CIA Director George Bush, agreeing partially to the urgings of Senator Mark O. Hatfield, has informed him that the CIA will not take any initiative abroad requesting voluntary foreign intelligence information from American clergy and missionaries.
CIA policy, however, will continue to allow such initiatives to be taken with American missionaries and clergy when they are in this country, as well as accept information freely volunteered to the CIA by them at any place.
The policy does not apply, however, to the CIA’s use of pastors or missionaries from other countries. But American employees of religious relief organizations have been included in its scope.
In the wake of these developments, Senator Hatfield will not push the original legislation he introduced last year to totally ban the CIA’s use of all clergy and missionaries for intelligence or operational purposes.
Last fall Hatfield had urged the Ford Administration to implement such a ban; former CIA director William Colby refused to do so, and Ford’s White House Counsel Philip Buchen described missionaries as “valuable sources of intelligence” (see January Sojourners).
Since that time, several mission boards have adopted policy statements prohibiting or advising against any contact between their missionaries and the CIA, and many have communicated their deep concern over its position and CIA activities in this area. Evangelical writer Joe Bayly recently proposed that U.S. foreign missionary agencies dismiss any staff person who has contact with the CIA and ban all such contact as a strict matter of policy.
Last February George Bush issued a statement disclaiming any “contractual” relationship with any American clergyman or missionary, but allowing their continued use as intelligence sources (see March Sojourners). Bush’s statement seemed to mark no major recent change of policy concerning relationships with missionaries and clergy.
Senator Frank Church’s Select Committee on Intelligence Activities, in their recently issued final report, stated that the CIA has been involved in covert arrangements with clergy or missionaries involving the “direct operational use of 21 individuals.” The report stated that four of these relationships were still current as of August 1975, being used primarily for intelligence collection.
Past relationships now terminated, according to the Committee, included the payment of salaries and funds to religious personnel and their activities involving them in “covert action projects.” One recent case mentioned was the CIA’s use of an American priest as “an informant on student and religious dissidence.”
Another case discussed in detail by the report was the use of a pastor in a third world country “as a ‘principal agent’ to carry our covert action projects, and as a spotter, assessor, asset developer, and recruiter. He collected information on political developments and on personalities. He passed CIA propaganda to the local press ... the pastor’s analyses were based on his long-term friendships with the personalities, and the agents under him were well known to him in his professional life.” For over 10 years the CIA paid this pastor a salary as high as $11,414 a year.
The Select Committee report concluded by recommending that the announced CIA policy of February 11 be established by law, banning the “operational use” of American clergy and missionaries by the CIA. There is a distinction, however, between the use of missionaries in such a “contractual” manner and the continued reliance on them as periodic intelligence sources.
Hatfield wrote Bush after his February statement asking several questions that attempted to clarify the specifics of the CIA’s policy. Bush’s reply on April 6, 1976, besides restating his February 11 policy, went on to add: “The CIA will continue to welcome information volunteered by American clergymen or missionaries. If, in the determination of a senior Agency official, such individuals might possess important foreign intelligence information, the Agency might initiate contact so as to afford an opportunity for channeling this information to the Government.” His letter also stated that this policy would not include “American employees of religious or church-related organizations who are not members of the clergy or missionaries,” and that it applied only to Americans, not to foreign clergy.
That prompted a meeting between Hatfield and Bush. Objections raised by Senator Hatfield included that the policy would still allow for the CIA’s initiating of contact with missionaries for intelligence information, and that the broader policy prohibiting “contractual relationships did not apply to employees of such groups as World Vision or Catholic Relief Services who were not defined as missionaries or members of the clergy.
Following their discussion, Bush responded by letter on April 12 which altered his earlier position by stating:
“In regard to CIA initiatives to request an American clergyman or missionary to supply foreign intelligence information on a voluntary basis, I shall provide in our implementing regulations that CIA will not take any such initiative abroad.”
The implementing regulations referred to are those which carry out the specifics of Bush’s announced policy of February 11, 1976. They were issued after Bush’s letter of April 12 and contained this changed position.
Responding to Hatfield’s other concern, Bush replied that he would not construct a narrow definition of who was a missionary, but include anyone abroad sent “to preach, teach, heal, proselyte.” Again altering his earlier position, Bush stated that CIA policy would include “Americans performing similar work for organizations which are technically not controlled by denomination or inter-denominational church bodies ... provided their ultimate sponsorship comes from religious organizations.”
With these changes in CIA policy, Hatfield informed Bush in early May that he would not proceed with his proposed legislation even though its intent of a total ban on the CIA’s use of all missionaries and clergy had yet to be achieved. The current congressional climate has become wary of substantive efforts to reform CIA practices. Hatfield concluded that gaining these partial concessions from Bush offered more promise than attempting to overcome Congressional indifference and Administrative opposition in order to pass his entire legislative proposal.
The issue of the CIA’s relationship to the church is by no means settled, however. Though ruling out the use of American missionaries through regularized, specific arrangements, and refraining from initiating contact with them abroad, the CIA has not given up their potential use of American missionaries as intelligence sources, including the contacting of returning missionaries for these purposes. This places the responsibility clearly on the churches for preventing their manipulation by the CIA for nationalistic purposes.
While focusing on the integrity of American missionaries, however, nothing has curtailed the CIA from its unrestrained use of indigenous church pastors or leaders from other countries throughout the world. Bush’s public statements and private clarifications to Hatfield leave such activities virtually unhampered.
The CIA intelligence collecting and covert action abroad depend in large measure on the use of foreign nationals who are agents or sympathizers. Nothing would prevent the CIA, for instance, from paying a right-wing Korean pastor to give intelligence information about Korean Christians opposed to the Park regime, or from funneling covert funds and support to Italian Catholic priests working against the election of left-wing candidates.
Thus, while the American church may be gaining partial insulation against the attempted intrusion of the CIA into its mission, nothing curtails the CIA’s potential forays into the church universal. Clearly, this is the most crucial area of continued focus in guarding against the CIA manipulation of the body of Christ for the purposes of American power and self-interest.
In the final analysis, the burden must fall on the church, rather than the government, for maintaining the purity of the gospel and holding firm allegiance to God’s kingdom, which dethrones the claims and ambitions of any earthly empire.
Wes Michaelson was on the editorial staff at Sojourners when this article appeared.
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