LEGISLATIVE INTERDEPARTMENTAL GROUP MEETING RE PENDING NATIONAL SECURITY LEGISLATION

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP75B00380R000100030061-5
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: U
• Document Page Count: 3
• Document Creation Date: December 12, 2016
• Document Release Date: April 9, 2002
• Sequence Number: 61
• Publication Date: September 13, 1972
• Content Type: MFR

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MEMORANDUM FOR THE RECORD
13 September 1972
SUBJECT: Legislative Interdepartmental Group Meeting re
Pending National Security Legislation
1. Today I attended a meeting of the Legislative Interdepartrm ntal
Group at 1500 hours in the Cabinet Room of the White House. Those present
included:
National Security Council
John Lehman (Acting Chairman)
Colonel Richard Kennedy
White House
William E. Timmons
Tom Korologos
Richard Cook
Colonel T. C. Pinckney
State Department
Curtis Tarr
David Abshire
Marshall Wright
Defense Department
Rady Johnson
USIA
Charles Ablard
Eugene Kopp
Matt Harvey
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Bill Hancock
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James Frye
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2. Items of interest to the Agency included the following:
a. Cooper Bill (S. 2224, requiring that intelligence information
be made widely available to Congress). Mr. Abshire understands
this bill will be attached as an amendment to the Security Assistance
bill, I was asked if the Director would be prepared to write a letter
to the President recommending the veto of any legislation of which
this bill was a part. I said I doubted the Director would state his
position in these terms, since he might feel he could not weigh all
the equities, but I had no doubt of his position regarding the intelli-
gence community. I said I thought he might well state that the
Cooper bill, in its present form, would make it impossible for him
to carry out his statutory responsibilities regarding the protection of
intelligence sources and methods. I said he might also say something
to the effect that the uncontrolled dissemination of intelligence informa-
tion which the bill would seem to contemplate would make it impossible
to maintain an effective national intelligence service,
Messrs. Kennedy and Tarr agreed that these were valid
points. Mr. Abshire said he thought, with a little education of the
members, it might be possible to defeat such a bill or amendment
on the floor. Mr. Tarr questioned this pointing out that even staunch
Administration supporters would find it difficult to resist the
temptation to "cut themselves in on the intelligence circuit. "
b. I called attention of the group to the status of the
"Ervin bill" rider to a pending bill before the House Judiciary
Committee to extend the life of the Civil Rights Commission.
Rady Johnson said that he had just talked with Chairman Dulski, of
the House Post Office and Civil Service Committee, who had discussed
the matter with Chairman Celler, of the House Judiciary Committee,
and been, assured that Celler would not go to conference on the bill
unless forced, and in that case would raise a point of order regarding
the germaneness of the Ervin bill rider.
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c. I reminded the group that the question we had
occasionally discussed previously of congressional requests for
access to National Intelligence Estimates remained unresolved.
I noted that the latest development was a request for a specific
NIE on Southeast Asia by the Foreign Relations Committee. In
the course of the ensuing discussion it was argued that it would be
quite difficult to insist that National Estimates are very precious
so long as copies were freely available in various places such as
war colleges, etc. I said the fact remained that they were supposedly
confined to the Executive Branch and I pointed out the implications
.of releasing them to the Congress. I said I appreciated the President's
reluctance to resort to executive privilege but would welcome any
suggestions as to the best basis on which to hold our ground. Among
other things, I said it had been suggested that a guidance letter
from the President to the Director might help us in this regard. John
Lehman asked that we draft the kind of letter we have in mind and
send it over for them to consider, which I agreed to do.
STATINTL
/JOHN M. MAURY
Legislative Counsel
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