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RT ee ee *., Pee Ae h oe, . owe, ty + * .fadequate basis. As to the programs, now, indi- vidually activities within those programs may be suspect. I have said and repeated that some of those activities I would not feel are proper today. I wasn't there during the time that all of these programs were developed, nor certainly the approval of the various activities within those programs. Were I to | have been there, there is some that perhaps I might have said, “No I don't think this is proper.” TI have I have the benefit of exper- the benefit of hindsight. ience in local law enforcement which, I think, prepares me to better understand perhaps the impact of some of these types of things. They are not at all unknown in the field of law enforcement. In some degree or another almost all the law enforcement has engaged in sone similar types of activities. Not perhaps to the sophisti- cation as the COINTEL Program, but the context of the time is felt necessary in the present day. We realize that different standards should be applied and they are and we do not engage in those activities now. Since April, 1971, we cut them off. (NOTE TO CORRESPONDENTS AND EDITORS: The preced- ing comment by Mr. Kelley concerning local police use of efforts similar to COINTELPRO may -be open to misinterpretation. At his direction the FBI later issued his clarifying statement: "I had in mind that law enforcement agencies have used , ‘ methods designed to create disunity among the . criminal element, particularly in organized crime and hoodlum gangs. Probably most common was labeling a crime fiqure as a police informant to discredit and destroy his criminal influence. These activities to pit one crime figure against another have achieved success in neutralizing the criminal element.") QUESTION: You said that you disagreed with some of the activities, that they were not proper programs. Alright, does that mean that there are variations of COINTEL Programs’ - still going on? ANSWER: In the first place, we deliniate certain programs, That's the overall structure of the full system. : Within each of these programs there were some activ) - ities, individual activities, I feel that the setup of the programs certainly was directed properly, that is, with the intent to preserve the Nation. Insofar as some individual activities, yes, I feel that some -17 -