SENATORS QUESTION CIA'S COVERT ACTIONS

Document Type:

CREST [1]

Collection:

General CIA Records [2]

Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST):

CIA-RDP90-00552R000303560074-5

Release Decision:

RIPPUB

Original Classification:

Document Page Count:

Document Creation Date:

December 22, 2016

Document Release Date:

September 1, 2010

Sequence Number:

Case Number:

Publication Date:

April 27, 1986

Content Type:

OPEN SOURCE

File:

Attachment	Size
CIA-RDP90-00552R000303560074-5.pdf [3]	100.59 KB

Body:

Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010/09/01 : CIA-RDP90-00552R000303560074-5 EAF #i i ii iE 1 . BOSTON GLOBE 27 April 1986 Senators question CIA's covert actions Cohen. Leahy urge debate on role By Stephen Kurkjian Globe Staff "Trevor was the man respon- siblefor gathering and guarding secrets vital to America's securi- ty.... While the law required him to report to members of the House and Senate Intelligence Oversight Committees. he never went beyond his two rules for dealing with legislators: if they didn't ask the right question, they wouldn't get the right an- swer. And if they asked the right question. they would only get half the right answer.' - "The Double Man." by William S. Cohen and Garv Hart WASHINGTON - When he wrote those sentences for his nov- el on the shadowy world between US intelligence and Washington politics, Sen. William S. Cohen (R- Maine) had only a layman's view of the Central Intelligence Agency. But in the three years that he has been a member of the Senate com- mittee that is responsible for mon- itoring the agency's operation, he has come to learn there is as much fact in the words as fiction. Cohen is one of only 33 mem- bers of Congress - and probably less than 100 In the entire US gov- ernment - who are informed of co- vert CIA operations before they take place. At least, that's what is required by the law that was en- acted after disclosures in the mid- 1970s that the CIA had participat- ed in a range of illegal activities. from attempts to assassinate for- eign leaders to spying on Ameri- ran citizens. There have been times In past years - most notably the 1983 Mining of Nicaraguan harbors and the funding of a handbook kat advised rebels on hew to `neutralize" Sandinista leaders - fhat they learned of a secret CIA Operation through newspaper re- ports: such Incidents serve to un- derline the suspicion that the CIA is selective in what information it provides Congress. While Cohen and his fellow New Englander on the committee, Sen. Patrick V. Leahy (D-Vt.), be- lieve that the CIA has done a bet- ter job of late in keeping Congress informed of US covert operations, they voiced a new set of concerns in separate statements last week. In essence, they asked whether the Reagan administration's se- cret aid to anticommunist insur- gencies should be curtailed, or at least be made known publicly so its desirability can be debated by Congress. "The new reliance on covert military action as a normal in- strument of foreign policy - even as a substitute for foreign policy - has strained the current oversight process to the breaking point," Leahy told a meeting of the Associ- ation of Former Intelligence Offi- cers. Echoing Leahy's remarks, Co- hen said in an interview on Thursday: "There are no real guidelines." Although he did not identify which insurgencies were receiving CIA aid, Leahy criticized the Rea- gan administration's "clear deter- mination" to make greater use of such operations. Such a policy gives rise to the following question, he said: "Can a democracy like the United States engage in a large-scale, so-called covert paramilitary operation. us- ing our intelligence agencies as in- struments in waging proxy wars against the Soviet Union or its cli- ents?" Echoing Leahy's remarks. Cohen said in an interview on Thursday that in many instances the only people who are not told of CIA backing of an anticommunist military campaign are the Ameri- can public. "The people we're giving the money to know it's coming from the CIA, and the people they're fighting know It's CIA." Cohen said. "Who do we think we're hid- ing it from?" "Deniability" Intelligence observers have as- serted in the past that such secre- cy was maintained for two basic reasons: to preserve the agency's "deniability" in case of embar- rassing military events and to avoid provoking the Soviet Union into providing its side with fur- ther support. While he acknowledged those arguments. Cohen said they do not outweigh the need for congres- sional debate on funding of long- term military operations being conducted with US money in for- eign countries. Cohen said he fully supports the need to keep secret "truly uq- dercover, covert operations." But he says they are usually smaller in scope and last less time than paramilitary operations. "Right now there are no real guidelines for us to go by," he said. "Before too much longer we may have to decide that if it is a paramilitary operation, that we take the debate to another room and open the doors." At present, those doors are shut tight. with a capitol police officer on guard. The House and Senate committees con- duct all business in private. Under the 1980 law that estab- lished the present procedure, the president must keep the commit- tees "fully and currently in- formed" of all US intelligence ac- tivities as well as provide notice to the committees before covert oper- ations begin. While the committees do not have the power to veto a covert op- eration, "we do have the power of persuasion," Cohen said. "There have been times that an Idea spawned In the dead of night has been made to look awfully foolish in the light of day." Reluctance voiced Committee members expressed extreme reluctance to provide any specific information about what they discuss in their briefings by the CIA. Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010/09/01 : CIA-RDP90-00552R000303560074-5