Industrial spying no task for CIA

0 Comments | Milwaukee Journal, The, Mar 1, 1995

THE US State Department and the French Foreign Ministry are trying to soft-pedal a scandal involving disclosure that the Central Intelligence Agency was conducting industrial espionage against France. There are many twists and turns in this case, but at least two straightforward conclusions can be drawn: The CIA shouldn't be involved in economic spying, and the CIA needs to do some hard thinking about its mission, not only in France but worldwide.

Five Americans the CIA station chief in Paris and four other CIA officials or agents have been accused of offering hundreds of dollars in bribes to at least three high-ranking French officials since 1992 in return for information about France's negotiating position on trade issues.

The Americans have been asked to leave France, according to reports leaked to the French press. Both governments are using highly diplomatic language to defend themselves against charges of impropriety, and both are trying to prevent this case from turning into a major scandal.

Try as they might, there is no way to take the smell out of this mess. The CIA was formed to protect America against subversion by the Soviet Union and other foreign adversaries, terrorists and organized criminal gangs. The CIA has no legitimate business conducting economic espionage against France or other US allies, especially if such spying involves illegal acts such as bribery.

Besides their potential for lawbreaking, such acts run enormous political risks that outweigh any temporary economic benefit they may produce. Ordering a halt to such spying ought to be a top priority of Gen. Michael Carns, the new CIA director-designate.

This affaire also raises questions about the CIA's role since its chief adversary, the Soviet Union, has collapsed. If the CIA is no longer in the business of defending America against nuclear-armed adversaries, what is its mission? Has the agency become so addicted to espionage that it can't stop?

These important questions need to be pondered by Carns and by Les Aspin, the former defense secretary and Wisconsin congressman who heads a commission charged with reviewing the CIA's role in the post-Cold War world.

Charting the CIA's future won't be easy, but it is easy to identify at least a few things the agency should not be doing. One of them is conducting economic espionage against this country's trading partners.