Lie Tests Curbed by Shultz Protest : Administration Drops Plan for Thousands to Take Examinations

The Reagan Administration decided Friday to back down on its plan to require thousands of officials to submit to lie detector examinations as part of a new anti-espionage program, according to a high Administration official.

Earlier President Reagan told reporters he had personally assured Secretary of State George P. Shultz he would not be tested.

Shultz, who on Thursday had heatedly threatened to resign if forced to take the test, met with Reagan at the White House, capping a day of briefings in which White House and State Department spokesmen tried to take the edge off Shultz’s resignation threat.

“Neither one of us are going to,” Reagan said when asked if Shultz would have to take a polygraph test.

A high Administration official, who declined to be identified, later added that the polygraph portion of the new security directive had been scrubbed, except for individuals who are already subject to lie detector tests under existing policy.

Reverts to Existing Policy

The new order will now revert to existing policy on use of lie detectors, a high Administration official said. People applying for employment at the Central Intelligence Agency would be routinely tested, and at other less security-sensitive agencies, it would be up to department heads to decide who should be tested.

Beyond that, the tests would be triggered by a specific investigation, as they are now. “If someone is suspected . . . and we have evidence of it, as we have had in some of these cases, then you have an investigation,” an official said, stressing that “a very small percentage of government or contract employees would be affected.”

Officials originally said polygraph tests would be “random and aperiodic,” meaning any official receiving classified information might be interrogated without warning.

Cast in a New Light

After Shultz publicly registered his objections, first on a network television show and then in a news conference, top officials seemed eager to cast the security sweep in a new light.

Shultz had said in an uncharacteristic display of public anger that he had “grave reservations” about lie-detector tests, and that he would resign “the minute . . . I’m told I’m not trusted.”

White House officials initially tried to shrug off Shultz’s remarks, hoping that once he had vented his anger he would dutifully back the policy, which Reagan had approved on Nov. 1.

But Shultz kept up his fight, and by Friday morning, White House officials were furiously backtracking from the sweeping directive. The Times first disclosed the existence of the new policy last week, and the White House confirmed the report the following day.

Shultz has long objected to polygraph tests, charging that they are unreliable and tend to implicate the innocent and exonerate the guilty. Officials confirmed that he was a constant and vocal critic throughout the planning process that resulted in the security directive.

“We recognize that he feels strongly,” a White House colleague said.

It was only after Shultz made his objections public that he won at least some of the concessions he sought.

“Every one in this government realizes the limitation of polygraphs and the pitfalls of relying solely on polygraphs,” a White House official said, echoing Shultz’s criticism.

Speaking on background, a senior official emphasized the broadened use of polygraph tests had been designed solely to fight espionage, and that it was only part of a National Security Decision Directive (NSDD) that Reagan signed on Nov. 1. “It is one of the tools, and I emphasize one of the tools,” the official said.

New Guidelines Planned

An inter-agency task force, of which Shultz is a member, has 30 days to come up with ways to implement the NSDD, including proposed guidelines on the use of lie-detector tests.

“Nothing is written in blood yet,” a top White House official said, referring to the initial plans to broaden the use of polygraphs.

State Department spokesman Charles Redman said lie-detector tests have been used by the government in espionage cases and special investigations for the last 25 years.

Still, until Reagan’s directive ordered otherwise, their use was relatively minimal. Redman estimated “an average of about a dozen a year” have been ordered.

Times Staff Writer Norman Kempster contributed to this story.