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MORI DocID: 1451843

CONFIDENTIAL

8 May 1973

MEMORANDUM FOR:    Mr. W. E. Colby
                   Executive Secretary, CIA Management Committee

FROM              :    Director, National Estimates

SUBJECT           :    Comments on Proposed DCI Statement (Hunt Case)

Since you are aware that I have no facts bearing on the case, I
take it that you asked for comment from the following point of view:
will the proposed statement be well received by the committee?

The main questions in the committee's mind will be: Did CIA
cooperate wittingly in activities which were both illegal and outside its
charter? Or did it only respond supinely to higher authority even though
it had some reason for suspecting illegal conduct?

Tactically, I think there would be advantage in coming to grips
frankly with these questions in the statement itself. The text in its
present form could be taken as a minimum factual response which doesn't
quite get at the heart of the matter. I think it preferable, in the interest
of the Agency's reputation on the Hill, to proceed to candor directly rather
than to be drawn to it by subsequent questioning.

Key follow-up questions which can be anticipated would include
the following:

Why is there no record of the initial Ehrlichman-Cushman contact?

If Cushman recorded the conversation with Hunt, was he not already
suspicious of the latter's purpose and why didn't he ask? At a
minimum, could he not have inquired whether "the individual whose
ideology we aren't entirely sure of" was an American citizen?

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CONFIDENTIAL

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