European Stars And Stripes (Newspaper) - April 8, 1987, Darmstadt, Hesse Pago 10 columns the stars and stripes wed woday april 8,1987 Williams fire us embassies need anti espionage shield every american visitor staying Al a Moscow hotel comes Back with Lite same nary you discover the bathroom has no soap. You say loudly and angrily to nobody in particular whal kind of backward country is this no soap in inc bathroom and a few moment later As if by magic the chambermaid tap sat inc door bearing a bar of soap the bugging of rooms like the knowledge of English by Drivers who profess to speak not a foreign word is taken for granted by americans in in Soviel Union Al the 1972 Summit when the clean room in the . Embassy was occupied by Henry Kissinger and his aides a group of Nixon assistant were forced to hold a strategy cession on Public relations in a Moscow hotel room. Ron Ziegler turned the radio up Seal rallied his Teacup in his Saucer. Herb Klein speaking in a whisper kept banging his tool against the Coffee table. I a supposed to be taking notes at that meeting but could t hear a thing. Coming Back from a Moscow trip Treasury Secre tary George Shutlz look his seat in air Force one signed deeply and remarked How Good it was to be Able to talk in a different kind of society free of the fear of being overheard. I recall thinking bitterly of that moment when the revelations came of the secret Nixon wiretapping and White House taping system now 15 years later Secretary of stale Shutlz will begging to Moscow More worried than Ever about the Security of communications. Our embassy was penetrated by Mala Hori j great granddaughters and Are suspected of infesting not Only the usual chandeliers and Salt shakers but the typewriters and computers. Us. Do Tomato there who used to scoff at de mands by hard liners thai soviet citizens be denied embassy Access Are now reduced to writing messages i longhand. Visitors Are urged to bring a children s toy that enables you to write on a slate and make the message vanish by pulling up the plastic. Shutlz will have to drive out to the Airport to use his plane for secure communications Home unless he can bring a trailer along Wilh an Undene Irald scrambler. Even As this rape of our National privacy lakes place we Are told that the new . Embassy building i already compromised with eavesdropping devices. Sen. Pat Leahy who Wilh sen. Pat Moynihaw led the Long fight to enhance embassy Security suggests we tear the whole thing Down and Start from scratch. Why do we not complain As we did when the rus sians bombarded our embassy with radiation and dusted doorknobs with carcinogens the answer is simple we try 10 eavesdrop on their communications everywhere. That takes some of the Xing out of our moral indignation. Of i see Wel oct but the russians Are More careful than we Are. Soviet construction men built their new embassy in the United states their nationals do All the menial chores with no foreigners employed. What can we do to make Cclain they Are not steal ing More from us than we Are from them retaliation is an obvious answer no opening of he new embassy in the United states until we Are sure of a secure embassy there. The Ess obvious answer has to do with a new strategy of communications Security. For a generation our policy has been to stamp As top secret anything to do with eavesdropping . The result has been a Good offence and a Lousy defense. When i wrote Here thai the russians were using mount Alto to direct listening Ibsen at the White House windows and that the White mouse was attach ing vibrators to the windows to counter this snooping a caller suggested that i had breached Security. That s nonsense the russians can hear our windows rattling just As they could hear the Scali Teacup and the Klein stamping loot. It s about Lime our technical publications began speculating about reasons for weakness in the latest Ami bugging technology. Fear of our anti espionage Laws has not Ted to Security but to suppression of the truth about our weakness. Here we have a non existent defense because behave concentrated on offence. And Here we have an administration that in a related Field has adopted a policy of a space shield which he revolutionized the mad Reliance on offence. Where is he personal defense initiative Why have we neglected the held of resistance to snooping Why can t we put an electronic shield around our embassies and use that technology to let the americans of the future protect themselves from unwanted intrusion from any Quarter Tom Wicker Congress seeking remedy to Covert schemes Ever since world War ii presi dents have been using Covert opera Lions to pursue political Aims that they did not want to admit often with con sequences damaging to the United states As Well As to the target nation. Now Congress is considering a Bill which is classically too Little and too late to require presidents to report to con Gressional intelligence committees within 48 hours of authorizing one of these cloak and Dagger schemes. Robert Michel the House Republican Leader says that would put a straitjacket on a future baloney. The Bill would Only require a president to let Congress know what he s doing and object if it wishes. Even a president totally deprived of Covert operations would retain a vast array of Mili tary and other Powers 10 carry out his policies effectively. He might even be belter off to be so restricted considering the historical record president Eisenhower ordered the Cia 10 overthrow the Mossadegh government of Iran in 1953. This famous Victory cleared the Way for inc Shah s Quarter Century of increasing tyranny and led to the Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini s disastrous revolution in 1979, Eisenhower also authorized the Cia in 1954 to overthrow a guatemalan government that his administration with laughable and partly rigged evidence la bleed communist. The resulting Triumph of democracy brought Guate Mala 30 years of military Rule repression and bloodshed ended Only recently by an elected government and it brought the United slates no credit in Central America. President Kennedy had his Bay of pigs . His secret War in Laos Rich Ard Nixon the destabilization of Chile Jimmy Carter is not known to have undertaken such grandiose secret political operations but did suffer the failed mis Sion 10 Rescue american hostages from Tehran Iran. I Lucr in the Short term or the Long All these operations backfired on their perpetrator or his successors. Nor can a operations _ is dents do. Ave Ever advanced . Interests in any significant Way. Ignoring All warning precedents however Ronald Reagan urged on by his guru in conspiracy William Casey succumbed to the charms of operating i secret. He organized and financed one Way or another the Contra in Nicara Gua he covertly supplied Iran with arms while urging the rest of the world not to do so and in the latter Case failed for 10 months to meet the. Legal requirement of timely notification to Congress Reagan brought by exposure of his iranian operation to the lowest Point of his presidency has shown again that Cov Ert operations undertaken on White House authority alone risk More than they can deliver. There Are numerous reasons they presuppose a Small secret action group around he president which May not receive or fully consider dissenting views and sceptical analysis and some of whose members May have a career or ideological stake in a proposed opera lion. Even Mere notification of congressional committees All inc current Bill would require would increase inc Opportunity for such dissent and analysis by critics with no personal commitment to the operation. Members of Congress moreover will have a belter sense of the Public acceptability if any of an operation should it become Public than the bureaucrats spooks and presidential aides who conceived in. If notification of Congress re sults in a leak to the Public the leaker most Likely considers an operation such As Amis to Iran unwarranted or unworkable or both and he May Well be right. Kennedy came to wish that mess leaks had saved him from the Bay of pigs a Covert operation is exposed As is All Loo Likely in this age of information and communication n can damage inc Public s Confidence in a president judgment. And since a Covert operation will almost always Force a president to lie to the american Public As Well As the world its exposure also erodes the Public s Trust in his Trust in a president s Good judgment and integrity however is the essential ingredient in his ability id that s precisely what above All he puts at risk when he turns to secrecy an Covert operations to achieve Aims he can not share Wilh the nation.10 n Yolk Tims him swim
