‘Nixon could be subpoenaed’

Press, Volume CXV, Issue 33753, 28 January 1975, Page 15

‘Nixon could be subpoenaed’

(N.Z.P.A.-Reuter—Copyright) WASHINGTON, January 27. The Unitel States Congressional Select Committee on Intelligence Operations would subpoena the former President, Mr Richard Nixon, if necessary, to obtain information about the Central Intelligence Agency’s domestic spying activities, Senator Howard Baker, a Democrat, said last night.

Questioned in the American Broadcasting Corporation’s programme, “Issues and Answers,” Senator Baker said: “If Mr Nixon has information about the intelligence operations of the United States Government, I hope he will come forth voluntarily, but I emphasise that I would be hesitant, and reluctant, to subpoena Nixon, who has fallen so far.” One of the questions the Senate committee would try to answer, Senator Baker said was whether the C.I.A. acted without Mr Nixon’s knowledge in some fields. The Congressional committee, the Senator said, was especially anxious to inquire into the role of the Defence Intelligence Agency, which, he said was little known to the public. The committee would check “60 Government agencies with certain intelligence functions.” “Congress has no real idea what we spend in the intelligence field,” Senator Baker said. “We have no idea what the C.I.A. earns from the companies it owns.” Another Democratic senator maintains that there is “considerable substantiating evidence” that the C.I.A. murdered some of its own agents. Senator Alan Cranston, who was a leader in the efforts to establish a Watergate-type committee to make a full-scale investiga-

tion of the C.I.A. and other intelligence organisations, has cited the alleged murders as part of what he describes as “a dirty-laundry list of activities by the United States’ intelligence community.” He said that a special Senate committee should be appointed to look into them. In an address to a state Democratic committee meeting in Sacramento, California, Senator Cranston said: “There is considerable substantiating evidence that the C.I.A. murdered its own agents who, for one reason or another, it wanted out of the way. “The agency allegedly refers to this latter practice as ‘termination with extreme prejudice.’ This is a ghastly, sick-humour euphemism.” Senator Cranston said that the Senate committee was also likely to look into charges that the C.I.A. “assassinated foreign figures — like the murder of village leaders in the so-called ‘Pro-, ject Phoenix’ in South Vietnam, and the alleged C.I.A. complicity in the shooting of President Ngo Dinh Diem in November. 1963. Senate sources say that Senator Cranston mentioned these matters during the closed meeting of Senate Democrats who, on Monday of last week, voted 45-7 in favour of an investigating committee.