News

ACCESSION NUMBER:226085
FILE ID:EU-510
DATE:05/01/92
TITLE:SCHIFTER URGES FURTHER REFORM OF THE KGB (05/01/92)
TEXT:*92050110.EUR
*EUR510   05/01/92 *

SCHIFTER URGES FURTHER REFORM OF THE KGB
(Advocates abolition of domestic arm)  (540)
By David Pitts
USIA Staff Writer
Washington -- Richard Schifter, former assistant secretary of state for
human rights and humanitarian affairs, said May 1 that President Boris
Yeltsin should undertake "a fundamental reorganization" of the KGB,
including the "abolition of the domestic arm of the KGB."  Warning that
another KGB-led coup attempt is still possible, he said that if the Russian
government puts reform of the organization on the backburner, "it does so
at its own peril."

Schifter spoke at an American Bar Association conference that featured a
panel on intelligence agencies in former Warsaw Pact nations.

The problem of disentangling "the intelligence web" is more difficult in
Russia than in other Warsaw Pact nations because the KGB "was integrated
into all aspects of society," he remarked.  Moreover, an oppressive
intelligence network predates even the Communist takeover in 1917, having
been organized by Peter the Great in 1702, he noted.  "In almost 300 years,
Russia has been without a secret police network for only about nine
months," he added, a reference to the Provisional Government that held
office between Czarist and Communist rule.

Schifter said that Russia's current democratic leadership should keep in
mind that "relics of the old order are still in place, and foremost among
them are KGB officials."  He recommended "a thorough review" of
intelligence.  Many of the functions of the KGB "can be transferred to the
regular police force," he noted.

Michael Waller, director of the international security affairs section of
the International Freedom Foundation, said that President Yeltsin has named
members of the "old apparat to reshape but not reform" the KGB.  He said
there is demand in Russia for more oversight of the organization, but he
said that the officials currently overviewing the organization "have been
co-opted" by the KGB.

Elizabeth Rindskopf, general counsel for the Central Intelligence Agency
(CIA), said that U.S. and intelligence officials from former Warsaw Pact
nations have met frequently in recent times.  "We will share with them what
we have learned" about operating an intelligence agency in a democratic
society," she noted.  But they must shape their own intelligence services
1and design oversight procedures of their own," she added.

Jefferson Adams, a professor of history who has written widely about
intelligence matters, especially in the former German Democratic Republic
(GDR), said that the Ministry of State Security in the GDR had employed
85,000 fulltime workers and 150,000 unofficial employees.  After the
dissolution of the country, more than 125 miles of documents containing
information on citizens were discovered, he noted.  "Dismantling this
enormous apparatus is proving to be one of the most formidable tasks facing
Germany today," he remarked.

The resentment against the Communist intelligence organization was so great
that a recent poll sponsored by the news magazine "Der Spiegel" revealed
that 80 percent of the population in the former GDR opposes a general
amnesty for former intelligence workers, he explained.

Partly as a consequence of the revelations about East German intelligence,
he said that the German Bundestag had recently passed a law providing for
"much greater oversight" of current German intelligence.

NNNN

.