Date

Sep 20, 1975

Description

This memo summarizes the events of the White House-Pike Committee controversy from the perspective of the Executive. The memo explains that the crisis arose over a single phrase on an intelligence postmortem of the Arab-Israeli 1973 war, (the phrase remains redacted in this document), that was considered so sensitive by representatives from the intelligence community that its release would, "indicate to other nations and American capability to monitor and analyze foreign communications and derive information from them. This specific knowledge of time and location would alert other nations to reexamine and tighten their communications security procedures and thereby impair the ability of the U.S. to obtain communications intelligence." Disagreeing with the Executive, the Pike Committee voted to have the phrase declassified and on Friday the 12 of September, the disputed phrase was read into the public record. The memo then explains that the White House sees the current dispute as resulting from the "unilateral action of one committee to release such material over the objections of the Executive representatives present... " and that, "if the Committee's position were to remain unchanged, large amounts of sensitive intelligence and other types of material would be subject to release without notice, which would require a responsible Executive to restrict the provision of such information to the Committee."

Source

Gerald R. Ford Presidential Library: White House Operations, Robert K. Wolthuis Files, Subject Series, Box 2, Folder, "Intelligence Investigations: Pike Committee."

Document published in following posting(s):

The White House, the CIA and the Pike Committee, 1975

Jun 2, 2017

White House, Office of Congressional Liaison, "Fact Sheet on Sequence of Events Leading to the President's Decision on 12 September 1975 to Suspend Provision of Classified Materials to the House Select Committee on Intelligence," c. September 20, 1975.