THROWN BACK INTO THE COLD

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP99-00498R000100190089-7
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 20, 2016
• Document Release Date: March 14, 2007
• Sequence Number: 89
• Publication Date: January 1, 1980
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

Approved For Release 2007/03/15: CIA-RDP99-00498R000100190089-7
ARTICL APPEARED
ON PAGE /O
`I'IHE IRE JOURNAL
WINTER 1980
If Paisley's final mission was to dete
mine what the Russians 'knew abo
U.S. satellite secrets, then the CIA u
derstandably would want to keep site
about it. The agency alternately h
lied, withheld information and refuse
to cooperate with the Senate Intel
gence Committee, whose ongoing invt
tigation into the Paisley case was 'a c
rect result of the- NewsJourna
into clandestine.. dozens of News Journal stories over ti
last I5 months, he and reporter Richa
STAT
CIA o atio~ Sandza disclosed that John Paisley he. -
CIA that would encourage more covert
=x::- ? _ the highest of national security' clear CI
clear-
A activities and keep them secret
By David L. Preston ances, was still on the agency p
payroll from Congress and public.
Journal associate editor four years after his supposed retirement,
The bill, called the "Intelligence Re
had debriefed im $
portant ovtet defec- I
form Act Of 19P y. gould ex tint the
Joe Trento,-a.?rePorter?-for the Wil- tors, had been CIA contacf'man for the, CIA from com 1 in with re nests fort
mington, :Del--.,- . Nervs?Journal papers, Watergate "plumbers" and worked with information made under the. Freedom
was drinking, his: morning cup of coffee Henry Kissinger on the first Strategic of Information Act, except for requests
in the newsroom one-Tuesday in Sep- Arms Limitation agreement before it by individuals for data about them
tember? 1978 when Phil Milford, the was signed in 1972. selves.
police reporter; strolled by and handed The stories, resulting--from a com- Much of the lan ua a of the bill was
him a 2-inch -AP :clipping from the. I bination ofestablished sources and in- t g g
draftee. at the CIA. The bill was intro
morning paper. ventive investigative reporting, raised duced a day after President Carter, in
"This might interest you," said Mil- I the possibility that thebody pulled from his State of the Union address, called for
ford. "It's just-a little CIA story; a CIA the Chesapeake Bay on Oct- 1 1978
"
guy drowned on Chesapeake Bay.
-
Trento,,-whose =News=Journalt stories
had been the first in the-nation on cru- --
cial aspects of the CIA and ITT in-
volvement in Chile and a justice Depart-
ment investigation into perjury by Rich-
ard Helms;-- barely was -awake,*- let alone.
interested. His mind was on -a job offer
he was about to accebton'a'nother news-.
paper. ica.:.:r.;-.;
He glanced aC'tlie clip half-heartedly:
John Paisley;-'a'i-eei-re'd CIA analyst, was
missing in Chesapeake Bayafter having
gone out sailing'Sept.`24. OK, thought
Trento, the name rings a bell, but so
what? Hundreds of names had popped -
up during two years of covering CIA-re- -
fated stories for the Wilmington papers,
But then he.made some phone calls.
Those early calls began an investigation
that continues to this day, an investiga-
tion into the bizarre disappearance-of a
man who was "not a low-level analyst
as the CIA ardently had insisted fore
months - but who may in fact have
been directing a secret CIA operation to
track down the theft of American spy
satellite secrets in the final -days before
he disappeared.
identified by the FBI as Paisley's and of- unwarranted restraints on
ficially ruled a 'suicide, in fact may not. the intelligence communit
If signed into law, the bill would
have been his. Furth er.-'.twoweeks be make it a crime for any official or for-
fore the New York Times,reported it, i mer official to use classified information
the ' News Journal reporters,.-wrote.in a in making public the names of any intel-
copyrighted story that the CIA-hid from ligence agent, informant or source. The
.the White House and Congress-the. fact penalty would be a prison sentence of
that Soviet agents had obtained copies up to 10 years and a fine up to $50,000.
It would be a crime for someone outside
the government to disclose such names
with the intent to impair or impede the-
foreign intelligence activities of the
United- States," with a ''penalty of one's
year in jail and a $5,000 fine.' -- {
This legislation would deal a serious
blow to the efforts of investigative re-
- porters to ferret out facts' about- what
the CIA does in the name. of the Ameri-
can people. Significantly; Trento and-
Sandza found no official or former offi-
cial willing -to disclose classified in-
formation anyway, so a bill. of *this sort
would serve only to encourage further.?
CIA secrecy.
Some of the most important stories of F
the last 30 years have involved the CIA;
yet those stories remain almost exclu-.1
sively in the hands of the journalistic
Powers that Be and i,handful of free-
lancers.