THE CASE FOR GREATER VIGILANCE

By JAMES Q. WILSON

THE CENTRAL QUESTION RAISED BY THE OKLAHOMA CITY bombing is whether a free society can prevent terrorist acts. A good deal of loose talk will be heard about the subject in the next few weeks--some of it urging the FBI to "do whatever is necessary," and some of it cautioning the government to "protect the Constitution." We have been through this before, and we ought to remember what we learned in order that we not, again, lose our bearings.

Terrorist groups, like any other criminal conspiracies, are best attacked by infiltration. This means either planting an undercover agent in their midst or recruiting one of their members as an informant. This is the job of the FBI.

If we are being terrorized by a foreign conspiracy, the bureau has rather wide discretion; if the conspiracy is a homemade one, it has a bit less. Until 1976 the bureau had a free hand in these matters. Today, however, it operates under two sets of written guidelines, one secret and one public, but both approved by the Attorney General. The secret guidelines specify the circumstances under which the FBI is allowed to penetrate groups thought to be agents of a foreign power. The public rules, which govern intelligence gathering aimed at domestic groups, are more restrictive. Yet the FBI can actively gather intelligence even on a group with political or religious sponsorship provided the bureau has credible reasons to believe the group may engage in violence. The threat of violence need not be imminent; it need only be plausible.

These guidelines were put in place in the aftermath of the COINTELPRO scandal of the early 1970s, when it was revealed that the bureau was not only infiltrating but disrupting and harassing extremist organizations. First issued in 1976 by Attorney General Edward Levi and later modified by Attorney General William French Smith, the rules give the bureau authority to investigate by means that include, if necessary, "recruitment or placement of informants in groups, 'mail covers,' or electronic surveillance," provided the "facts and circumstances reasonably indicate" that a group "is engaged in an enterprise for furthering political or social goals wholly or in part through activities that involve force or violence."

There is disagreement as to whether these rules are too restrictive. In my view there is no major problem with the guidelines, but there may be one with their interpretation. FBI agents have learned to be politically risk averse. Every senior official remembers the 1976 Church Committee criticism of the FBI for burglarizing the offices of "domestic subversive targets" and bugging the rooms of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Some critics even suggested that the bureau end its intelligence gathering.

In the end, the Church Committee did not go that far, but the bureau conspicuously pulled in its horns. It learned another lesson a few years later when it captured on video members of Congress taking bribes from undercover agents posing as Arab businessmen. The public was outraged at the Congressmen, and juries ultimately convicted seven of them, but Congress was upset with the FBI and launched an inquiry into the bureau's Abscam investigation. And then the FBI got into trouble for investigating CISPES (the Committee in Solidarity with the People of El Salvador), a group it believed was supporting leftist rebels in that country contrary to the U.S. backing of the legitimate government.

The intelligence guidelines under which the FBI operated would not have barred infiltration of the group responsible for the Oklahoma bombing, assuming that anybody had heard of it in advance. But the bureau has been whipsawed so many times by contrary political pressures--"Stop terrorism!" "Protect civil liberties!"-that many of its top officials may have adopted a perfectly understandable bureaucratic reaction: "Who needs the trouble? If there is any doubt, leave it alone."

I believe the bureau has stopped many terrorist actions, including bombings, because it has penetrated groups it thought might use violence. It cannot take public credit for this; to do so would compromise its methods and alert its targets. I don't know whether it has prevented as many as it might have if all its members had been enthusiastic instead of cautious about intelligence work aimed at sensitive political targets.

Political support for intelligence work swings like a pendulum. This quickly changing congressional environment, while understandable in its own terms, is not helpful to a law-enforcement agency. The behavior of rank-and-file government workers cannot be fine-tuned like a clock or made precisely sensitive to changing legislative moods. The members of any organization take their cues from the general posture of their superiors and clients. When the posture is threatening, the reaction is predictable: Pull back.

Let's hope that did not happen in this case and will not happen in the future. The FBI ought to be, and is, committed to defending the Constitution. It doesn't need instant experts, immediate second-guessing or quick fixes from any quarter. If Oklahoma City is a trumpet announcing a long siege, we all need, as they say in the Navy, to take an even strain.

James Q. Wilson is a professor of management and public policy at UCLA whose books include The Investigators.