CIA Declassifies Budget

For the first time in the CIA's 50-year history, the agency Wednesday revealed the U.S. intelligence budget: $26.6 billion for fiscal 1997.

Director of Central Intelligence George Tenet announced the figure's declassification after the Federation of American Scientists filed a lawsuit against the CIA for denying a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request to obtain the budget number.

Tenet did not promise that future budget figures would be released and vowed not to disclose details of how the budget is apportioned. Tenet said the president authorized the declassification because "it does not jeopardize the ability of our intelligence agencies to carry out their missions and serves to inform the American people." The intelligence budget includes the budget for the CIA, the Defense Intelligence Agency, and other smaller intelligence-gathering agencies and offices.

"Beyond this figure, there will be no other disclosures of currently classified budget information because such disclosures could harm national security," Tenet said.

Steven Aftergood, director of the Federation of American Scientists' Project on Government Secrecy, said that although the budget figure was not a well-kept secret, its official release is a "significant policy change."

"The CIA had no real choice but to disclose the information," Aftergood said. "Legally, they were in a bind."

In April 1996 President Clinton said disclosing the budget figure would not harm intelligence activities, but he wanted to decide with Congress whether to release it. Earlier this year both the House and Senate rejected a proposal to declassify the intelligence budget.

After the Federation of American Scientists FOIA request for the budget numbers was denied, the federation enlisted the Center for National Security Studies, a civil liberties group, to take the CIA to court. The agency would have had to file its defense in the case on Wednesday, but instead decided to go public with the figure.

"This disclosure is a critical step toward more accountability for the intelligence agencies," said Duncan Levin, public policy analyst at the Center for National Security Studies. "This shows how important the Freedom of Information Act is."

Aftergood said he has filed a FOIA request for the 1998 intelligence budget.