ACCESSION
NUMBER:365979
FILE ID:POL204
DATE:11/01/94
TITLE:CONGRESSIONAL REPORT, TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 1 (11/01/94)
1EXT:*94110104.POL
CONGRESSIONAL REPORT, TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 1
(Panel report faults CIA on Ames case) (580)
SENATE REPORT BLAMES WOOLSEY FOR INADEQUATE RESPONSE
CIA Director R. James Woolsey's reprimands of 11 senior managers for their
handling of the Aldrich H. Ames spy case were "seriously inadequate" for a
"disaster of unprecedented proportions," the Senate Intelligence Committee
says.
In a November 1 report on the CIA's handling of the Ames case, the 17-member
committee asserts there was "gross negligence -- both individually and
institutionally" within the CIA's Operations Directorate that enabled Ames
to remain undetected for so long.
The report says the CIA could have caught him earlier if its managers had
been paying adequate attention to signs, such as apparent alcohol abuse,
that indicated he was unfit for his job.
The report calls Woolsey's disciplinary actions against the 11 senior
managers too mild, and it says "many professionals within the intelligence
community" have contacted the committee to express the same view.
It says the CIA inspector general had recommended that 23 current and former
CIA employees be held accountable for the agency's failure to detect Ames'
activities earlier. Woolsey chose to issue letters of reprimand to 11
employees -- seven of whom were retired -- but no one was fired, demoted,
suspended or reassigned.
"If there is not a higher standard of accountability established by
(directors of central intelligence), then a repeat of the Ames tragedy
becomes all the more likely," the report says.
The report also asserts that congressional oversight committees were not
notified "in any meaningful way" of the devastating loss of foreign agents
in 1985-86 that Ames now admits he caused.
By the fall of 1986, several months after Ames began working for the
Kremlin, the CIA was aware that it was suffering a sudden and stunning loss
of foreign agents that could not be explained by known espionage cases, the
report says. "Within a matter of months, virtually its entire stable of
Soviet agents had been imprisoned or executed," the report says.
The report says those in charge of the CIA during the 1986-91 period --
before an intense and focused investigation got underway -- "must
ultimately bear the responsibility" for the lack of an adequate response to
the agent losses. It names former CIA directors William Casey, William
Webster and Robert Gates, as well as former acting director Richard Kerr.
Ames, who was arrested in February and sentenced in April to life in prison,
has admitted that he sold U.S. national security secrets to Moscow for more
than eight years, starting in 1985. He was a 31-year veteran of the spy
agency.
The report stops short of suggesting Woolsey should be removed from his
post. But Senator Howard Metzenbaum, who has previously called for
Woolsey's resignation because of his handling of the Ames case, wrote a
separate note in the committee's report recommending that Woolsey should be
replaced.
Woolsey, speaking in Pittsburgh November 1, defended the agency's response
to the Ames case. While no CIA employees were fired, he said, "there were
four CIA employees, all retired, whose neglect was such that if they were
employed, they would have been dismissed or told to retire."
"I believe my decisions were fair and just. We should put cases and
decisions behind us and move on to the challenges of managing
1ounter-intelligence," he said.
He also noted that most of the Senate panel's recommendations for change
have either been implemented or are being implemented.
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