Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: WEDNESDAY, November 2, 1994                   TAG: 9411020086
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A-2   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: WASHINGTON                                LENGTH: Medium

SENATE PANEL RIPS CIA

In a report on the CIA's hunt for the Soviet mole and Woolsey's response to the scandal, the Senate Intelligence Committee also asserted 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.

Ames, arrested in February and sentenced in April to life in prison, has admitted 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.

Sen. Dennis DeConcini, D-Ariz., chairman of the committee, said the panel's report ``paints a picture which will come as a shock to most Americans.''

The CIA public affairs office issued a long chronology of steps Woolsey has taken since the Ames case. It said most of the Senate panel's recommendations are reflected in these steps, which include measures to strengthen counterintelligence capabilities.

The Senate report in many ways highlights the same flaws and errors inside the CIA that were noted in a recently declassified report by the CIA inspector general. In a conclusion much stronger than the inspector general's, the 17-member Senate panel said there was ``gross negligence - both individually and institutionally'' in creating and perpetuating an environment let Ames go undetected so long.

The report said those in charge of the CIA during 1986-91, before an intense and focused mole hunt got under way - ``must ultimately bear the responsibility'' for the lack of an adequate response to the 1985 agent losses. It named former CIA directors William Casey, William Webster and Robert Gates, as well as former acting Director Richard Kerr.