INTERVIEW WITH JOHN WARNER, GENERAL COUNSEL OF THE CIA
Agency: ROCKCOM
Originator: ROCKEFELLER COMMISSION
From: FILE
To: HARDY, TIMOTHY
Document date: 03/17/1975
Document type: PAPER, TEXTUAL DOCUMENT

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JFK Assassination System

Identification Form

Agency Information

Date:

8/27/201

AGENCY: ROCKCOM

RECORD NUMBER :

178-10002-10095

RECORD SERIES: GELLHORN-CARGILL-HARDY FILES

AGENCY FILE NUMBER : G-C-H (III-B) OFFICE OF THE GENERAL COUNSEL

Document Information

ORIGINATOR: ROCKEFELLER COMMISSION

FROM: HARDY, TIMOTHY

10: FILE

TITLE: INTERVIEW WITH JOHN WARNER, GENERAL COUNSEL OF THE CIA

Released under the John F. Kennedy

issassination Records Collection

Ict of 1992 144 USC 2107 Notel.

'ased:NIT 53244 Date: 06-13-2017

DATE: 03/17/1975

PAGES:

SUBJECTS :

WARNER, JOHN

CIA

ASSASSINATIONS, FOREIGN LEADERS

DOCUMENT TYPE: PAPER, TEXTUAL DOCUMENT

CLASSIFICATION: Secret

RESTRICTIONS: 1C

CURRENT STATUS: Redact

DATE OF LAST REVIEW: 07/01/1993

OPENING CRITERIA:

COMMENTS :

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COMMISSION ON CIA ACTIVITIES WITHIN THE UNITED STATES

Washington, DC 20500

Lil

March 17, 1975

178-10002-10083

178-10002-10095

MEMORANDUM

j/0R

-SECRET

To :

From:

subject:

File:

Timothy Hardy

INTERVIEW WITH JOHN WARNER,

GENERAL COUNSEL OF THE CIA

Mr. Warner was interviewed between 2 p.m. and

3:30 p.m. on March 13, 1975, in his office at the CIA.

I. THE OFFICE OF GENERAL COUNSEL (OGC)

The Office of General Counsel has 14 lawyers.

All the lawyers except for one had been recruited from

within the rest of the CIA organization.

There are a few

other persons in the Agency who handled

legal functions

outside the Office. of General Counsel: one OGC lawyer is.

detailed to logistics, three work in project MuTUAL, and

a lawyer works within the personnel office.

Once a man is

assigned to the OGC, he normally stays there for the rest

of his CIA experience.

Mr. Warner and one other lawyer are

the only men in the office

who have been detailed elsewhere

in the Agency.

The OGC is not divided along directorate

lines.

Some

lawyers have specialties, but they are

functional specialties.

The OGC is required to be consulted in a number

of areas:

(1) it

is consulted on all Section 7 alien

immigration cases; (2) it reviews all procurement contracts;

(3) it approves all administrative plans; (4) it approves

all liquidation plans; and (5) all regulations must be

approved by the OGC.

NSCID's and DCID's,. but there are no requirements for such

reviews.

PHOTOCOPY

FROM

THE GERALD R.

FORD LIBPARY

The OGC has been consulted more regularly on

management decisions within the past couple of years than

was true under previous DCI's.

Mr. Colby consulted the

OGC for guidance on all the directions that went out after

TH : clb

CC :

Mr. Belin

Mr. Gray

Mr. Gellhorn

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collection of the Family Jewels. Mr. Colby has an under-

standing of law because he went to law school, but he has

told Warner

a number of times not to let him practice law.

There is no OGC regulation which requires operational units

to consult it on

Mx. Warner

now feels such a regulation might be superfluous

because he is so often questioned in the current climate.

This was not the case five years ago.

Mr. Warner is of the

opinion that an official regulation saying what sort of

activities should be cleared through OGC might lead to less

checking, rather than more.

The OGC maintains bound copies of all its legal

opinions back through OSS days. They have been indexed

since 1966.

The OGC staff is now collecting all relevant

legal opinions for the Commission.

The Commission should

receive them next week.

The OGC staff is not finding much

on activities that had questionable propriety.

II. THE LEGISLATIVE HISTORY OF THE CIA ACTIONS

Mr. Warner was in the Office of General Counsel

in OSS.

He stayed on to work with the CIG and then on the

legal staff of the CIA. He and Mr. Houston were 'in separate

offices. Warner worked on the 1949 Act; Houston, on the

1947 Act.

Originally, Mr. Warner was involved in the

drafting of a comprehensive bill to be presented to Congress

in 1947.

This bill would have included the provisions which

were eventually included in both the 1947 and 1949 Acts.

The detailed bill was dropped out of the 1947 National

Security Act because White House officials felt that it

would interfere with the more important objective of

unifying the armed forces.

Mr. Warner suggests that the Commission talk to

Walter Pforzheimer. He was the legislative liaison for the

CIG.

He is retired and now lives in Washington.

Mr. Warner would guess that the original Donovan

plan for the CIA to conduct "subversive operations" was not

included in the statute because officials were reluctant to

use such words in law in that era. They were similarly

PHOTOCOPY FROM THE GERALD R.

FORD LIBPARY

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wis i sins

reluctant to use words such as

espionage.

However,

Mr. Warner says that he doubts that Congress ever contemplated

that the CIA would ever conduct covert activities.. He says

that a 1947 OGC legal opinion agrees that Congress did not

contemplate such

activities. When such activities were

begun by the Agency, reliance was placed on the President's

inherent power to conduct such activities.

Congress has

ratified this authority by appropriating money over the

years. (A 1962 CIA legal opinion expresses this view.

It

was written in conjunction with the Department of Justice,

which also wrote a legal opinion at the time.

-OFfaof Lg/Cus/

Mr. Warner says the 1949 CIA act was not intended

to expand the functions of the Agency in any way.. He said

there were rumblings at that time about the need to conduct

clandestine activities, but those were not taken into

account in drafting the bill.

Mr. Warner is not sure why the word "collect"

was not included as one of the duties of the CIA.

He says

that perhaps collection of data from other sources was not

considered as collection of intelligence. The original

concept of the Agency was that it was to be primarily a

coordinator with some espionage responsibilities. He doubts

that any of the drafters of the legislation had any clear

concept of what the Agency would be doing 10 or 15 years

later.

For many years, the other intelligence agencies

thought of the CIA as merely one person among equals. They

resisted allowing the CIA to have direction over their

activities.

III. ALLEGATIONS AGAINST THE CIA

A. Mail Intercepts

Mr. Warner was not aware of the mail intercept

programs until the Family Jewels episode.

B.

The Ober Group

Mr. Warner was generally aware of the Ober.

activities.

He was consulted only when

it was decided

end the activity.

PHOTOCOPY FROM THE GERALD R.

FORD LIBPARY

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C. Surveillance of Dissidents

Mr. Warner was not consulted on any surveillance

projects.

He was

aware that informants had been put in a

construction crew building the Langley headquarters.

D. Loan of Equipment to Local Police Forces

Mr. Warner was never asked whether it was proper

for the

Agency to loan equipment or personnel to local police

forces.

He was generally aware of good relations maintained

by the

Agency with local forces.

The Office of General Counsel was asked at the

time of the May Day demonstration to be the focal point for

coordinating actions with the Department of Justice. They

consulted with the Department of Justice about getting

marshals to protect the Agency.

They had agreed that the

CIA would pay travel expenses if marshals were brought in

from out of town.

At the same time, the OGC was asked

whether it would be proper

for the Office of Security to

lend 50 hardhats to the Fairfax police should they need to

be used to protect the headquarters building. The OGC said.

yes.

E. Assassinations

Mr. Warner has no knowledge of any assassination.

• attempts.

F. Allegations in General

Mr. Warner has answered the above questions in

light of his

personal acquaintance with the projects and his

acquaintance with general OGC knowledge. He says that many

projects may have been discussed by Mr. Houston with the DCI

without his ever being

aware of their discussions.

IV. MISCELLANEOUS

At the time of the Patty Hearst kidnap, the FBI

asked the CIA to prepare profiles of the Symbionese Liberation

ArmY (SLA) .

The request was

denied.

Mr. Warner would guess

that there is no paper on the request, but that it was handled

in a morning staff meeting.

PHOTOCOPY FROM THE GERALD

FORD

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Mr. Warner said that Mr. Colby discusses a great

many issues in his morning staff meetings. He said he is

much more open than were previous DCI's.

Mr. Warner said the Office of General Counsel

has never given any general guidance to the rest of the

Agency on proper classification procedures.

He says the

component offices rely strictly on the Executive Order:

He doubts that it is possible for more detailed classifi-

cation policy guidance to be given. The OGC is currently

working on better means to legally protect sources and

methods.

They. have drafted criminal statutes which would

create strict liability for disclosure of

sources and

methods information.

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PHOTOCOPY FROM THE GERALD R. FORD LIBPARY

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