CIA’s Probe of Ex-Chief Is Assailed

A presidential advisory panel has harshly criticized the CIA’s internal investigation of its former director, John M. Deutch, who is accused of mishandling top-secret material by storing it on his unsecured home computers, officials said Saturday.

The President’s Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board reviewed the actions taken by CIA officials investigating the case and reported its findings last week to President Clinton, the Senate Intelligence Committee and the CIA, the officials said.

“It’s harsh,” said one official, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

The report generally follows the lines of a report by the spy agency’s inspector general, completed last year but made public earlier this year, the official said. The inspector general’s report concluded that actions taken by some CIA officials caused delays in the Deutch investigation but said no one deliberately impeded it.

The advisory board’s report does not make recommendations, but it has been submitted to CIA Deputy Director General John Gordon, who was expected to take some action next week in response.

Deutch was accused of keeping large volumes of classified material on unsecured computers in his home, a potential violation of federal law. A CIA computer security specialist discovered the material as Deutch was leaving office in December 1996.

The CIA inspector general’s report said the material included information on covert action, top-secret communication intelligence and memos to the president and vice president containing classified information.

Deutch’s home computers were used to connect to the Internet, opening the door for the possibility of a hacker accessing the classified information. There was no evidence of such a breach.

Deutch’s CIA and Pentagon security clearances were suspended and the former CIA director apologized.

“At no time did I intend to violate security rules, and, fortunately, there is no evidence of compromise . . . I very much regret my errors,” he said in February.

Meanwhile, the Justice Department and the FBI have been conducting a criminal investigation of Deutch, with law enforcement officials going over documents and conducting interviews, another official said.

The Justice Department declined to bring any criminal charges against Deutch in April 1999. Atty. Gen. Janet Reno, who was criticized for that decision, decided in February on a review to determine whether Deutch should face criminal charges.

The Senate Intelligence Committee is working on its own report on the handling of the Deutch investigation. Committee Chairman Richard C. Shelby (R-Ala.) has criticized the CIA for not notifying the panel sooner that a Deutch inquiry was underway.

The committee is seeking to require the CIA inspector general to notify congressional oversight committees “immediately” if a former CIA director or any official confirmed by the Senate is the subject of an inspector general’s inquiry or a criminal referral to the Justice Department. The law now applies to a current CIA director or acting director.

The measure is attached to the Intelligence Committee’s version of legislation to fund intelligence activities for fiscal 2001.