CIA recruitment and the church - Central Intelligence Agency

Christian Century, March 13, 1996

RELIGIOUS GROUPS expressed concern February 22 about a loophole in CIA rules that allows the U.S. spy agency to use clergy and missionaries, as well as journalists and Peace Corps workers, for covert work overseas.

The rules forbid the CIA from hiring or establishing any intelligence relationships "with any U.S. clergy or missionary whether or not ordained, who is sent out by a mission or church organization to preach, teach, heal or proselytize." But the Washington Post has reported that a little-noticed provision within those rules allows the CIA director to waive the ban in extraordinary circumstances.

The rules covering CIA recruitment of missionaries were adopted in 1977 after an intense campaign by religious and civil liberties groups. The groups had raised objections to disclosures that the CIA had used clergy, journalists and academics in covert operations. As part of an overall reform of the agency, the CIA adopted similar rules barring employment of journalists and academics in covert operations overseas. CIA Director John Deutch, testifying February 22 before the Senate Select Intelligence Committee, said the ban on the use of reporters would be waived only in cases of "unique and special threats to national security." He was not specifically asked about the clergy loophole, and the CIA did not return a phone call seeking clarification.

Religious groups across the theological spectrum sharply criticized the loophole provision allowing the CIA to establish working relationships with missionaries, contending that such a move could endanger the lives of church workers in politically sensitive situations and undermine efforts at reconciliation and conflict resolution.

Joan Brown Campbell, general secretary of the National Council of Churches, said the 32-denomination agency "continues to take the position that there should be a prohibition on the collaboration between religious personnel and the intelligence community and that this should have the force of law, without loopholes." The NCC has had a policy position since 1980 opposing CIA use of clergy and missionaries. Campbell noted that the NCC is consulting with its member denominations and expects to pursue the matter, including the possibility of a law that would close the loophole.

R. Lawrence Turnipseed, executive director of Church World Service, the NCC's overseas relief and development agency, stressed that the work of missionary and aid agencies depends on building trust relationships with various kinds of groups overseas. "We work in many sensitive situations politically...and our views don't always coincide with the U.S. government's," he said. "Our being able to work and function effectively depends on our colleagues being able to know we are independent."

"Even the possibility for such an occurrence is not only damaging but dangerous for our missionaries in the field," said Richard Cizik, policy analyst in the Washington office of the National Association of Evangelicals. "We don't need our government making it more difficult for our people." The NAE is an umbrella organization of theologically conservative congregations and denominations, many of which send missionaries overseas.

Barry Lynn, executive director of Washington-based Americans United for Separation of Church and State, participated in the 1977 lobbying effort as a staff member of the Washington office of the United Church of Christ. Lynn argued that even the suggestion of a relationship between the CIA and clergy destroys the trust that missionaries work to create. "The loophole [exception to the rule] endangers the life of the missionary, pollutes the clergy-parishioner relationship because it destroys trust and is the ultimate in church-state entanglement," he said. "This compromises efforts at evangelism everywhere."

Several groups, including the Southern Baptist Convention's Foreign Mission Board and World Vision, an evangelical relief agency, pointed out that they have policies forbidding employees from working with intelligence agencies. "The Foreign Mission Board takes the stand that any activity by any of its missionaries with not only the CIA but any intelligence agency would be grounds for immediate dismissal," said Don Kammerdiner, executive vice-president of the Baptist agency. The Southern Baptists have about 4,100 U.S. missionaries overseas. World Vision, which has several hundred Americans overseas at any given time, declared in a statement that it often cooperates with government agencies but "forbids its staff to have any relationship with, or provide information to, any intelligence service or agency. The use of even one missionary to gather intelligence can cast suspicion on all Christian workers, foreign or national."

Journalists are no happier about the loophole than are members of religious groups. Carl Rowan commented in his syndicated column February 28 that "merely by taking this public stance [CIA Director Deutch] has endangered the lives of all U.S. journalists all over the world--even if he never actually recruits any." Rowan criticized Deutch for supporting the provision despite the protests of G. Kelly Hawes, president of the Society of Professional Journalists, and Louis Boccardi, president of the Associated Press.