CIA SOUGHT HIS NEWS SOURCES, ANDERSON SAYS

The CIA made a “crude attempt” to intimidate Jack Anderson into revealing confidential sources for a story about agency drug smuggling, the syndicated columnist told The Times Thursday.

The Central Intelligence Agency denies that it tried to intimidate Anderson. Patti Volz, an agency spokeswoman, said that a Dec. 26 letter from a high-ranking agency official to the columnist was only an effort to have Anderson substantiate published charges that the CIA is “involved in something blatantly illegal.”

Anderson’s exchange with the agency marks the second reported effort by the CIA to challenge critical news reports of its involvement with the bankrupt Honolulu investment firm of Bishop, Baldwin, Rewald, Dillingham and Wong.

The agency has openly challenged ABC News’ reporting of the Bishop, Baldwin story, and last November filed a formal complaint against the network with the Federal Communications Commission. ABC retracted a portion of its story, and, on Thursday, the FCC staff dismissed the CIA’s complaint against the network.

Mockingly, Anderson responded to the CIA’s letter with an offer to share his sources with the agency if the agency would agree to share its sources with him.

“I think the letter smacks of intimidation,” Anderson said in a telephone interview this week, “but it’s not going to be successful.”

Much of ABC’s, Anderson’s and other reporting about the Honolulu company has centered on the allegations of illegal CIA arms shipments to foreign countries, efforts to destabilize the economies of a number of countries and an alleged agency plot to murder an American citizen.

The request for Anderson’s information came from CIA Director of Public Affairs George V. Lauder in a letter to the columnist. Lauder’s letter was a response to an Anderson article that ran Dec. 26 in the Washington Post and other newspapers.

Lauder requested that Anderson turn over his information to the CIA’s inspector general, the Justice Department and a congressional intelligence oversight committee. Copies of the letter were sent to the Justice Department and congressional officials as well as to Benjamin C. Bradlee, executive editor of the Post.

According to a copy of the Lauder letter read to The Times, Lauder wrote to Anderson: “You should have no trouble making the information available. If no such evidence is forthcoming, we will assume that you have none.”

“The letter speaks for itself,” the CIA’s Volz said Thursday. “This isn’t a question of intimidation. If he (Anderson) has evidence of us being involved in something blatantly illegal, then he should report that (to appropriate authorities).”

In the column, Anderson quoted Honolulu investment counselor Ronald R. Rewald telling confidantes that he was asked to take part in a CIA-sponsored drug-smuggling operation. Rewald is under federal indictment for allegedly defrauding about 400 persons of about $22 million. Rewald has claimed that his firm was a front for clandestine CIA operations.

The agency has acknowledged limited involvement with Rewald and the Honolulu firm.

Anderson speculated that Lauder’s letter was an effort to show that Rewald had violated a federal judge’s gag order by talking about national security matters with reporters. Anderson said, however, that Rewald had not been the source of the story.

Anderson formally responded to the CIA’s letter with a brief note written Wednesday. “I have your letter of Dec. 26, 1984, requesting my sources. I would be happy to exchange sources with the CIA at any time,” Anderson’s note said in its entirety.

Anderson also said that he planned an article on the letter in about a week. Anderson estimated that he and associates Dale Van Atta and Indy Badhwar had written at least a dozen articles relating to the Bishop, Baldwin case. None, Anderson said, had elicited a response from the CIA, such as the Lauder letter.

“I, personally, have not heard from the CIA until this letter on this particular story,” said Anderson, who was the target of an extensive CIA surveillance operation in the 1970s.

“We didn’t identify our sources then, and we’re not going to identify them now,” Anderson said.