CASEY ACKNOWLEDGES BACKLOG IN SECURITY RECHECKS FOR INTELLIGENCE WORKERS

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP99-01448R000301220038-0
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 2
• Document Creation Date: December 27, 2016
• Document Release Date: May 21, 2013
• Sequence Number: 38
• Publication Date: May 30, 1986
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

Declassified and Approved For Release 2013/05/21 : CIA-RDP99-01448R000301220038-0
ASSOCIATED PRESS
30 May 1986
CASEY ACKNOWLEDGES BACKLOG IN SECURITY RECHECKS FOR INTELLIGENCE WORKERS
BY MICHAEL J. SNIFFEN
WASHINGTOW
CIA Director William Casev acknowledges that, despite rising intelligence every U.S. intelligence agency he oversees is b hind'' over
schedule in reinvestigating its employees for security risks.
Casey blamed a recent spate of intelligence. leaks on "a breakdown in
di.scipline in the government, primarily. But he said to solve the problem
officials need for news organizations to exercise restraint in pu bli?shin~g
secrets leaked to them, while the government tries to get its own house in
order.
Casey spoke with The Associated Press in a unique joint intervi
headquarters on Thursday. A
ew at CIA
pari with ire .
di rector of the National.SecuritynAgency,handWeCIALtDeputyrDirecaor___
'Gates,: Robe L M.
During the interview, the.officials played down their recent threats of
criminal prosecution against news organizations which print secrets about the
gathering of communications intelligence and even backed off slightly from a
warning they had issued only the night before to reporters covering the
espionage trial of former NSA communications expert Ronald Pelton.
Casey said, "We recognize that the first line of defense is to increase
discipline within government itself, to control the flow of sensitive
information within the government."He was asked whether the U.S. intelligence
agencies he supervises as director of central intelligence, which includes
virtually all of them, were years behind schedule in conducting routine r yew
polygraph tests and background checks of their employees.
I think they're behind schedule, yeah. But it varies haw far, Casey said.
Odom responded: "That's the kind of question I dont want to"pursue."Last
year, the government admitted in federal court that Larry wu-tai Chin, a Chinese
communist spy inside CIA for three decades, had taken only one polygraph
test after he was employed, although CIA tries to redo them every five years.
Chin passed the test, even though he had amassed extensive. personal holdings
that could have been picked up by a reinvestigation.
Nevertheless, Casey said, "We're adding resoures right along. It's a long
process. You've got to train polygraphers. The Pentagon, which trains the
largest number of government polygraph operators, has testified that it can only
manage to conduct 3, 500. additional tests each year. There are 4.3 million
federal employees with access to classified information.
"It's not something we can do overnight," Gates said. But efforts are under
way."Casey said he and Odom had taken extraordinary steps in the last several
weeks to dissuade news organizations from publishing intelligence secrets
because: "Every method we have of obtaining intelligence our agents, our
relationships with other intelligence services, our photographic, our
electronic, our communications capabilities have been damaged. Everyone of
them has been severely damaged by disclosures of sensitive information that lets
our adversaries defeat those capabilities and to literally take them away from
us.
Declassified and Approved For Release 2013/05/21 : CIA-RDP99-01448R000301220038-0
 Declassified and Approved For Release 2013/05/21 : CIA-RDP99-01448R000301220038-0
"This is costing the taxpayers billions and billions of dollars an, mor
importantly, Americans' and our national security are at risk." e
Cas
both said there were agents who had not been heard from after th
eiery and Gates
intelligence-gathering operations had been disclosed in this country. Tht1
declined to provide details.
Complaining that news organizations had unfairly accused the government of
trying to restrict freedom of the press, Gates described what Intelligence
officials were seeking. the
"what we're aster is ... an acceptance of the notion that th media
a responsibility to the country to be careful about these kinds of thin dses tjave
"And second, to convey to you all that when 'g
are trying to stop coming out of the governmenty.. hear these things which we
consult with us. Hopefully if it is a serious problem we can persuadelyouonot to
use it at all. But if you insist on going ahead-::. to try to develo
p
conveying what you want to say that minimizes the damage and the risk to our
sources."The interview came as administration sources, insisting a waanonymity,
described the Justice Department as extremely reluctant to comply withCas y'
recent request that NBC News be prosecuted for reporting that Pelton talc thes
Soviet Union about an expensive technical method of eavesdropping involving the
use of American submarines.
The Justice Department has used the law only against government employees who
spied and never against a news organization, and the sources said Justice
believed it would be very difficult to convict a news organization.
A day earlier, Casey and Odom had cautioned reporters at the Pelton tri
Baltimore "against speculation aria reporting details beyond the informatioal in
actually released at .trial."Legal experts inside ann. outside the government
quickly pointed out that the government had no power to regulate "speculation"
by news organizations.
Although they complained about the criticism of their statement, both Case
and Odom tempered the remarks a bit on Thursday. y
"If I had it to do over again, I might riot use that Nord,"Casey said. "I
Might use 'extrapolation." 'Odom added, "There's nothing in there that says we`,r
going to try to prosecute anybody based on ape-:ulation."White House spokesman
Edward Djerej ian told reporters today, Speculation is a very loose term and in
no way do we mean to imply by the use of speculation prior press censorship or
in any way infringing on the freedom of the press to report information and
events. I do-agree that a better word than speculation could have been
found. "Casey and Odom were asked why in the Pelton trial the government IS
attempting t~ protect information that is widely known to U.S..reporters and
widely belie,ec '_o be known to the Soviet Union such as the wiretapping by
U.S. agents of re-lephones at the Soviet Embassy here.
Odom said the government was faced with the danger of giving up a series
seemingly innocuous pieces of information "fact by fact until you cross throough
the line without ever knowing it, and the accumulation of facts adds up to a new
body of information."
Declassified and Approved For Release 2013/05/21 CIA-RDP99-01448R000301220038-0