Church Committee - Questioning General Lew Allen lyrics

Senator GOLDWATER. First, I want to be on the record as opposed to public hearings on this matter. General, as I remember correctly, when you were before our committee, you stated that the law did not allow you to testify on any expert of the NSA. Is that correct? General ALLEN. That is what I believe to be the case, yes, sir. Senator GOLDWATER. Then, theoretically, you are violating the law in being here. General ALLEN. It would seem so, yes, sir. Senator GOLDWATER. Well I wanted to ask that question to get two rules that bear on this committee that maybe some of our members have forgotten about. In the Senate Rule 36 paragraph 5 it says: Whenever, by the request of the Senate or any Committee thereof any documents or papers shall be communicated to the Senate by the President or the head of any Department relating to any matter pending in the Senate, the proceedings in regard to which are secret or confidential, under the rules, said documents and papers shall be considered as confidential and shall not be disclosed without leave of the Senate. I wanted to make that a part of the record in the event that any cla**ified information might be offered by members of this committee under the a**umption that we have the power to downgrade or down-cla**ify cla**ified information. Then, we in our own rules, under Senate Resolution 21 "a select committee is required to protect cla**ified information." Section 7 reads as follows: The Select Committee shall institute and carry out such rules and procedures as it may deem necessary to prevent . . . (2) the disclosure, outside of the Select Committee, of any information which would adversely affect the intelligence activities of the Central Intelligence Agency in foreign countries or the intelligence activities in foreign countries of any other department or agency of the Federal government. So you are probably, in your opinion, operating outside the law. I just wanted to set the stage so that this committee would not try to operate outside the rules of the Senate and the rules of its own committee. I have no questions. The CHAIRMAN. Thank you Senator Goldwater. I think at the appropriate time I will reply to the suggestion that the committee is operating outside of the rules of the Senate or outside of the law. I do not believe that to be a correct statement of the position of this committee. But I will not interrupt the line of questioning at this time, because I think Senators would like to have a chance to complete the questioning of the witness. Senator GOLDWATER. Mr. Chairman, I did not charge that we had operated outside the rules. I said we may. The CHAIRMAN. Very well, we will discuss that at greater detail unless the Senator would like to discuss it now. I thought Ewe would go through the line of questioning first. Senator GOLDWATER. I just want to protect you and all of us. The CHAIRMAN. All right, fine. Thank you Senator Goldwater. I really appreciate that. Senator TOWER. I must say, Mr. Chairman, I am very touched by Senator Goldwater's concern for your safety. The CHAIRMAN. I am too, Senator. Let us see, who is next here? Senator Baker.