Deutch Offers to Give Up Security Clearances

John M. Deutch, the former CIA director who lost his access to agency secrets last summer for violating security rules, volunteered Tuesday to give up his Defense Department industrial security clearances.

Pentagon spokesman Kenneth Bacon said the clearances would be withdrawn.

Meanwhile, the CIA announced late Tuesday that it had asked a presidentially appointed commission that oversees intelligence issues to look into Deutch’s CIA behavior, including reviewing an internal inspector general’s report that criticizes the current agency director, George J. Tenet, for acting too slowly in moving to revoke Deutch’s credentials.

“This is an unprecedented case involving a former director of Central Intelligence and a number of former and current senior agency officials,” Air Force Gen. John A. Gordon, deputy director of the CIA, said in a letter to former Sen. Warren B. Rudman (R-N.H.), the commission chairman. The letter thanked Rudman for looking into the matter.

On Monday, Defense Secretary William S. Cohen said the Pentagon was considering pulling Deutch’s clearances but believed it needed to weigh legal considerations before taking any action against him.

The actions are highly unusual and result from the CIA’s discovery last summer that Deutch had downloaded classified documents into his unsecured home computer, in violation of security rules, while he was head of the agency.

Deutch, a former deputy secretary of Defense, has not been accused of compromising Pentagon or CIA secrets. His industrial security clearances are commonly granted to people working on Defense Department contracts.