CIA Reprimands 6 for Actions in Deutch Investigation

The CIA has disciplined six current and former senior agency officials for mishandling an in-house investigation into the potential compromise of highly classified information by former CIA Director John M. Deutch.

The CIA announced Thursday that Air Force Gen. John A. Gordon, the agency’s deputy director, had issued written and oral reprimands and admonishments to the six this week as a result of a highly critical classified report by the president’s foreign intelligence advisory board.

Critics, including Senate Intelligence Committee chairman Richard C. Shelby (R-Ala.) on Thursday criticized the CIA’s reprimands and rebukes as insufficient. From the start, the case has raised questions about whether the CIA can effectively police itself.

Gordon did not reprimand the current director, George J. Tenet. But in a statement, CIA spokesman Bill Harlow said Tenet recently discussed the report with President Clinton and “acknowledged that he shared in the responsibility for shortcomings” outlined by the board.

Deutch has admitted violating agency security rules by writing and storing thousands of pages of highly classified information on unsecured personal and laptop computers at his home when he led the agency. CIA investigators found the data when Deutch left the CIA in December 1996.

No action was taken against him until last August, when Tenet stripped Deutch of his intelligence security clearances. He has publicly apologized for his actions.

The Justice Department and the FBI launched a criminal investigation of Deutch earlier this month to determine if he should face charges. The move was an about-face for the Justice Department, because Atty. Gen. Janet Reno previously had decided not to prosecute Deutch.

Harlow said the agency had failed to follow normal procedures for “handling and reporting a serious security incident.”

He said the agency should have recommended a further investigation sooner to the Justice Department, and that congressional oversight committees, as well as the Defense Department and National Security Council, should have been notified earlier.

Harlow also said the investigators should have used “more aggressive damage control efforts,” including taking the computers away from Deutch after his actions were discovered, and actually interviewing him.

The CIA statement said Gordon formally reprimanded in writing one current and two former officials. He “formally admonished” in writing two others, including one current employee. He also “orally admonished” a sixth official who still works for the CIA. The agency declined to identify any of the officials.

But intelligence sources said former executive director Nora Slatkin and former CIA general counsel Michael O’Neil had received letters of reprimand for allegedly delaying the investigation. The agency’s former inspector general, Frederick P. Hitz, and Richard Calder, the current deputy director for administration, were also among those who were disciplined.

Roger Spaeder, O’Neil’s lawyer, confirmed that his client had received a written reprimand.

“We sincerely regret and vigorously disagree with Gen. Gordon’s decision to reprimand Mr. O’Neil in connection with the Deutch matter,” Spaeder told Associated Press. “While working at the CIA, Mr. O’Neil at all times conducted himself with the best interests of the agency in mind and in complete good faith.”