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MORNING REPORT

FRIDAY

NOVEMBER 7, 1975

# PRESIDENT FORD'S RECENT CABINET SHAKE-UP

Daniel Schorr, CBS Morning News, First Line Report-Washington

The issues raised by President Ford's shake-up involve a complex intermingling of persons, politics and policies.

At 8:30 last Sunday morning, CIA Director William Colby came out of the Oval Office just fired, and met Defense Secretary James Schlesinger on his way in. Colby was evasive when asked what was up, thinking it appropriate that Schlesinger get the word directly from the President. Later that afternoon, Colby dropped into the home of Schlesinger, his friend and predecessor as CIA chief, for a round of mutual consolation. 'Just imagine,' said Schlesinger, 'Dick Helms outlasted both of us.' The irony was that Schlesinger, coming into the CIA after Helms, had been involved with Colby in trying to clear away what they regarded as the wreckage that Helms had left behind. Schlesinger started the process of internal investigation of CIA wrongdoing, and, shifted to the Pentagon, left Colby to handle the internal and external problems. That is, the investigations that have beleaguered the agency for nearly a year now. Some of what Helms had done -- covert actions and other operations -- had been in concert with, or at the biding of, Henry Kissinger, head of the 40 Committee that approves such operations. And Helms was now a key ambassador in Iran. And so, Helms apparently found in Kissinger a protector, and when Colby referred the Helms case to the Justice Department for possible prosecution, and embarrass Kissinger and Helms by revelations to investigating committees, Kissinger last March asked to have Colby fired; not for personal reasons, of course, but on the grounds that he was jeopardizing foreign relations.

That is the irony of Schlesinger's remark, 'Dick Helms outlasted both of us.' But it had only been possible because both of them had Kissinger as an antagonist. The irony is not the end of the episode, for Colby is back, President Ford having suddenly been made aware of the dangerous vacuum that would be left with his departure now, and Schlesinger may yet have his revenge against Kissinger in a process that started in the House Intelligence Committee. On the initiative of Rep. Robert McCrory, the ranking Republican and normally an Administration supporter, the committee has voted subpoenas against Kissinger for documents intended to investigate the possibility of major miscalculations, or worse, in foreign policy. One has to do with Soviet compliance with arms control agreements. The staff justification for the subpoena suggests there may have

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been double book-keeping on the Soviet arms build-up in order not to disturb the policy of detente. That idea coincides very suspiciously with Schlesinger's view. The other subpoena has to do with the possibility that the worldwide alert of American forces during the Yom Kippur war was not justified by the intelligence at hand, as the staff put it; it may have been connected with other problems. Since it's widely known that President Nixon wasn't actively involved in that decision, and that Kissinger and Schlesinger have been in dispute about the American response to the Yom Kippur war, it appears to suggest that Kissinger overreacted for some very dark reason.

So Schlesinger is gone but not forgotten, and Kissinger isn't gone, but isn't being allowed to forget how exposed he is now, and Colby is for the time being not gone, and so in a position to be more candid than ever at Kissinger's expense.

## MRS. GANDHI NOT GUILTY

### Hugs Ruddy, CBS Morning News

India's Prime Minister Indira Gandhi today got herself pronounced not guilty of the corruption charges which had brought on her suspension four months ago of the country's civil liberties. What happened today is that five judges on India's Supreme Court ruled that Mrs. Gandhi was acting within her authority when she pushed through a retroactive law legalizing the sort of political activity which had brought on the corruption conviction in the first place.

## PEACE MARCH IN SPANISH SAHARA

### Lou Ciaffi, ABC "AM-AMERICA" -- Spanish Sahara

If they were frightened, they certainly didn't show it, as tens of thousands of Moroccans began their march into the Spanish Sahara. Despite warnings that there were land mines planted in their path, despite threats by Spain that it would use force to stop the march, the crowd seemed anxious if not eager to move into the desert. It was an amazing display of discipline and loyalty; discipline because the government has been able to move more than 1/4 million people, feed them, care for them, and organize their movements without any serious difficulties or problems; loyalty

The Test

In the wake of President Ford's Cabinet shake-up, the air is filled with floating alternatives to the obvious interpretation that the President has thrown in his lot completely with Secretary Kissinger's agreement-worry-later approach to detente. We will know whether these alternatives are substance or chaff when we learn the fate of the strategic arms talks in general and the cruise missile in particular.

The gist of the ascending alternative is that the President has never liked the set of James Schlesinger's jaw, and that therefore the former Defense Secretary's dismissal was only a matter of timing. This explanation's only virtue is that it jibes with the President's own attitude at the press conference announcing the changes. His explanation was that he wanted "my guys," and further probing was rebuffed. Speculation and/or leaks flesh out the point by saying the President could never make small-talk with the former Secretary, and that Mr. Schlesinger has similar problems with the President's old cronies in Congress.

This explanation is bad enough, ultimately coming down to the conclusion that Mr. Schlesinger was too good a man for Washington, or at least for this administration. We should have thought that Watergate was warning enough about surrounding yourself with yes-men. And if the President is sincerely worried about Mr. Schlesinger's losses in congressional battles over the Pentagon budget one must ask, during these battles where was the President?

But at least the "my guys" explanation is not sinister. If in the face of explicit presidential denials the shake-up does prove to have the obvious policy implications, then what is called into question is not only the President's judgment but his candor. In this case, a deeply serious national issue will have been decided not by open debate but by bureaucratic intrigue, and in the process the American electorate will have been profoundly misled.

It's widely known, after all, that there have been long-standing differences on SALT and detente between Mr. Schlesinger and Mr. Kissinger. And clearly these differences have been heating up in the past six weeks or so because of the deadlock in the negotiations over

"details" of the arms agreement supposedly settled in principle at Vladivostok.

The issues are of course complex, but the most important is the cruise missile, a new American development that is in essence a pilotless airplane with super-accurate guidance. It could offset Soviet advantages in both strategic and conventional war. While its sea-launched version was clearly not included in the Vladivostok accords and its air-launched version at best ambiguously so, the Soviets are now demanding the weapon be limited as the agreement is formalized.

Mr. Kissinger is receptive to this demand, at least if he can get Soviet concessions on other dangling "details" and thus tie up an agreement. Mr. Schlesinger has been resisting, on the excellent grounds that, first, such an agreement would be an enormous American concession, and second, there is no realistic way to detect cheating, or in arms-control parlance "verify," a cruise-missile limitation. In short, such an agreement is likely to mean the Russians eventually get the weapon while we don't.

Now of course, the President has not only the right but the responsibility to decide such disputes within his administration. If a President believed we can rely on 'Soviet good faith rather than verification, if he believed that we are threatened not by the Russians but by "technology," if he believed the West is declining and had best take whatever agreement it can get, then it is perfectly reasonable that he should dismiss from his administration high officials who find such views revolting. In such a case the President's only obligation would be to take the American people into his confidence, so that they could pass informed judgment on his conclusions.

This President Ford has not done. He has dismissed the Secretary amid professions that he is in no hurry to conclude an arms agreement, that no one in the government has been more vigilant about a strong national defense than he and Secretary Kissinger, that he only wants his own guys. We would prefer to believe that's the whole story, but it will be far more difficult to do so if the shake-up of the Cabinet is in fact followed by a sell-out of the cruise missile.

Policy at the Pentagon

Though both men tried to play it down—as does President Ford—Secretary of State Kissinger and ex-Secretary of Defense Schlesinger worked from opposite precepts in their designs for United States policy toward the Soviet Union.

Mr. Schlesinger believed that this country needed the option of actually fighting a limited nuclear war; Mr. Kissinger seems to harbor growing doubts that limited war could be a viable option—he favors development of sophisticated new weapons systems mainly as “bargaining chips” to help in his negotiations for new arms limitations agreements.

Mr. Schlesinger advocated only those arms agreements that would leave the United States militarily superior. Mr. Kissinger is ready to interpret "superiority" in far broader terms than his Pentagon rival; his aim is to achieve arms limitations to further the atmosphere of détente, while leaving both sides free to do essentially what they want to do anyway.

Such broadbrush characterizations of complex issues may do some injustice to the subtleties of outlook expressed over many months by two highly intellectual antagonists. But they can clarify some of the immediate confusion in this country and abroad about the meaning of President Ford's dramatic overhaul in the foreign policy leadership.

Peking, for instance, is apparently stalling on the preparations for Mr. Ford's scheduled visit late this month, in the belief that a major opponent of Soviet-American détente has been removed. The European allies of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization similarly are viewing Mr. Schlesinger's departure with concern.

The views of the new Defense Secretary, Donald H. Rumsfeld, on the fundamental issues of defense policy will not become apparent for some time, though his lack of warmth toward Mr. Kissinger has already been amply demonstrated in Washington. Meanwhile the immediate debate on the defense budget is likely to proceed on the same basis as before, with the argument centering on the meaning of Soviet military strength.