'INTELLIGENCE FOLLIES' STILL PLAYS TO FULL HOUSE

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP99-00498R000100130026-2
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 20, 2016
• Document Release Date: June 13, 2007
• Sequence Number: 26
• Publication Date: February 23, 1978
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

Approved For Release 2007/06/14: CIA-RDP99-00498R000100130026-2
THE DETROIT NEWS.
Spotlight on the CIA
Intelligence s F~llie;.::
a 1
I/ * lays- to ho e
st
-full.
By COL R.D. HEINZ JR. USMC (Rat.) ,'
News Military Analyst
Surely it must rank as a major irony in -
that continuing extravaganza, "The Great
Intelligence Follies," now approaching a
four-year run in Washington, that James
Angleton, the most feared American coun-
terspy of this century. moralistically dis-
of- his remarkable
talents, should have
been promptly sum-
moned to Canada
when it turned out
that a third of the
Russian - embassy
staff there (13 per-
sons) were KGB Hein)
agents trying to infiltrate the counterintel-,
ligence. division of the Royal Canadian.
Mounted Police (RCMP).
But the irony is even greater than the
above suggests: Angleton, whose major
catches included Kim Philby, Britain's
top MI6 officer who defected to Moscow,
was not called to Canada to participate in
the final kill, as might have been the case
five years agq _ but to appear in Toronto
as a TV panelist.
IF ALL THIS SEEMS slightly nutty,
consider events of the last.fortnight in
Washington, which has been the scene of
-;another intelligence morality play taking
-the form of the unveiling of another
executive order which the Carter adminis-
2tration smugly proclaims as further re-
cstricting and publicizing - "taming" is a
-:word you hear the essential operations
:.of the CIA and other intelligence agencies:.
Nothing is said, nor is anything in fact
rto be said, as to whether the new prose=
'dures and organization improve o
"sharpen American intelligence -functions.
Improving our intelligence or lengthenin
its reach is neither the aim of this admin
%istration nor of Congress. :i
The questions being asked by the CIA's
'powerful enemies - Vice-President
iWalter Mondale, for example, and his
anti-intelligence deputy from Senate days,
David Aaron - are whether U.S. intelli-
gence capabilities have been sufficiently
Ycurbed, blunted and blinded.
The executive -order includes two
j .,,unwelcome, unnecessary curbs: further
? Congressional oversight, and a supervi-
sory role by the attorney general over cer-
ztain operations.
y.,Coagress, whose dismal track record in
intelligence oversight has included leak-
'Zige or intention) disclosure by publicity-
seeking members of. virtually every
intelligence secret entrusted'to its ham
hands since 1975, needs no enhanced role
In these matters. A more prudent intelli-
,gence policy for Congress would be that
enunciated by the late Sen. Richard Rus-
?sell, D-Ga., to "close our eyes and vote
Ithe money."
9": As for the attorney general, his function
'i'a'ppears to be that of signing off on the
'legality and constitutionality of every-
sthing the CIA and other intelligence
`agencies may seek to do. How ridiculous.
Anyone with a grain of experience in the
game of nations knows that the reason
great powers have intelligence machinery
is to accomplish vital secret objectives
:which are outside or beyond the law.
r.- Indeed,-President Carter, of all people,
has--just given us a startling, some might
say a welcome, demonstration to just that
effect when, in order to apprehend a U.S..'
Information Agency (USIA) officer sus--
pected of espionage on behalf of Commu-.
nist Vietnam, he turns out to have ap-
proved warrantless, nonstatutory
electronic surveillance required to make
the case and permit arrests. '
Two provisions of the executive order
make refreshingly good sense:
STAT
i. Despite maximum pressure, Mr
Carter has wise, refrained from canoniz
in- his ambitious Annapolis classmate
and controversial director of the CIA,_
Adm. Stansfield Turner; as a Cabinet
level, all-powerful intelligence. czar. At-
taining Cabinet status has been one of
Turner's main objectives since first ap-
pointment. Now he seems farther from it
than ever.
A monolithic, Turner-style intelligence-
organization designed to give the Presi-,
dent and vice-president what the director
thinks they want to hear, rather than the-
facts, would have been extremely danger-
ous. 2. Fortunately, Defense Secretary
Harold Brown- - again despite Turner's
strenuous efforts - continues to retain
jurisdiction over the Defense Intelligence
Agency (DIA), the code-breaking Na
tional Security Agency (NSA), the Na-
tional Reconnaissance Agency (our satel-
lite intelligence system) and-the military
services' intelligence functions. .
THESE , COMPRISE - A LARGE
proportion of our total intelligence capa-:
bility, and provide independent voices,
sometimes minority voices, the President
should always hear without being filtered
or muffled by an intelligence czar.
But there are somethings =- my father,
a -wise old Washington newspaperman for
So years, used to say - that need a good
letting alone, and U.S. intelligence now.is.
one of them. No more executive orders, no
more empire-building reorganizations, no:
more high-handed mass dismissals,. no'
more witch burning, no more prosecution
of loyal intelligence officers and FBI4
'agents, no more congressional meddling..
A soothing infusion of presidential trust
and support and confidence, and long.
overdue statutory protection.against-.dis--
closure of intelligence sources and meth-
ods - these are agenda items. we should.:
be thinking about today.
Regarding "oversight," that- trendy.
word and concept, which implies broad--
side disclosure of everything we are about
to do, we might well listen to George
Washington, who wrotein 1777:
"The necessity of good intelligence is
apparent & need not be further urged. Alt
that remains for me to add is, that'you
keep the whole matter as secret as passi-
ble. For upon Secrecy, Success depends in
Approved For Release 2007/06/14: CIA-RDP99-00498R000100130026-2 e kind, and for we nt Of it,