From ............ HUMAN QUEST

Sept.Oct 1996 ............page 21

CIA's RIGHT TO USE US CHURCH WORKERS AS INFORMANTS ?

The question of whether the US CIA [Central Intelligence Agency] should be allowed to use American church workers abroad as informants, hotly debated during arguments about the agency in the 1970s, has again become a controversial issue. Church leaders across a broad spectrum of denominations have expressed alarm at the refusal of the CIA to renounce the idea absolutely.

"As long as there is any reason to suspect that religious workers may be agents of Lhe US government, the lives and safety of these servants of the public good are in jeopardy," an official from the US National Council of Churches [NCC] said at a Senate Intelligence Committee hearing in Washington.

CIA Director John M. Deutch insisted at the Senate hearing that it was "unreasonable to foreclose the use of any likely source of information" when faced with such challenges as the holding of hostages or terrorist threats.

[ENI] -END QUOTE-

'The Human Quest' [semi-monthly magazine] Pub.by The Churchman Associates, Inc. 1074-23rd Ave. N. St.Petersburg, FL 3704