LET'S KEEP SPIES OUT OF THE NEWS BUREAUS

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP99-00498R000100200114-6
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 20, 2016
• Document Release Date: June 15, 2007
• Sequence Number: 114
• Publication Date: April 14, 1980
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

STAT
NEWSDA Y (N. Y. }
14 April 1980
Approved For Release 2007/06/15: CIA-RDP99-00498R000100200114-6
STAT
It's difficult to believe that Adm.
Stansfield Turner, the director of the Cen-
tral Inteliigence Agency, is really as na-
ive as he appeared the other day.
In Turner's view; expressed to the
American Society of Newspaper Editors,
there's nothing wrong with the CIA using
foreign correspondents as cove intelli-
gence agents under certain circumstances.
"I don't understand.--it,-.1 really don't;". he
said. when editors''.-In the audience chal-
lenged his position. "You're saying that if
you serve your country, you're. no longer
fiee."
In making that statement, Turner
misses a number-of critical points com-
pletely.-Let us try to spell them out.
First of all, if any journalists are used
as CIA agents abroad, i l of them become
suspect.-_How is anyone to :Hake the dis-
tinct ion? .
And since reporters overseas frequent-
ly- go into potentially dangerous places
like Iran or Afghanistan, the raere'suspi-
cion that they are spies places their lives
in jeopardy-whether they're actually
working for the CIA or not.
Furthermore, if no one can know
which reporters are CIA agents and which
are not, how can' Americans be sure that
the dispatches. they-are readling from Teh-
.ran or Moscow or Paris are anything more
than CIA concoctions. planted to accom-
plish the agency's. objective
Americans can trust the information'
they get from U.S. journalists abroad pre
cisely because these" reporters have only
one-master--their newspaper or television
.network-which expects them to report
.honestly, objectively, fairly and, above all,
without hidden motives.
Turner contends - that journalists are
valuable to the. CIA because they canask
questions without arousing suspicion, and
because they usually have good sources in
foreign governments. It's really astonish-
ing to hear him say this, for he surely
must realize that as soon as American
journalists are even so much as suspected
of being CIA agents, they will promptly
lose their ability to ask questions without
arousing - suspicion. As - for their' good
sources in foreign governments, either
they ' will just. as promptly- *dry up or;:
worse, they will attempt to use the jour-
nalist as a conduit for transmitting misin-
formation to the CIA.
Finally, there is the traditional and es-
sential separation of journalists and gov--
ernment in the United States. Each serves
a vital role in the American political and
social system-but only when they remain
separate. That separation is basic to the-
entire concept of free speech and a free
press, which are fundamental to American
society. When journalists work for the go
ernrnent, they cease to function a.sjournai-
ists and become--or appear to become,
which is really just as had--nothing MO re
than apologists. When the CIA recruits
journalists, it not only corrupts those indii-
viduals, but it corrupts the whole cor.f~e t
of a free American press.:
At one point in his discussionivith t: e
editors, Turner-argued that "`a lot of corre-;
spondents are patriotic enough" to rear
.for the CIA
Patriotism is sometimes a more comp
plicated concept than it seems. We hope
that correspondents are patriotic enough l'
not to go to work for the CIA, and to un
derstand the har n-theywould da to their
own integrity, to their -colleagues and to
their country if the tried to be journalists
and CIA spies at the. same.time.
Approved For Release 2007/06/15: CIA-RDP99-00498R000100200114-6