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Show sands of others, all at untold expense to the American taxpayers. These reports were sent back to Ft. Holabird, Md., and Ft. Monroe, Va., where they were computerized and stored. Who in the Lyndon Johnson Administration ordered this indis- criminate espionage of American citizens? Where, why, and how did the program work? Who was responsible for the shameful and stupid practice finally snooping halted by the present Defense Secretary, Melvin Laird? Ervin's attempts years now the Senate's Constitutional that Rights Subcommittee, is headed by Sen. Sam Ervin, has been trying to find out. It has repeatedly asked Secretary Laird and the Defense Department's general counsel, Fred Buzhardt, a protege of and a former assistant to Sen. Strom Thurmond (R., S.C.), to documents and declassify computer printouts involved in the Army's snooping proFor two U.S. "that would justify collection of intelligence on political figures. Army Intelligence simply overreacted. We in the Defense Department were told that they were gathering information from the FBI and local police. We had no reason to believe that they had instituted a whole field network of prowling Army intelligence agents, some of them obviously none too bright. "I have made clear many times," Jordan points out, "that a mistake was made. I thought the whole plan was unnecessary, unproductive and contained very real dangers of violating the First Amendment." Stanley Resor, former Secretary of the Army, says very much the same thing. "We started to tighten up the program when we found out what Army people of excessive zeal were doing and filing in their reports. However, the entire program should be placed in its true perspective. At the time, riots had broken out in several cities: Chicago, Washington, D.C., and Baltimore. There v .s a distinct possibility after the assassination of Martin Luther King that there might be more riots, more disturbances, that Army troops might have to move into as many as 25 cities. Charged with that job, the Army sought information which might be of help to it in the future. Unfortunately Army Intelligence overreacted. I think a good lesson can be learned from that excessive zeal." Declassify gram. Secretary Laird, one of the in the greatest double-talker- s history of government on the subject of overclassification, will not declassify the relevant documents which he has made available to the subcommittee on a classified basis. Neither wili Fred Buzhardt. No names Lawrence M. Baskir, the subcommittee's chief counsel, does not want to reveal the names of the individuals involved in the various Army Intelligence reports. "Such names," he says, "will be blacked out "What we want is to reveal how this intelligence program began and how it went wrong, what lessons we can learn, what legislation might be enacted in the future to protect the people's rights. But Buzhardt and Laird won't let us. It is the same old Pentagon game of cover-up, cover-up.-" Bob Jordan, former Army counsel in the Johnson Administration, agrees that "the surveilArmy Intelligence lance program got out of hand in the late 1960's. "There never were any orders issued by the Secretary of the Army," he explains, Sen. Ervin's subcommittee wants permission to declassify the reports and documents which it has taken them two long years to obtain from the Defense Department To date, neither Laird nor Buzhardt is willing. Buzhardt's reason: "The documents that have been given to Sen. Ervin's committee on a classified basis do not qualify for declassification under existing classification policies." This sort of gobbledygook is nonsense. It is synonymous with the Defense Department's policy of refusing to admit error unless it absolutely must as in the cases of the the My Lai massacre, the post exchange scandal, and others. C-5- Security endangered? Unless Buzhardt and his Melvin Laird, can show that the nahonestly tional security will be endangered if they declassify what Senator Ervin and his committee they request, should inform the American citizenry on how and why Army agents intelligence spied upon so many of them from 1967 to 1970. In this country the people still have a right to know. boss-ma- n, 21 |
