Word: pikes
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...number of critics who argue that the investigations have weakened the needed secret agencies. The backlash over the leaks threw the congressional investigators further on the defensive, just as both committees were winding up their probes. The weak and fumbling House committee, headed by zealous New York Congressman Otis Pike, disbanded last week, and Church's Senate panel, which has been less accident-prone, is to wind up by March 1. As a result, the Administration had an opportunity to push its own proposals for reform of U.S. intelligence agencies...
...FORD ADMINISTRATION's self-serving desire to keep the Pike committee report secret, and its extensive use of covert operations to achieve foreign policy objectives, stems from its essential belief that the American public must be prevented from participating in foreign policy decision making, a belief that has guided the conduct of U.S. foreign policy since World War II. The Pike committee report reveals that Kissinger systematically deceived the public on the progress of the SALT agreements. Similarly, Ford and Kissinger claimed that American intervention in Angola was merely a response to massive prior Soviet involvement, while the committee discovered...
...prevent the continuation of the Ford administration's anti-democratic practices, the secret conduct of foreign policy must stop. The House should reverse its previous decision and officially release the rest of the Pike committee report. Acting on the basis of that report, Congress should prevent the CIA from undertaking further actions without scrutiny, and it should also strip the Ford administration of its power to set policy autonomously. These solutions are admittedly incomplete, since Congress is by no means a direct representative of the American people, and has consistently failed to exercise the oversight powers it already possesses...
Tough Standards. Ford insisted he had been doublecrossed. In the House, a dozen Republicans rose to protest the committee's bad faith. North Carolina's James Martin was so furious he sputtered: "Holy mackerel, Mr. Speaker!" The senior Republican on the Pike committee, Robert McClory of Illinois, protested: "What agency do you think will provide us information if it thinks we cannot be trusted...
Many Democrats found that argument persuasive, and the House voted 246 to 124 to require the Pike committee to delete the disputed material before formally issuing its report. The rebuke came too late, since the sensitive information has already been disclosed. The dispute will probably prompt Congress to adopt tougher standards on secrecy than might otherwise have been the case. For example, Tennessee Republican Senator William Brock has sponsored legislation that would punish congressional staff members with fines of up to $100,000 and jail terms of up to 20 years for leaking secret information...