Reagan Asks FBI for Report on Probe of Spying on Critics

President Reagan has asked FBI Director William S. Sessions for a full report on the investigation into spying on critics of the Administration’s controversial policy in Central America, the White House announced today.

“He is concerned,” White House spokesman Marlin Fitzwater told reporters, “because there should be no investigation of Americans for their political beliefs.”

The nonprofit Center for Constitutional Rights, describing the contents of 1,320 pages of documents obtained under the Freedom of Information Act, accused the government Wednesday of a campaign “to stifle dissent” between 1981 and 1985.

Amid multiplying promises of congressional inquiries into what the nonprofit center labeled an illegal spy operation, the Justice Department said in an internal memo Thursday that disclosure of the surveillance had little to do with the FBI and “a great deal to do with Washington politics.”

‘So He’d Understand’

Sessions and Atty. Gen. Edwin Meese III discussed the matter Thursday with White House chief of staff Howard H. Baker Jr. and White House legal counsel A. B. Culvahouse, along with FBI Executive Assistant Director Oliver (Buck) Revell.

Revell said the meeting was called “simply so the President would understand the basis of the investigation.”

Asked whether Reagan had been aware of the FBI operation said to have disseminated thousands of photographs of people at rallies, spied on college campuses and created files on scores of organizations and their members, he said: “I don’t know what the President knew. But the attorney general knew.”

Asked today if Reagan had been aware of the surveillance, Fitzwater said, “No one in the White House or (National Security Council) had any involvement, connection or knowledge. . . . “

Report Requested

Meese has said he had requested a report on the matter from Sessions.

Meese said that he had already received reports on the inquiry from the FBI and that this one “will be an update to see what if anything of the allegations are true, and then will indicate to what extent follow-up action will be needed, either by the bureau or by the department.”

But a one-page Justice Department memorandum made it appear that the matter had been decided. “The fact that (the investigation) received so much attention in the national media is a function of a carefully orchestrated publicity campaign by the CCR, which planted the story in a sympathetic newspaper (the Boston Globe), and followed in a matter of hours with news conferences in cities throughout the country.

“This campaign actually has little or nothing to do with the FBI and its investigation. It has a great deal to do with Washington politics,” the department memo said.

Support of Terrorists

Revell, who has testified several times in Congress about the investigation, said it was “founded on substantial information from overseas” that some groups may have committed crimes, including “the allegation of supporting a terrorist movement in El Salvador.”

The FBI director at the time was William H. Webster, now head of the CIA.

The ranking members of the Senate Intelligence Committee promised in a letter to Sessions that the panel plans a “full review” and they are “concerned about the possible misuse of FBI resources in CISPES (Committee in Support of the People of El Salvador) investigation or other similar investigations.”