Mr. PAUL. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the requisite number of words.

Mr. Chairman, I rise in support of this amendment. I understand this amendment originally suggested that we cut 10 percent of this budget. This amendment says we cut 5 percent. This is a very reasonable amount in this time when we are supposed to be working in tight budgets. Of course we can make the argument that rather than spending money on international spying activities that could be better spent here at home, and I think there is a lot to that argument.

But I am pleased with the amendment, and I am very happy that the amendment is brought to the floor because, if nothing else, the 5 percent of savings that we might get if we pass the amendment, we do not know the exact figures so we cannot even make that calculation, it is not going to make or break the budget even though it could be helpful. But the amendment allows us to come to the floor and at least express a concern, and we have heard many of these concerns already. It is just a chance to get on the floor and say to the Congress and to our colleagues, Whoa, let’s slow up a minute, let’s think for a minute what we’re doing and what have we been doing.

It is now accepted that the activities of the CIA is they are proper and something that we have had for a long time, but the CIA is a rather new invention. It is part of the 20th century. It came up after World War II. But it was pointed out earlier that this is not exactly true because we have been dealing with intelligence for a long time, and that is true. But it has always been dealt with in national defense, it was strictly limited, and it was handled by the military. But since World War II, since the time that we have built and tried to run the American empire, we have to have our spy agents out there. Now we have a civilian international spy agency.

I might ask my colleagues really if they would even be inclined to read the Constitution in a strict manner where would they get this authority that we have to go out, have an organization like this that is very poorly followed by the Congress? We know very little in general about what happens when it comes to our Government being involved in overthrow of certain leaders around the world. I would suggest that when the history of the 20th century is written that many of us will not be very proud of the history of the CIA and the involvement that they have been involved in over these many years. I think the activity of the CIA has gone a long way to give America a bad reputation.

This does not mean that we should not have intelligence and we should not be concerned about national defense, but if it were done in a proper manner it would be done without an organization such as the CIA. These very secret clandestine activities of the CIA really is very unbecoming of a free society. It is not generally found in a society which is considered free and open and that the people know what is going on.

It surprised me a little bit to hear it even admitted earlier that some of the activity of the CIA is involved with, business activity that we have to be thinking about business espionage, many of us have made this accusation challenge that, yes, we have the CIA that represents big business in many parts of the world. And I think this is the case. And not only do we have our business interests reaching out to many areas of the world and we have a very internationalistic interventionist foreign policy, we have troops in so many countries, over a hundred countries.

I would really like somebody to get up here today that is knowledgeable; tell me how many countries we have CIA agents in. If we have troops in 100 countries, we may have CIA agents in 200 countries. But I do not know that, and possibly it will be buried someplace, but I am not allowed to come down here and explain it to the American people.

The American people are responsible. They pay the bills. They are the ones who have to fight the wars if we go and do something nonsensical. And was the CIA involved in Vietnam? It certainly was. There was a killing of a leader in Vietnam that escalated that affair which led to war and killing and the death of many young Americans.

So we in the Congress should be more responsible so we can tell the people exactly what is going on, exactly what it is going to cost and exactly what the ramifications are when these agents are dealing in other countries.

I would say that the CIA does not have a very good reputation among many Members of Congress nor among many citizens of this country. They are concerned about it and would like to know a lot more about it.

Is there any chance the CIA could have funding outside of the so-called normal appropriations process? I think there is a very good chance that is possible and that they may well have been involved in drug dealing.

Mr. BROWN of California. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the requisite number of words.

Mr. Chairman, I thought for the last several years that I would stay out of these debates about the CIA, but I am torn to come back and say a few words here.

I had the pleasure of serving on the Committee on Intelligence for a few years, and I finally resigned in disgust because I did not find either that the intelligence was very reliable, and certainly that the rules and regulations with which the process was conducted were utterly asinine.

We have had references here to statements in the newspapers about the level of funding and other things involving the CIA. I, as most Members know, have been involved with the space program for 30-odd years. I thought I knew something about space activities and the kinds of things that the CIA was doing in overhead collection. I was getting my information from scientific journals and some of the researchers who were doing the work on these kinds of collection systems.

I was precluded by the rules with regard to my serving on the Committee on Intelligence from reflecting not what I saw in newspapers but what I saw in scientific journals or scientific reports of various kinds. This is kind of asinine, to classify something that the most informed people have already published. Mr. Chairman, I thought this was something that we really ought to get away from, but I found that my loyalty to the country was questioned if I even brought this up for discussion, in many cases.

Now progress is being made, not very much, but some. The members of the committee are honorable people who are trying to do a better job, and I commend them for it, because it is frequently a thankless task. When I was on the committee, I served under the chairmanship of the gentleman from Indiana, Mr. Lee Hamilton , and the gentleman from Ohio, Mr. Lou Stokes , and they were honorable people, wonderful people who were doing their best for the welfare of this country. Nevertheless, they were constrained by the same rules and practices that I was constrained by to sort of go along with the system.

I remember the time, for example, when we would be invited down to the White House, and Admiral Poindexter, at that time National Security Adviser, and Ollie North would lie through their teeth to us about what was going on. Every time a critical event came up, they would invent some new lie to explain it to us. Mr. Chairman, I did not particularly like that, but I suppose I could understand it.

Actually, the whole intelligence apparatus, or the CIA in particular, and the National Reconnaissance Office, which I suppose we are still precluded from mentioning on the floor because it is classified, are actually a secret army for the President. They do what he says and they kind of protect him in the process, and we saw this occurring over long periods of time.

I am not sure that that really is what we need from an intelligence agency. We do need intelligence, without regard to the fact that the cold war is over. This is a dangerous world and we need intelligence. Going back to the writings of that great Chinese author, Sun Dzu, who wrote with regard to war, about war 2,500 years ago, good intelligence collection was the most important thing that any military commander could have, regardless. It is still true today, that it is essential.

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