Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, May 10, 1995 TAG: 9505100083
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-4 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: The New York Times
DATELINE: WASHINGTON LENGTH: Medium
Deutch, the deputy secretary of defense, said ``there will be some changes in the leadership'' of the CIA, but not ``a bloodletting.'' He vowed at his confirmation hearing April 26 to sweep out the current leadership at the troubled agency, and Tuesday's unanimous vote was a clear sign that the Senate wanted Deutch to carry out his promise to change the CIA ``down to the bare bones.''
In a brief floor debate on the nomination, Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Pa., chairman of the Senate intelligence committee, spoke harshly of the CIA's recent problems, which he said had ``eroded the public confidence and trust that is essential for an intelligence apparatus operating in a democracy.''
He said the CIA's troubles had conveyed to the public ``the sense of an intelligence bureaucracy that is not only incapable of meeting our security needs, but instead presents a recurring threat to our nation's credibility and legitimacy overseas through its frequent missteps, miscalculation and mismanagement.''
Specter cited the CIA's ``incompetence and lack of accountability'' in the case of Aldrich Ames, the career CIA officer who spied for Moscow, and the ``impression of culpability in murders'' in the case of a Guatemalan colonel who was a paid CIA agent.
The colonel, Julio Roberto Alpirez, has been linked to the killings of an American innkeeper and a Guatemalan guerrilla married to an American lawyer.
The director of Central Intelligence serves as the chief executive of the CIA and as the chairman of all 12 of the nation's intelligence services, including the National Security Agency, which conducts electronic eavesdropping, and the National Reconnaissance Office, which builds spy satellites.
Specter said Deutch would ``assert the strong and independent leadership that is so desperately needed'' at the CIA.
Specter said he expected Deutch to report to the intelligence committee in June on his progress in reorganizing the nation's intelligence agencies, coordinating espionage operations abroad with federal law-enforcement officials, restructuring the CIA in a way that ``weeds out poor performers'' while creating slots for up-and-coming officers, and other large and complicated tasks.
The vice chairman of the Senate intelligence committee, Bob Kerrey, Democrat of Nebraska, said that ``the heart of John Deutch's task will be to make the CIA more efficient and accountable to the American people.''
by CNB