CONGRESS SET TO TURN SPOTLIGHT ON U.S. ESPIONAGE NETWORK

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP99-01448R000401700012-4
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 2
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: May 23, 2012
• Sequence Number: 12
• Publication Date: September 8, 1991
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

STAT
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/05/23: CIA-RDP99-01448R000401700012-4
I I
The Washington Post _
The Now York Times _
The Washington TI
The WON Street Journal
The Christian Science Monitor
Nrow York Daily News
USA Today
CHESS SET TO TURN SPOTLIGHT ON U.S. ESPIONAGE NEIWCRK
By Jim Wolf
WASHINGTON, Sept 8, Reuter - The U.S. Congress is turning
its spotlight on the shadowy world of espionage as debate mounts
on redefining the mission and shape of the Central Intelligence
Agency after radical changes in the Soviet Union.
With the Kremlin no longer an ideological foe and with a
budget crunch continuing, pressure is growing to streamline the
intelligence caTmunity, redefine its mission and step up its
accountability.
The controversy has been simmering since the Soviet empire
began collapsing in 1989 and Moscow lost its grip on Eastern
Europe.
As the debate shapes up, the sprawling multi-agency
intelligence network is in the hands of a caretaker, and
President George Bush's choice to head the CIA, Robert Gates,
faces tough questioning over the Iran-Contra affair.
Nomination hearings for Gates, a former CIA deputy director
who is now deputy national security adviser, begin on September
16 before the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence.
That panel is already studying ways to overhaul the
intelligence community, which operates on a secret budget of
about 30 billion dollars a year.
The ca mittee will hold a hearing on Wednesday on a bill
that would triple the number of top CIA posts -- to nine -- that
are subject to Senate confirmation.
11 The confirmation process for top intelligence officials
will serve to strengthen the accountability of the CIA,'' panel
member John Glenn, author of the bill, said last Friday.
11 Because the agency is such a vast and secretive organisation,
it is essential that it be fully accountable for its actions.''
Currently, the president nominates and the Senate confirms
only the director of central intelligence, the deputy director
and the CIA inspector general.
Glenn, an Ohio Democrat, would extend the Senate's sway to
the CIA's general counsel and the five deputy directors in
charge of covert operations, intelligence analysis, science and
technology, administration, and planning and coordination.
Richard Kerr who became actin CIA director last Monda ,
will oppose measure when he appears before the pane , an
official said.
Cone concern is said to be the potential politicisation. of
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Z.
the CIA which has about 20 000 to ees and accounts for 15
per cent of tota-L e i ence oudget. otticiaidy
declined cammen on Glenn s i
Kerr said on a r a the instabilit and uncertaint
unleashed a disintegration o e o Soviet union, tar
e ~Mienaes e o us...are much greater in many ways
than the challenges that were acin us when we had a sin e
rather s rai orwar en to loo at, rr e o veterans 3
e ice o Strategic Services, forerunner ot the CMA.
Kerr took over after the retirement or WELI ter, who
has been credited wi res orine CIA's image after it was
ama the Iran-Contra a air.
T scan involved ev ing a congressional ban on aid to
Nicaragua's rebels by skimming proceeds fran secret arms sales
to Iran.
The most radical proposal for rejigging U.S. intelligence
was put forward by Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan, a New York
Democrat who was vice chairman of the intelligence panel fran
1981 to 1986.
Moynihan has suggested disbanding the CIA and putting the
State Department in charge of intelligence-gathering operations.
A former chief of CIA counter-terrorism operations, Vincent
Cannistraro, wrote in the Washington Post last week that the
CIA's paramilitary capabilities should have been transferred to
the Pentagon several years ago.
William Odan, who headed the National Security Agency fran
1985 to 1988, said he did not consider Moynihan's and
Cannistraro's proposals "as absurd today as I would have a year
ago,'' given the vast geopolitical change.
We are overdue for basic structural readjustments to take
account of the changes -- new technology, new missions, new
realties,'' he said in a telephone interview.
Less sweeping proposals for reform are expected from
intelligence panel chairman David Boren, an Oklahana Democrat
who wants to shrink the bureaucracy by forging closer ties
between the CIA and sister military agencies.
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/05/23: CIA-RDP99-01448R000401700012-4