From: bhart@cyberramp.net (Michael Parks)
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First Reports, The Washington Star, 2/12/76

All emphasis is my own..............Michael Parks

CIA HALTING USE OF U.S. REPORTERS AS SECRET AGENTS

   The CIA has officially announced it will no longer hire newsmen working for American 
publications to serve as its eyes and ears around the world.
   It also promised, without identifying them, to phase out those newsmen currently maintaining 
ties to the intelligence agency.  But it will continue to accept information from such sources 
voluntarily.
   The agency’s announcement yesterday was the first time it had acted publicly to close the 
door on seeking out a specific source of intelligence gathering.
   The agency order noted that it also would bar recruitment within the clergy, but that, in 
fact there was no current “secret or paid contractual relationship with any clergyman or 
missionary.”
   The action was taken, senior intelligence officials said, in response to growing criticism of 
the CIA’s use of news media personnel and the buying of information from American newsmen.  
There also have been complaints from religious groups over reports that the CIA once used 
missionaries for intelligence gathering.
   It was the first public action of George Bush, the new CIA director.
   In 1967, President Lyndon Johnson barred the CIA from secretly funding private American 
voluntary organizations.  The agency was prohibited from recruiting agents from members of the 
Peace Corps by an executive order.
   In 1973, then-CIA director William Colby halted the secret retaining of five full-time 
journalists with major American publications and they were phased out by 1974, Colby publicly 
confirmed this year.
   But Bush’s order goes far further.  “Effective immediately,” a statement issued by the 
director’s office said, the “CIA will not enter into any paid or contractual relationship with 
any full-time or part-time news correspondent accredited by any U.S. news service, newspaper, 
periodical, radio or television network or station.”
   The CIA statement said that the current news reporters with CIA ties would be phased out of 
the CIA connection “as soon as feasible.”
   It said, however, that the agency would accept information voluntarily offered by members of 
the news media or the clergy.
   A senior intelligence agency official told the New York Times that “less than 20 persons will 
be effected by the order.”  He said the order also would end the practice of sending CIA 
employes abroad under “cover” of being accredited representatives of American news 
organizations.
   The order, another official said, did not bar the CIA from recruiting employes of foreign 
news organizations.
   “It is the agency’s policy not to divulge the names of cooperating Americans.  In this regard 
the CIA will not make public, now or in the future, the names of any cooperating journalists or 
churchmen,” the statement said.
   BUSH’S STATEMENT SAID THE AGENCY DID NOT BELIEVE THAT THE USE OF PEOPLE IN THE NEWS AND 
RELIGION WAS IMPROPER, BUT IT RECOGNIZED THE UNIQUE POSITION OF RELIGION AND PRESS FREEDOM IN 
THE CONSTITUTION AND THAT IT WOULD BAN THE RECRUITMENT “IN ORDER TO AVOID ANY APPEARANCE OF 
IMPROPER USE BY THE AGENCY.....”
   The first strong indication that the CIA had infiltrated the American news media came in 1973 
when Colby disclosed details to the Washington Star about use of ‘stringers’ and five staff 
reporters.  These details were confirmed last month in a report of the House Select Committee on 
Intelligence, WHICH HAS NOT BEEN MADE PUBLIC.
   The CIA has also formally refused to tell the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence the 
names of individual reporters or news organizations.
   DURING THE PAST WEEK, HOWEVER, IT HAS BEEN CHARGED THAT ONE INTELLIGENCE OFFICER POSED AS A 
CBS CORRESPONDENT, THAT ANOTHER CBS CORRESPONDENT SECRETLY FED INFORMATION TO THE CIA AND THAT 
AN ABC CORRESPONDENT IN HONG KONG WAS RECRUITED TO HELP CIA OFFICERS CONTACT A CHINESE COMMUNIST 
OFFICIAL.
   Executives for eight other of the nation’s leading news organizations say the CIA assured 
that none of their reporters were among the full-time journalists said to be doubling as agents 
in 1973.
   However, most of these executives said they were unable to obtain similar assurances about 
CIA contacts with part-time journalists or stringers.
   Executives of the New York Times, the Associated Press, the Wall Street Journal, Time, 
Newsweek, ABC News, and CBS News said in recent interviews with the AP that they had received 
assurances from Colby that no one on their staffs was also on the CIA payroll following the 
November, 1973, story in the Star that revealed the extent of agency contacts with journalists.
   Colby has since acknowledged that he was the source of the story.
   The Washington Post said it had received similar assurances early this year.
   EXECUTIVES OF NBC NEWS COULD NOT RECALL MAKING AN INQUIRY, WHILE EDITORS AT UNITED PRESS 
INTERNATIONAL SAID THE CIA REFUSED TO RESPOND TO ITS INITIAL REQUEST.

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