Truth Tests

Officials may take polygraphs

The prospect of FBI agents giving lie-detector tests to the CIA director and the White House chief of staff is the stuff of political potboilers. Yet that may be the latest twist in the slithering story of the purloined papers from Jimmy Carter's White House that turned up in the hands of Ronald Reagan's campaign aides. FBI investigators working on the case have suggested that conflicting statements by top Administration officials be resolved by having them roll up their sleeves and submit to polygraphs.

The most glaring contradiction now known is between CIA Director William Casey and Chief of Staff James Baker. Baker wrote to a congressional committee in June that Carter's strategy book for the debate with Reagan had been passed to him by Casey, who was then Reagan's campaign chairman. "It is my best recollection that I was given the book by William Casey, with the suggestion that it might be of use," his letter said. Casey, on the other hand, wrote to the committee that "I have no recollection that I ever received, heard of, or learned in any way of a set of papers which laid out the Carter debate plan." He told the New York Times that "I wouldn't touch [such material] with a ten-foot pole."

FBI officials have proposed to the Justice Department that as many as a dozen Reagan aides be given lie-detector tests. To the Administration's chagrin, the FBI request was leaked to the Washington Post last week. This left the White House with a no-win publicity problem. A parade of officials strapping on polygraphs would be a demeaning spectacle, both to voters at home and friends abroad. Any aides that balk, however, would appear to be hiding something. And should the Justice Department now turn down the FBI request and refuse to order the tests, it would smell of coverup.

Baker, realizing early on that polygraphs were a possibility, asked White House Counsel Fred Fielding to determine if there are any legal obstacles to their use on senior staff members. Fielding concluded that there were none. Baker subsequently made it clear last week, by letting the word leak out through associates, that he was willing, even eager, to undergo the test. He has already been interviewed by the FBI twice, most recently for 90 minutes in his West Wing office two weeks ago. Baker is understood to have given the FBI his full recollection of the time and place that Casey supposedly handed him the campaign documents. Baker insists that his memory of the occasion, which would have been shortly before the October 1980 debate, is unambiguous. Casey has just as steadfastly stuck by his denials during his two interviews with FBI agents. The bureau is also looking into the roles played in the affair by Budget Director David Stockman and White House Aides Edwin Meese and David Gergen.

The FBI has questioned President Reagan about the papers too. During an hourlong session in the living quarters of the White House two weeks ago, Reagan reportedly reiterated to agents that he knew nothing of the Carter documents until the press reported their existence last June.

Reagan, who at first pooh-poohed the affair, has now admonished those in his Administration to cooperate fully in the investigation. In the past, he has favored the use of lie-detector tests to help track down leaks of information from the FBI, CIA and other Government agencies. Polygraphs are used routinely in the CIA to ferret out security risks; the FBI often resorts to the lie box when probing internal misconduct. Such widespread acceptance of the technique may make it doubly difficult for Attorney General William French Smith to rule out its use on high Administration officials. This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so viewer discretion is required.