With the nomination of former NSA chief Michael Hayden to be Director of Central Intelligence, we are faced with the prospect of having a serious law breaker going through a heated confirmation process. I feel the need to go back in the time machine to show what the intelligence community did the last time Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld were united in the White House, and to try to make clear how they think and why we cannot trust them to tell the truth about the illegal domestic surveillance program…to us…or even to the President. Back then, the NSA spied on American citizens, too. But that was reserved for electronic surveillance. For good old fashioned snail mail, the CIA took charge. I believe the following testimony will reflect precisely what we are dealing with today: a belief that the enemy (in this case, Islamic terrorists rather than Soviets) could be penetrated more effectively by giving them the false impression that our laws prevented domestic surveillance. And then, further, the abuse of that system to spy on critics of the government.
NSA
On Wednesday September 24, 1975 at approximately 10:00 AM, the Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations with Respect to Intelligence Activities, led by Senator Frank Church of Idaho, swore in veteran CIA man, James Jesus Angleton, and asked him to discuss an illegal mail-opening operation (.pdf) that had spanned more than two decades. Right from the outset, Sen. Church made some startling revelations.
The CHAIRMAN…We will want to know, for example, why the mail of such individuals and organizations in this country as the Ford Foundation, Harvard University, and the Rockefeller Foundation was regularly opened by the CIA. or why the mail coming to or from such individuals as Arthur Burns, Bella Abzug, Jay Rockefeller, Martin Luther King, Jr., Mrs. Martin Luther King, Jr., R,ichard Nixon himself: as well as such Senators as Hubert Humphrey, Edward Kennedv, even the Chairman
of this committee, whose letter to my mother is in the file. should have been regularly opened and scrutinized by the CIA against the laws of
the country. And so today, our objective is not to look at this mail program in great detail, for we will do that later. But it is, rather, to examine the lack of accountability within the Agency a,nd the failure to keep the President of the United States properly-advised of such activities, a
core issue if we are going to reform the mtelligence agencies and law enforcement agencies of the Federal Government and make them
properly responsible and accountable. for their actions to the elected representatives of the people, chief among whom, of course, is the
President himself. Now with that brief introduction to the general topic for the day,
I would like to ask our witness, Mr. Angleton-who, I understand, is represented by counsel-to take the oath. Before I ask you to take the oath, Mr. Angleton, I wonder if your attorney would identify
himself for the record.Mr. BROWN. Yes, Mr. Chairman, my name is John T. Brown, counsel for Mr. Angleton in these proceedings.
The CHAIRMAN. Thank you, Mr. Brown. Mr. Angleton, would you please stand to take the oath? Do you solemnly swear that all the testimony you will give in this proceeding will be the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help you God?
Mr. ANGLETON. I do.
The key testimony that pertains to the current NSA program can be found in an exchange bewteen Angleton and Senator Walter Mondale (soon to become Vice-President). I quote it here at length because it is extremely revelatory [emphasis mine].
Senator MONDALE. All right. What was your understanding of the legality of the covert mail operation?
Mr. ANGLETON. That it was illegal.
Senator MONDALE. It was illegal. Now, you are an attorney?
Mr. ANGLETON. No, I am not, sir.
Senator MONDALE. Well, that might be an asset.
Mr. ANGLETON. That is my cover, Senator.
Senator MONDALE. How do you rationalize conducting a program which you believe to be illegal?
Mr. ANGLETON. To begin with, I was taking it over as an ongoing operation and there was probability that the program, through lack of personnel and funding, would have been scrubbed at some stage.
From the counterintelligence point of view, we believe that it was extremely important to know everything possible regarding contacts
of American citizens with Communist countries.
And second, that we believed that the security of the operation was such that the Soviets were unaware of such a program and therefore that many of the interests that the Soviets would have in the United States, subversive and otherwise, would be through the open mails, when their own adjudication was that the mails could not be
violated.Senator MONDALE. So that a judgment was made, with which you concurred, that although covert mail opening was illegal, the good that flowed from it, in terms of ,the anticipating threats to this country through the use of this counterintelligence technique, made it worthwhile nevertheless.
Mr. ANGLETON. That is correct.
Senator MONDALE. How do you recommend that this committee deal with this profound crisis between political and legal responsibility in government, a nation that believes in the laws, and what you regard to be the counterintelligence imperative of illegal activity? What do we do about it?
Mr. ANGLETON. My own belief has always been that high authority, whether it be on the Hill, the Congress, or in the Executive, needs to examine very closely the counterintelligence content available to this Government regarding its adversaries, and regarding the Soviet
and the Soviet Bloc.To my knowledge, there has never been such an examination. I believe very much in a statement made by Director of the FBI, Mr. Kelley, that it is his firm view, which he expressed in Canada
at a bar association convention, that certain individual rights have to be sacrificed for the national security.Senator MONDALE. Do you believe that national security cannot be protected except through the sacrifice of these rights?
Mr. ANGLETON. I believe that all matters dealing with counterespionage require very sophisticated handling and require considerable latitude.
Senator MONDALE. Who do you think should be empowered to determine which rights should be set aside?
Mr. ANGLETON. I think that, sir, not being an expert in these matters, that it should be a combination of the Executive and the Congress.
Senator MONDALE. How would the Congress express itself? Traditionally, it is through the adoption of laws.
Mr. ANGLETON. I am afraid I do not-
Senator MONDALE. As I understand the progression of this discussion, it is your opinion that this Nation cannot protect itself without setting aside certain personal liberties. Then I asked you, who
would determine what liberties were to be set aside! And you have said it should be a combination of the Executive and the Congress.
Of course, the Congress acts through laws. Are you saying that we should take another look at our laws to see whether they fully meet the needs of national security?Mr. ANGLETON. That is correct.
Senator MONDALE. Would it not have been better then, when these laws were violated in the past, to do just that? Come to the Congress
and say, “in our opinion we cannot defend you under the present laws and, therefore, we make these recommendations for change.” That
was not what was done. Surreptitiously and privately and covertly, legal rights of the American people were violated ; in this case, mail
was opened, without any such approval in the law. Is that correct?Mr. ANGLETON. That is correct.
Senator MONDALE. Do you think that was a correct way to proceed!
Mr. ANGLETON. I think in an ideal world dealing with intelligence, and I have never seen one yet, that these matters should have been brought up vigorously. All through the life span of the CIA, I do not think there was the proper forum here for the airing securely of these matters.
Senator MONDALE. I disagree with you on the question of national security. I think our Constitution provides plenty of power to protect
this country. In any event, I see no authority for anyone in the executive or in the Congress or anywhere else for determining, on his own, that the law is not good enough and therefore taking it into his own hands. I see no way of conducting a civilized, democratic society with those kinds of rules.Now in your system for covert openings, there was prepared a watch list which set forth certain names of organizations and purposes and those names were the trigger for opening mail to or from them which was sent internationally.
Mr. ANGLETON. To the Soviet Union.
Senator MONDALE. To the Soviet Union. The list included Linus Pauling, John Steinbeck, the author, and Victor Reuther of the Auto
Workers. What counterrntelligence objective was it you thought you were achieving in opening the mail of what most of us would assume to be very patriotic, thoughtful, decent Americans?Mr. ANGLETON. Sir, I would prefer, if possible, to respond to that question in executive session.
Senator MONDALE. Well, I would like the answer. The chairman is not here so I think we ought to pass that request up until the chairman
is back.
I hope you will have noted the startling similarities between Angleton’s justifications for a covert mail opening system and this administration’s justification for a covert extrajudicial NSA program to spy on American citizens. Nearly a dozen NSA employees violated their ethos to leak word of this program to James Risen of the New York Times. They would have been unlikely to do if the program were limited to contacts between suspected terrorists and American citizens. It was in response to revelations about illegal domestic surveillance by both the CIA and the NSA disclosed in these 31 year old hearings, that the FISA act was passed in 1978. It is precisely that law that has been flouted and ignored by the Bush administration under the supervision of Gen. Michael Hayden. Their rationale is certainly the same: we would lay a trap for al-qaeda by giving them a false sense of security that they could avoid surveillance within U.S. borders.
But, now as back in 1975, this is a false rationale. The court was set up to provide retroactive warrants. No terrorist would have been correct to have an expectation of immunity from domestic surveillance. Moreover, now as then, there is a high likelihood that the program was abused in order to spy on opponents of the administration (possibily including high-ranking members of the Democratic Party). Lastly, now as then, when it comes time to explain why the list of people that were spyed on included people with no ties to the enemy, they will request to discuss that matter in closed session.
