January 27, 1975
Page 1428
Mr. MUSKIE. Mr. President, the resolution before the Senate is the product of long and thoughtful concern over the role of intelligence agencies in a democratic society. Nearly 20 years ago, the distinguished majority leader urged the Senate to adopt a related measure to exercise its responsibility for the activities of our Nation's intelligence community.
Since the adoption of the National Security Act, there have been more than 200 attempts to establish separate and broadly based intelligence oversight committees for the Congress.
Today, with the leadership of the distinguished senior Senator from Rhode Island and the esteemed majority leader, and the many other Members of this body who have labored for this change, we can take a vitally significant step by the creation of a Senate Select Committee to Study Government Operations with Respect to Intelligence Activities.
This select committee is similar in many respects to a proposal offered by Senators MANSFIELD and MATHIAS which was referred to the Committee on Government Operations. The Subcommittee on Intergovernmental Relations, which I chair, held hearings on December 9 and 10 on that and other proposals to strengthen congressional oversight of intelligence activities.
While we will continue to explore the long-range congressional needs for a more permanent oversight mechanism, it is essential that we have a select committee study what has gone before us and to measure past activities of our intelligence agencies against the laws which authorized them.
For many years now we have been given constant assurances by the Central Intelligence Agency and other intelligence agencies that they have been forthcoming to the Congress through the appropriate channels such as the present oversight committees. Unfortunately, events of the past few years, and more particularly of the past few weeks, appear to suggest that there is an instinct on the part of these agencies to withhold information from the Congress to protect themselves.
In the past, proposals from the Congress, from scholars and from Presidential task forces have been met with little more than indifference. Certainly public opinion and opinion in the Congress have changed.
In recent years we have seen alarming evidence that the FBI has spied on Congressmen and on domestic political groups. The President has acknowledged that the CIA mistakenly became involved in domestic surveillance. We have had evidence of military agents spying on civilians on behalf of an agency created by Department of Defense directive. The list goes on.
The creation of a select committee to explore these allegations and activities as well as the overall activities and responsibilities of the entire intelligence community represents an objective response by the Senate to difficult and complex circumstances. It is not a call for a witch hunt. It is an assumption of responsibility.
This is an undertaking of the greatest importance. It is one which has the strong support of most of the Members of this body.
It is essential that this select committee begin now to obtain answers to the many questions which have been raised in the short run about the recent disclosures and allegations and in the long run about the authority and functions of all of our intelligence gathering agencies.
The committee should address the question of how we can balance vital national security needs with the public's right to how what its Government is doing and why.
If the events of the past 2 years are to provide the momentum to help fashion any changes in the way we conduct our Government, they should at the very least underscore the necessity for public accountability – in this case, accountability to the Congress for the proper and judicious administration of intelligence gathering agencies and the assurance that those activities are subject to the restraint of law as they impinge upon the free exercise of our constitutional rights.
If the select committee is to carry out this mandate, it must not be impeded in any way in its investigations.
The committee should explore still unanswered questions about the use of intelligence agencies in the Watergate incident and any other instances where agencies exceeded their authority.
The committee should examine the existing laws and procedures for review of their implementation and recommend necessary changes.
Finally, the work of the committee should serve as a basis for restoring public confidence in the integrity and quality of our intelligence agencies.
In the December hearings before the Intergovernmental Relations Subcommittee, Senator BAKER testified that as a member of the Senate Select Committee on Presidential Campaign Activities he was told at one point in his investigation that the CIA would supply no further information to the Watergate committee but instead would supply all of the information to their regular oversight committees. Senator BAKER went on to say:
That effectively ended the Watergate Committee's inquiry into CIA involvement.
Based on the explanation by Senator MANSFIELD and Senator PASTORE on the day Senate Resolution 21 was introduced, there should be no question about the right and the authority of this committee and its staff to obtain any information which in any way affects or relates to the intelligence activities of the Government.
As the able majority leader stated so well:
. . . It should be made clear that this committee will only be able to perform its function effectively if the provisions of this resolution are liberally construed by committees and by the agencies which are the subjects of its investigation.
Nothing should be able to be used as a bar to a thorough investigation – neither the system for classifying national secrets nor the provisions of the National Security Act itself.
I am confident that the members of this committee will use this authority judiciously with the utmost concern for preserving and improving the institutions they are charged to examine.
It has taken us a long time to reach this important point but the effort promises to bring forth fruitful and constructive change.