Post
The New York Times
The Washington Times
The Wall Street Journal
The Christian Science Monitor
New York Daily News
USA Today
The Chicago Tribune
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Former director of CIA
speaks for defense cuts
By Lori Campbell
Free Press Staff Writer
Former CIA director William Colby
said Monday that the United States can
safely halve its military defense spending
by the turn of the century as a new era
dawns in the world.
Colby, 70, was in Vermont to persuade
Town Meeting Day voters in more than
120 communities to support a non-binding
referendum that urges the U.S. govern-
ment to cut defense spending by at least 5
percent each year.
Changes in Eastern Europe and the
Soviet Union present the same issues that
were sorted out after World War II -
"how do we create a new world order,"
said Colby, a 1936 Burlington High School
graduate who has a vacation home in
Charlotte.
The Berlin Wall's crumbling symbol-
ized the end of an era - a change that
has been underscored by demonstration in
Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union
against the economic failure of commu-
nist governments, Colby said.
America must reduce its defense
spending and funnel those wasted dollars
into productive areas - like education,
social programs, foreign aid and the
national debt - to regain its place as the
world leader, Colby said.
"Both the U.S.S.R and the U.S. have
25,000 nuclear weapons each, and (Soviet
President Mikhail) Gorbachev has real-
ized that no way on earth we could use
even one," Colby said.
"That's a number so absurd it can only
be called obscene."
Colby's visit was sponsored by the
Vermont Chapter of Sane-Freeze, the
Unitarian Universalist Church's Social
Responsibility Committee and the Peace
and Justice Center.
Vermont is a national leader in ad-
dressing the demilitarization issue at the
grass roots, said John Berkowitz, director
of the Brattleboro Chapter of Sane-
Freeze, a national organization pushing
for a weapons freeze.
Colby said he is not a late convert to
the arms control doctrine. He said he
always favored such a policy, but believes
it was impossible to dismantle America's
defense apparatus earlier.
Now it is possible, he said.
Americans and Soviets are about to
sign the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty
that will reduce the 25,000 nuclear weap-
ons each owns to 6,000, he said.
"My point is, we ought to reduce it
down to 1,000 each," Colby said. "That's
more than enough to deter anyone. But
let's get this one (treaty) done first."
Over the past few years, the world has
spent more than $1 trillion annually on
defense, Colby said. Americans spent 30
percent of that, the Soviets another 30
percent, and NATO and Warsaw-pact
countries spent another 20 percent.
"Like a drunken sailor we've been
spending money hand over fist," Colby
said. "We have got to improve."
Colby, CIA director from 1973 to 1976,
brushed aside criticism from a local
human rights activist Ronan Giffin-Mur-
phy, who called Colby a war criminal who
murdered 2 million Southeast Asians dur-
ing the Vietnam War, when he was a
career intelligence officer.
Giffin-Murphy handed out fliers in
front of the church where Colby spoke
which carried statistics of deaths and
financial costs of Vietnam.
"These are allegations without sub-
stance," Colby said. "I've already testi-
fied several times under oath in Congress
about this."
Colby travels the globe as a lawyer
and an international affairs consultant,
lecturing on intelligence issues, the Viet-
nam War and arms control.
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Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/05/15: CIA-RDP99-00418R000100150016-9