SECURITY ADVISORS SEEK FBI UNIT TO PROBE LEAKS

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00552R000404660022-9
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 2
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: July 19, 2010
• Sequence Number: 22
• Publication Date: May 25, 1986
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

STAT
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WASHINGTON POST L
25 May 1986
Security Ad
viser
s Seel
FBI Unit to Probe Leaks
Some White House Aides Strongly Opposed
STAT By David Hoffman
Washington Post Staff Writer
The creation of a special "strike
force" of FBI agents to quickly
STAT probe leaks of sensitive government
STAT
information was recommended late
last week in a secret memo to the
White House by a group of govern-
ment officials seeking to stop such
disclosures, sources said yesterday.
But the proposed FBI unit has
run into strong opposition from
some senior White House officials,
the sources said.
"We don't need another plumbers
unit," said one source who has read
the secret memo, referring to the
ill-fated effort by the Nixon White
House in the early 1970s to stop
leaks of classified information to the
press.
However, the sources said, there
is a consensus among senior offi-
cials that the Reagan administration
needs to take stronger action to
discipline those who make unautho-
rized disclosures of classified and
sensitive information.
The secret memo also indicated
that polygraph tests may be used
more widely to investigate govern-
ment employes suspected of making
unauthorized disclosures. One
source said there is "no objection"
to this approach among top White
House and intelligence officials, al-
hotfgh in the past it has drawn re-
istance fom Secretary of State
eorge P. Shultz.
The idea of a special FBI unit to
ry to find the sources of unautho-
rized disclosures was advanced in a
classified memo delivered to nation-
al security affairs adviser John M.
Poindexter, sources said. Several of
its other recommendations for dis-
couraging government employes
from leaking information, and for
punishing those who do, were re-
ported in yesterday's Washington
Post.
According to the sources, the
memo was prepared by a group of
mid-level officials in advance of a
meeting of a Cabinet-level group
that has been focusing on the sub-
ject of leaks.
Members of the senior group,
hich was set up several months
go, include CIA Director William J.
ase Shultz, Defense Secretary
as ar W. W r r and Lt Gen:
head of the National
ecurity Agency, the sources said.
Its second meeting was sched-
uled for Friday, when the senior
officials were to consider the memo
repared by the rid-level group.
That meeting, postponed because
Casey was unable to attend, is ex-
pected to be held this week, the
sources said.
One source said the memo imme-
diately raised objections in the
White House, where some officials
considered a special FBI unit to be
inappropriate.
"There are better ways to control
leaks than with strike forces or a
super FBI group, poised and ready
to move," the source said. This
source added that the objections
from White House officials were
that such an approach would be too
high-profile and risky. The White
House officials do not disagree with
the goal of seeking out and prose-
cuting government employes who
disclose classified information, the
source said.
..The suggestion of a special FBI
unit comes as the administration is
intensifying efforts to control leaks,
which sometimes have embarrassed
top policy-makers.
Two mid-level officials at the
:State Department and the Pentagon
recently were fired for allegedly
leaking classified information.
Sources have said the firings were
the direct result of a meeting of top
legal advisers to these and other
departments. The legal advisers,
according to the sources, told their
respective Cabinet members that
the best way to deal with such Lin-
;authorized disclosures is to find and
discipline those responsible.
!Sources who have seen the
mo from the group of mid-level
1-cials said it called for using all
:tneans possible to protect sensitive
national security information.
One source aid the memo ,pe-
Icifically mentioned wider use of
(polygraph tests. Two other sources
said the use of polygraphs was
strongly implied but not
statc'r+.
Although the so-called lie dote c -
!tor tests are widely used in the nn-
:telligenc: community for screening
and as an uivestigative tool, adinitn-
istration efforts to expand the use
of polygraphs to more government
employes have been controversial.
Shultz threatened to resign last De-
cember if asked to submit to a poly-
graph examination after President
Reagan signed an order requiring
thousands of government workers
and contractor personnel with ac-
cess to highly classified information
to take routine polygraph tests.
On Friday, a White House official
said the administration was taking a
"dual track" approach of seeking
better discipline among govern-
ment workers as well as trying to
persuade news organizations not to
publish classified information.
Casey, among others, recently
has raised the prospect of prosecut-
ing news organizations that reveal
communications intelligence under
a 1950 law never before applied to
the press. Casey's position is con-
troversial in the administration.
"There is not going to be a press
witch hunt" said one senior admin-
istratioii official. The official added
that the Justice Department is re-
luctant to take up such cases. An-
other source familiar with the sit-
uation said it would not be worth-
while for the administration to "pick
tights" with news organizations
over leaks.
Casey last week referred to the
Justice Department for possible
prosecution an NBC News report
on the charges against accused spy
Ronald W. Pelto_n. Casey said
NBC's report that Pelton had dis-
closed a secret eavesdropDjpg op-
eratinn called "Ivy Bells." which ili-
volved U.S. submarines operating
in Soviet ar wra,Tif [7P," violated
a 1950 law "against disclosing any
classified information concerning
communications intelligence."
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The Central Intelligence Agency
has-Fe-en reviewing an article in
%ednesdav's Washington Post
about the Pelton case. The article
said Pelton had compromised a
costly, Ions-running and hiehly so-
phisticated electronic eavesdrop-
in o eration involving U.S. sub-
marines and a high-techno ogy (e-
vice that U.S. officials think is now
in Soviet hands. Te ost wit eTd
some technical details of the oper-
ation a ter appeal,-, from eagan,
Casey and other onicials.
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