Spy Scandals at the CIA

* “We Need Intelligence, Not a Joke CIA” by Richard Reeves (Commentary, Nov. 24) is the kind of reporting that restores one’s faith in the free press.

Since the end of WWII, the CIA has been an untouchable. Every president from Truman forward has been scared to death of it. The agency has grown into a monster that sucks $29 billion annually from the American people and all we have to show for it is the sorry history and record Reeves reported in his article. It is also worth noting that the CIA is the only agency that refuses to answer to Congress on how it spends its money.

Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan of New York has recommended that the CIA be folded into other government intelligence agencies with better performance records. Whether it is Reeves’ suggestion for a high-level, blue-ribbon, bipartisan, public-private-sector commission to reevaluate the CIA or Moynihan’s recommendation to scrap it, this is the time for President Clinton to show more courage than his predecessors by putting an end to this “joke CIA.”

IRVING ZEIGER

Los Angeles