Helms Steps Up Attack on CIA and State Dept.

Sen. Jesse Helms (R-N.C.) escalated his personal war with the American intelligence and diplomatic communities Monday as he petitioned the Justice Department to investigate whether American agents spied on him during a controversial trip he made to Chile last month.

The request follows last week’s charge that someone from Helms’ office leaked sensitive intelligence data to Chile’s right-wing military government, an allegation that led the conservative lawmaker to assert that he was the victim of a smear campaign orchestrated at the top levels of the State Department.

‘Frivolous and False’

In a letter to Atty. Gen. Edwin Meese III, Helms dismissed the allegations against his office about intelligence leaks as “frivolous and false,” but he said that the charges appear to have been based upon private conversations between him or members of his staff and Chilean officials.

Helms asked for an FBI investigation into whether he or the three aides who accompanied him to Chile were the subject of electronic or physical surveillance operations conducted by American agents.

One top Helms aide suggested that Helms’ letter to Meese is only the opening shot in a get-tough campaign with the State Department and CIA, which the senator claims are riddled with left-leaning bureaucrats out to undermine the foreign policy goals of the Reagan Administration.

“As the State Department has drawn first blood in its vicious transformation of the political debate, we now feel no need for any further restraint,” the aide said, asking not to be identified by name. “It is certainly within the senator’s power to drench the State Department in an ocean of blood reaching to the ceiling of the seventh floor (where the top offices are located).”

Helms also asked Meese to look into the source of news leaks about an FBI investigation, requested by the Senate Intelligence Committee, of the charges that his office leaked intelligence to Chile. And he demanded that the CIA and State Department be forced to turn over copies of any intelligence and diplomatic reports they may have about his mission.

“I believe I have a right to know what allegations are being investigated,” wrote Helms.

A spokesman for Meese said that the Justice Department “received the letter and we’re taking a look at it.” The CIA had no comment on Helms’ request.

Helms asserted that overseas surveillance of his party would have been illegal, but there are no laws specifically barring electronic surveillance of Americans. Former President Jimmy Carter issued an executive order severely limiting such activities, but President Reagan issued a subsequent order significantly easing those limits.

In addition, a spokesman for the FBI said that he knew of no special protection from surveillance covering lawmakers. For example, federal agents in the late 1970s used undercover techniques to unearth criminal activities of several congressmen and other officials during the Abscam scandal.

Although Helms says that his run-ins with diplomats are aimed at protecting Reagan’s interests, the White House frequently has defended State Department and CIA officials from attacks by the senator.

Helms, accompanied by three assistants, went to Chile in early July and infuriated the State Department and White House by publicly praising the regime of President Augusto Pinochet and urging the recall of U.S. Ambassador Harry G. Barnes Jr.

Abrams Accused

The feud flared again after it was revealed that the Senate Intelligence Committee had asked the FBI to investigate a leak to Chile--allegedly linked to Helms’ office--that may have compromised an intelligence operation apparently aimed at the Pinochet regime. Helms accused Elliott Abrams, the State Department official in charge of Latin American policy, of concocting false charges against him and triggering the investigation, but State Department officials of the agency have denied the allegation.