‘91 Intelligence Budget Still Targets East Bloc

The Bush Administration’s classified intelligence budget for 1991 calls for a record $30 billion in secret funding and, despite the recent political changes in the East Bloc, more than half of the funds target the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, The Times has learned.

The budget, whose contents are closely guarded, is pending before Congress and is expected to be approved with only a few amendments. However, sources said, its continued emphasis on intelligence gathering in Eastern Europe has ignited a behind-the-scenes debate about the direction and nature of such U.S. efforts in a rapidly changing world.

“It’s a Cold War budget that ignores the new realities,” grumbled one U.S. official close to the debate.

Even critics of Bush Administration foreign policy do not dispute the need for a vigorous U.S. intelligence effort. America’s inability to fully anticipate many of the developments in the Communist world has only deepened support for wide-ranging intelligence gathering to monitor continuing turbulence and change across the globe.

Unlike the $300-billion defense budget from which it is carved, the intelligence spending plan is not being scrutinized for significant reductions. The budget includes proposed funding for the CIA, the ultra-secret National Security Agency and the Pentagon’s Defense Intelligence Agency. At $30 billion, it was described by sources as a moderate increase over this year’s secret funding level.

Nevertheless, a number of officials are voicing concern that the intelligence community should now direct greater attention--and money--to threats not rooted in the East-West rivalry, threats such as the proliferation of chemical and biological weapons, religious-ethnic conflicts in the Third World, Latin America’s frail new democracies and transnational trends such as narcotics and terrorism.

“One of the opportunities that arises with the demise of the Warsaw Pact is the opportunity to address the long-term issues of North-South concerns in Africa and Latin America,” said Rep. Dave McCurdy (D-Okla.), a member of the House Intelligence Committee. “It’s time to start the transition.”

Even staunch supporters of the secret budget have suggested that some shifts are needed, notably toward improving human intelligence-gathering and counterintelligence capabilities downgraded in the 1970s by the Jimmy Carter Administration in favor of high-priced technology such as spy satellites.

“As we move into the twilight zone of a lessened threat of land war in Europe, our dangers are not less, just diffused and possibly from different areas,” said Rep. Henry J. Hyde (R-Ill.), a member of the House Intelligence Committee.

“We may need some reallocation to be done to avoid the gold-plated systems in favor of the nitty-gritty,” Hyde said. “We have so much intelligence from satellites that we can’t even read it all.”

In light of the political upheavals that caught the Bush Administration off-guard, others have called for reexamining the fundamental premises of national security priorities, the subjects of covert and overt operations, and the methods of intelligence collection.

“For the past 40 years, we’ve been in a political war of attrition,” said Roy Godson, a professor of government at Georgetown University and an intelligence specialist. “A long line was drawn, which moved a little but basically held.

“Now there is no danger of one-power domination. And now we’re in a much different war of maneuver where forces and factions are no longer stationery, they’re very fluid,” he added. “This requires much more sophisticated intelligence than we’ve had in the past.”

The Administration’s continued preoccupation with the East Bloc has sparked some pointed questions among lawmakers and analysts, particularly about the need to spy on countries that are undergoing democratic elections and to which the United States has pledged or discussed economic aid.

“What are we doing in Poland? Spying on Walesa? And in Czechoslovakia, spying on Havel?” CIA officials reportedly were asked at a recent hearing on the proposed budget.

Director of Central Intelligence William H. Webster recently conceded that the Soviet KGB has become “less confrontational” and that secret police in East Bloc nations “are in turmoil” as former hard-line regimes have been swept from power.

Even so, the CIA director said in a speech two weeks ago that espionage and counterintelligence are widely recognized in Eastern Europe as “necessary functions.”

“The apparatus for this work is likely to remain in place,” he said. “The intelligence and counterintelligence services may be reorganized and resubordinated to newly elected masters instead of the party bosses, but the work will continue.”

Webster also noted that Warsaw Pact commitments require East European intelligence services to cooperate with the Soviets and that fundamental changes in intelligence missions are not likely while the alliance remains intact.

The methods used to collect intelligence are a second source of debate.

Although the proposed budget calls for elimination of a major satellite program focused primarily on the Soviet Union, critics contend that an even greater reallocation is necessary to improve the nation’s human intelligence-gathering capabilities.

“In the past, at least we knew who our enemies were, and we could use our technology to count their tanks and missiles,” said Godson, the Georgetown University professor. “But now we’re not even sure who our enemies are.

“Distinguishing friend from foe will be one of the key challenges for intelligence in the 1990s,” he said. “And intelligence by machines is not enough to interpret the nuances of change--in the Soviet Union and elsewhere.”

Webster has conceded that human-generated intelligence needs to be enhanced. “While in physical numbers now, we’re about where we were before the major cuts in the late 1970s, the needs have grown,” he said in December.

A third area under scrutiny is the CIA’s covert intelligence program, particularly two longstanding operations that some critics charge are outdated in light of recent world changes.

The first involves the Administration’s request to increase aid to Afghanistan’s moujahedeen rebels to about $315 million, 14 months after the Soviets withdrew their troops from the nation. The U.S. program is supplemented by even larger amounts of U.S.-solicited funds from Saudi Arabia.

CIA assessments, meanwhile, indicate that the Soviets are unlikely to invade Afghanistan again in the near future and that various rebel groups under the moujahedeen umbrella are deeply divided. “We’re throwing money into this program without even knowing what we want out of it,” said a source familiar with the budget.

Also in dispute is a covert operation in Angola. The budget proposes increasing aid to rebel leader Jonas Savimbi’s National Union for the Total Independence of Angola (UNITA) by about $4 million to almost $50 million, despite the Administration’s public pledge to support peace efforts.

In recent closed-door debate, Administration officials conceded that the 50,000 Cuban troops deployed since the mid-1970s to aid the government of Angolan President Jose Eduardo dos Santos are leaving on schedule. They also acknowledged that Secretary of State James A. Baker III had a “good and productive” meeting with Dos Santos in Namibia last month.

The Bush Administration argues, however, that Savimbi needs additional military hardware and other aid to maintain a negotiating edge over the Marxist government.

But some analysts suggest that Bush may be using the intelligence budget to serve his own ends, conceding to right-wing supporters on Savimbi and the moujahedeen in exchange for their backing on other programs.

“I question whether we couldn’t use the proposed increases (in Afghanistan and Angola) for intelligence in other parts of the world that may present future dangers. As it is, we’re living in the past,” said a source familiar with the budget debate.

A fourth concern is the nation’s counterintelligence capability, which re-emerged as an issue in the mid-1980s and led to the expansion last year of the Counterintelligence Center based at the CIA.

Since that time, however, the United States has been embarrassed by two major counterintelligence failures.

Last year, senior U.S. diplomat Felix S. Bloch was followed for months and later dismissed from the State Department after being suspected of providing intelligence to the Soviet Union for several years. And U.S. Army Sgt. Clyde Lee Conrad was charged last year with stealing top-secret NATO war plans for Hungary and Czechoslovakia dating back to 1975.

Both critics and supporters of the budget are also calling for greater attention in the 1990s to a comparatively new area--economic intelligence.

“As the arms race is winding down, the spy race is heating up,” Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman David L. Boren (D-Okla.) said in a National Press Club speech last week.

“And where is the growth area in this espionage activity? An increasing share of the espionage directed against the United States comes from spying against private American companies, aimed at stealing commercial secrets to gain an economic advantage, as opposed to the theft of military secrets to build military strengths in other countries,” Boren said.

Last month, Webster acknowledged: “In the 1990s, as countries focus more on economic competitiveness, what will be sought is sensitive information that will give a country a competitive edge.”

Webster implied that a shift in intelligence priorities could affect traditional U.S. alliances. “Political and military allies are also our economic competitors,” he said.

Ironically, on each of the issues now being scrutinized, the CIA appears to be feeling less heat than the White House and State Department.

Indeed, Webster is widely seen as the first key Administration official to recognize the declining Soviet threat. He has acknowledged publicly that because of Moscow’s economic problems, a land war with the Soviets in Europe would remain unlikely even if President Mikhail S. Gorbachev was replaced by hard-liners.

“In the midst of all this change, we don’t seem to have any direction from either the White House or State,” said an official close to the budget debate.

“Some very important basic decisions need to be made about how intelligence programs support foreign policy,” the official said. “Those are not for the CIA to make. They’re up to State and the President. Opportunities are going to waste all over the world.”