Editing 76-15-A7 (section)

=== Transcript ===
In both houses of the United States Congress the committees and subcommittees
which used to concern themselves with threats to national security by alien
and subversive groups have been closed down. There is, however, a Senate
Committee to ride herd on our intelligence gathering agencies to see that they
operate -- Number One -- lawfully and -- Number Two -- effectively.

In the committee's annual report, 38 of its 40 pages are devoted to what the
committee has done to make sure our agencies operate lawfully.

Senator Daniel Moynihan wrote a dissent to the report, in which he said
the committee made it sound as if the chief threat to our liberties was our
own intelligence apparatus rather than the enemies that apparatus was supposed
to protect us from. In the report there is mention of intelligence activities
in our midst by South Korea, Chile, Iran, Taiwan and the Philippines. Has
something happened we don't know about? Last I heard - all of these countries
were friends and allies. Are we to believe the Russian K.G.B., Cuba and others
among the Communist set aren't doing any snooping?

When I served on the Presidential commission looking into the C.I.A. we
learned the Soviet Union had quadrupled its espionage efforts in the U. S. Can
we hope that in the next annual report the Senate Committee will let us know
how the enemy is doing now that they are so proud of having brought our own
intelligence agencies under control - which means handcuffed?

This all seems part of an attitude in Washington that our liberties will
be safe if we can just keep the F.B.I. and the C.I.A. from doing what they are
supposed to do.

I've spoken on this program about the indictment of former F.B.I. agent
John Kearney by our own Justice Department for using wiretaps, mail openings and
break ins several years ago against the "Weathermen". When Agent Kearney did
these things they had been presumed to be legal for 25 years. Since then a
Supreme Court ruling has changed all that and J. Stanley Pottinger, head of
the Civil Rights Division of the Justice Department, is plunging ahead not
only to get Kearney, but apparently to get others in the Bureau, too. Mr.
Pottinger is being cheered on by columnists of the New York Times and others
who saw nothing wrong with forgiving draft evaders whose crimes were not
presumed to be legal when they committed them, But as one columnist said,
--QUOTE -- "In a free society the police cannot be above the law". -- UNQUOTE --

No one is suggesting they should be . But isn't it time for someone to ask
if we aren't threatened more by the people the F.B.I. and the C.I.A. are watching
than by the F.B.I. and the C.I.A.? In the spring of 1968 there were ten bombings
on college campuses; that fall there were 41. By the next spring the total was
84 on campus and 10 off. In the 1969-70 school year there were almost 200 on
our campuses and in 1970 - in the nation as a whole - some 3000 bombings. That
is more than eight a day. Damage was in the millions of dollars and innocent
people lost their lives.

Can anyone point to any comparable crimes against the citizens of this
country committed by our law enforcement agencies? 

This is Ronald Reagan.

Thanks for listening.
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