Reagan Cuts 11 Members of Spy Advisory Board

President Reagan has dismissed 11 of the 21 non-government members of his Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board, it was reported today.

“It has become clear that the board has grown to a size which makes it difficult to focus intimately and actively on some of the new critical intelligence problems we will have to address. I intend therefore to reconstitute and streamline the board,” Reagan said in a letter to one of the dismissed board members, the New York Times reported.

One official said the President decided to reduce membership to 14, keeping among others former Secretary of State Henry A. Kissinger, former Atty. Gen. William French Smith and Clare Boothe Luce, the former ambassador and congresswoman. Four new members will be named shortly, Administration sources said.

Other officials said those remaining on the board also included Anne Armstrong, a former ambassador to Britain and the board’s chairwoman, and former Sen. Howard H. Baker Jr.

Officials said that among those dismissed were Eugene V. Rostow, the former director of Reagan’s Arms Control and Disarmament Agency; Gen. Robert H. Barrow, former commandant of the Marine Corps; Alan Greenspan, the conservative economist; Adm. Thomas H. Moorer, former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff; attorney Edward Bennett Williams, and Harrison H. Schmitt, the former astronaut who was a Republican senator from New Mexico.