European Stars and Stripes (Newspaper) - November 16, 1985, Darmstadt, Hesse Page 10 the stars and stripes saturday november 16, 1985 Jim Fain Cia caught with its pants Down in Yurchenko Case if anybody Ever had their pants removed in Macy s window it was the Cia in the Vitaly Yurchenko fiasco. Wilh its usual fixation on the irrelevant Washington revels in a guessing game As to whether the Kab spook suck Rcd us or truly defected and later changed his mind. Actually it does t make that much difference. Either Way the Cia handled the whole thing like Groucho Marx playing James Bond. Fortunately for Cia director William j. Casey president Reagan is notoriously charitable with incompetents. If Reagan had any sense of executive responsibility he d have sent his intelligence chief Back to Wall Street Long before Yurchenko finished his embarrassing press conference. Assume for the Sake of argument that the Guy was a Plant. Then Why did the Agency not Check him out better assume that he was a disillusioned spy in a midlife crisis who came Over Only to be disappointed in love and decide he wanted to go Back. Then Why did the Cia not handle him More effectively both in making him comfortable with defection and in preventing his escape of you say but that s a Tricky Job with All the psychological pressures temperament and other imponderables. Maybe but the Cia has been at this chore for years. They should have Learned something by now. They be dealt with defectors since soon after world War ii Many genuine and a few phonies. The Best known was Yuri Nosenko who came Over in 1964. Counterintelligence chief Lames Jesus Angleton kept Nosenko in solitary confinement for More than two years. Because the Cia later came to feel thai it had been too harsh Nosenko gave useful information and now is a settled Citize Angleton was fired. The Agency s hard liners claimed that action destroyed their coun Toni Diligence capability. Had the Yurchenko affair come on the heels of that Flop Casey might have had an excuse. But he took office five years ago vowing to rebuild the counter Intilli gence system. He s had plenty of time and Money to get the Job done. His mortal flaw with Yurchenko was hubris. He could t resist crowing. Cia people went All Over town leaking news stories about their Triumph. This is the most important Kab defector of All time they said. He s the no. 5 Man in the Kab they spewed details of Yurchenko s having fingered a Cia defector Edward l. Howard and having cleared up the disappearance of a double agent. Yurchenko said later that he was Trou bled by these leaks. A genuine defector which the Cia thought him to be at the time surely would have been dismayed. Such stories would not endear his family to Kab agents Back Home. No intelligence service worthy of its cloak and Dagger Ever is guilty of bragging. Us failures May make head lines but it has to Swallow its Tongue about its victories. That s one of Many reasons the director of the Cia should be a professional not a political appointee. Publicity May be the fuel of politics but it s Poison to intelligence. Casey could t resist. He invited yur Chenko to dinner and ended up in news week Magazine the last place a Cia director should aspire to be. If the Only damage had been a bruised ego in a town choking with overgrown ones the arc d be Little harm. But after this farce can you Sec the next soviet defector to come in out of the cold he won t be Bright enough to Tell us who t buried in Lenin s Tomb. Com new service David Broder Mondale would t give Reagan fhe whip hand its been More than a year since the roof the Slan and 49 states fell on Walter f. Mondale s head. The visible scars the deep rings around the eyes and the cracked voice have disappeared. The Man who sits behind the desk in his Washington Law firm looks a bit plumper and much More rested than the candidate who slowed doggedly ahead 52 weeks ago heading for what he knew would be a thorough beating. No one however recovers quickly from a losing presidential race. Mondale is honest enough to describe his Law practice As Good therapy for his shattered ambitions. And he expresses genuine Relief when a visitor says he would rather talk about current politics and policy than rehash the last Campaign. As it happens Mondale has some interesting thoughts to offer some old some new. As in the Campaign he puts deficit reduction at the top of the Domestic Agenda and he disagrees with the majority of Senate democrats that the Gramm Rudman automatic cutback mechanism is the right Way to go after the deficits. I would have voted against he said thus align ing himself with the 20-Mcmber minority of the demo cratic minority. That approach leaves the damage in specific a but it gives the president the whip hand. He can veto Congress budget. He can veto any tax in crease. Then when he makes his cuts you can t get a two thirds majority in Congress to override him. I m afraid it would allow him to repeal wholesale the programs that he s attacked Mondale s position puts him in agreement with his principal 1984 adversary sen. Gary Hart d colo., for whom he has warm words of personal and political Praise these Days. It puts him at Odds with his fellow Liberal sen. Edward m. Kennedy d-mass., who supported both the Gramm Rudman proposal and the earlier unsuccessful Republican Effort to give president Reagan line item veto authority. Kennedy defended both votes As necessary to strengthen the authority of the presidency and to Deal with deficits. But Mondale won t accept that rationale. The line item veto involves a grievous diminution of Congress constitutional Power Mondale said. And if we gave that Power to this particular president there is no Way we could maintain the programs that we need to keep this a decent society. You just look at the decisions the requests for Revo cation of certain spending programs that Reagan has sent up to Congress and you know what he d do. In my judgment those who support such measures As the line item veto arc endorsing an abdication of congressional the reason that democrats find themselves still on the defensive on the budget deficit Issue Mondale said is that we Haven t made the Case successfully certainly i did t during the Campaign that a tax in crease is necessary to undo the damage. Mondale has not wavered in that analysis however. We have to face the need to Pav our Bills he said. We have to gel the deficit Down it s the source of 80 percent of our Trade problems of our agriculture prob lems of our Industrial problems. I might even make a Deal with the president to accept More regress Ivity in our tax seem in order to get the deficit Down Mondale said. Ideally he would like to see the tax Reform Bill now being fashioned in the House used As a vehicle to close loopholes broaden the tax base on corporations and individuals More revenues through the progressive income tax. But if Reagan s veto threat prevented that he said he would support a value added tax a form of excise or sales tax used in Many european countries a tax on Consumers. As president i never would have accepted a value added tax he said but if it s Nec Essary to get us out of this Radical impasse on the budget that Reagan s policies have created i would despite his Strong rhetoric last year on the Trade Issue Mondale is swinging Back to the More Liberal Trade position he held As a Minnesota senator and a member of the Carter administration. He opposes the textile Bill which went whooping through the House and which faces a Reagan veto if it gets to his desk. He endorses less drastic measures to open foreign markets to us. Goods and curb other countries unfair Trade practices. But he said if the president gets serious about Trade policies and the deficit a lot of the protectionist pressure will relax. If we adopt a defeatist protect most policy As a nation we will be the on these and other topics Mondale is not reticent. But pcs not pressing either. He made one speech to a democratic fund Raiser Early this month and will talk to .7 i relations " november. He sex l is me do mocha candidates in 1986, but Dnn if i pc cab a Camp Ign he done that and he has t forgotten what happened. With Noton Ron Wal Lori Trouf i a 1
