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There was other dismaying evidence that high White House aides had indeed been using the CIA for improper, if not self-protective purposes. The revelation two weeks ago that two of the White House-Watergate covert agents, G. Gordon Liddy and E. Howard Hunt, had been equipped and aided by the CIA before burglarizing the office of Daniel Ellsberg's Los Angeles psychiatrist was confirmed last week by outgoing CIA Director James Schlesinger. As subcommittees in the House and Senate began investigating this apparent breach of the CIA's role, which by law is confined to foreign activities, Schlesinger testified that a telephone call from Ehrlichman had persuaded the CIA to cooperate with the burglars and to prepare a psychiatric profile on Ellsberg. Schlesinger described these acts as "ill-advised" and "beyond the normal activities of the agency." He said that steps have been taken to make sure they do not happen again.
Trigger. That may not satisfy the angry legislators. Schlesinger insisted that the CIA had no knowledge that the White House spooks were planning a domestic burglary, and that the agency had belatedly moved to cut off aid to them once the nature of their activities became clearer. But this unquestioned acquiescence to a White House phone call by the CIA seemed shocking. It was also a flagrant abuse of the agency by presidential aides. It raised — but left un answered — the vexing question of just what other secret activities the CIA has conducted within the U.S.
This automatic response to any White House request was also demonstrated by the State Department. In Au gust 1971 it cooperated with Hunt after receiving a memo from the White House and two calls from David Young, an Ehrlichman assistant on detached service from Henry Kissinger's Nation al Security Council staff. Young telephoned William B. Macomber Jr., then a Deputy Under Secretary of State. Macomber granted Hunt full access to the most secret "back -channel" communications (meaning only the addressee and sender should see them) between the State Department and its embassy in Saigon for a period in 1963. Hunt copied 240 of these classified cables.
According to sworn testimony by Hunt, he then examined the cables to determine whether there was any indication, as he hoped, that President John Kennedy had ordered the assassination of South Viet Nam's President Ngo Dinh Diem. Hunt said that this study was supervised by Charles Colson, then special counsel to Nixon. Hunt claimed that he showed Colson some cables that could conceivably have been interpreted as implied orders from the Kennedy Administration to "pull the trigger against Diem's head." According to Hunt, Colson declared: "Well, this isn't good enough. Do you think that you could improve on them?" Hunt said he would need technical help to fabricate something more conclusive, but Colson replied: "This is too hot. See what you can do on your own."