[Congressional Record Volume 142, Number 80 (Tuesday, June 4, 1996)]
[Senate]
[Pages S5775-S5776]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




         REPORT ON THE DEFENSE INVESTIGATIVE SERVICE MEMORANDUM

 Mr. MOYNIHAN. Mr. President, for over a year I have served as 
the Chairman of the Commission on Protecting and Reducing Government 
Secrecy. Among the Commission's concerns is the often corrupting nature 
of secrets. Undocumented allegations, sweeping generalizations, 
personal biases, and outright lies can all be wrapped in the protective 
cloak of secrecy and receive a level of credibility that they would 
quickly lose if their documentation and sources were subject to public 
scrutiny. In addition to the problem of formal classification, the 
Commission has witnessed examples of instances in which unclassified 
information gathered from open sources is given greater weight by 
restricting the distribution of such information to those who hold 
security clearances. We were recently witness to an example of this 
phenomenon.
  In October, 1995, a counterintelligence profile by the Defense 
Investigative Service of the Defense Department was sent to 250 leading 
defense contractors warning of the danger posed by the State of Israel. 
Israel, the reader was warned, is a ``nontraditional adversary'' with a 
proven history of aggressive espionage against the United States, 
utilizing the strong ethnic ties to Israel present in the United States 
and the skilled exploitation of selective employment opportunities to 
infiltrate American industry.
  These are serious allegations. They are substantiated with a reading 
list of three leading daily newspapers and four recent best-selling 
books about Israeli espionage. No specific citations, no references to 
pages, or even issues of the newspapers. No attempt to link the 
explosive statements in the memorandum to the list of sources that 
follow.
  Before entering the Senate, I taught at both Syracuse and Harvard 
Universities. Had I received a term paper from a college freshman with 
such inadequate documentation I would have returned it without 
bothering to read the material.
  But add the magic words counterintelligence profile and send it out 
on a computer from the Defense Investigative Service and for 3 long 
months these ugly allegations festered unchallenged. For 3 long months 
none of the 250 defense contractors who had received this document 
raised a question in public. After all, who wanted to betray the 
contents of a Defense Department counterintelligence profile, albeit 
one adorned with a notation that the document did ``not necessarily 
represent the views of the Defense Investigative Service or the 
Department of Defense?'' Certainly not a defense contractor concerned 
that such action might raise suspicions of involvement in the pro-
Israel cabal. Incidently, the very word ``cabal'' has its roots in the 
medieval suggestion that Jewish sages--students of the Cabala--were 
planning to subvert established European regimes.
  The silence that greeted this outrageous memorandum is hardly the 
first time that people who knew better have been quiet in the face of 
similar ugly allegations.
  A century ago the Czar's secret police crafted their own 
counterintelligence profile in response to the world's outrage at the 
government-sanctioned pogroms against Russian Jews. This document, the 
infamous Protocols of the Elders of Zion, purported to be proof of the 
international Jewish conspiracy bent on world dominance. After the 
First World War, the Protocols were translated into numerous languages 
and became popular in nativist and anti-Semitic circles in this 
country. Virtually everyone knew the Protocols were an ugly lie. But 
for much too long almost no one had the courage to say so in a clear 
and unambiguous voice.
  The damage done by the Defense Investigative Service memorandum was 
real and the questions it raised could not be ignored. The loyalties 
and integrity of millions of American citizens

[[Page S5776]]

have been questioned in a report prepared at Government expense and 
released, in a manner which suggested it carried the authority of the 
Department of Defense, to a select group of corporations who were 
advised to be cautious about employees with strong ethnic ties to 
Israel.
  When I learned of this memorandum in January, I spoke to Under 
Secretary of Defense John White to say that we need to have an 
affirmative statement of what the policy of the Department of Defense 
is. Which is to say that Israel is most assuredly not a nontraditional 
adversary and that defense contractors are in no way to consider ethnic 
origins in their employment practices. I subsequently met with Michael 
Waguespack, Director of the National Counterintelligence Center, and 
with John F. Donnelly, then the Director of the Defense Investigative 
Service. Both appreciated the implications and lessons of this 
incident. One hopes that no group of Americans, and no foreign country, 
ever has to endure similar allegations.

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