Editing 77-21-B7 (section)

=== Transcript ===
I've spoken several times about the price we may pay for what we've done to muzzle the F.B.I. and the C.I.A. Now the bills are coming in.
I'll be right back.

Some time ago on these broadcasts, I deplored the extent to which our government, yielding to pressure from a number of groups best described as bleeding hearts, had reduced the crime fighting ability of the F.B.I. and the counter-espionage ability of the C.I.A. I also told of how Philip Agee ex-C.I.A. agent turned Marxist was going to be allowed to return to the United States with a promise from the Justice Department of immunity from prosecution.

A late bulletin on him, he's evidently doing a new book or has done it already. The Soviet news agency TASS says Agee will name all the organizations and persons that were connected with U.S. intelligence services in the past thirty years. That could be quite an extensive execution list. But that isn't what I set out to tell you about today.

An agency such as the F.B.I. may spend years setting up an undercover agent in an inside position where he can gather evidence and information on a crime ring or specific criminal operation. The agent so set up is, in a way, really set up. If he's by any chance exposed he may pay with his life. At the very least all his work is wasted and the crime hunt must begin all over, if it can begin at all.

Here is the story of Robert Cassidy F.B.I. undercover agent. Don't worry I'm not blowing his cover. That's already been done, by the United States Justice Department under which the F.B.I. operates. Cassidy has successfully infiltrated a shipping company in Miami. He was gathering a wealth of material having to do with waterfront corruption in Miami and in New York. It was possibly the biggest and most successful undercover investigation in shipping history. But it seems that a previous Cassidy assignment, a kind of peripheral one, was in connection with the F.B.I.'s look into the Socialist Workers Party activities, a Trotskyite radical group.

The grand jury is investigating the F.B.I. conduct of this operation to see if any of the rights of the Trotskyites had been violated. Since cassidy's role in that case had been a very minor one, the F.B.I. proposed that he give a deposition, a sworn written statement concerning his part. The Justice Department said absolutely not. Agent Cassidy would appear in person in open court. And thus the Justice Department, guardians of our safety, ended the investigation into waterfront corruption which had been proceeding so superbly. By blowing the carefully arranged cover and revealing Robert Cassidy to the world of crime as an undercover agent of the F.B.I. it is almost incomprehensible that anyone, least of all the chief law enforcement agent of the entire nation, could so confuse priorities.

But that's the way it is in the Wondrous Wasteland of the Potomac.

This is Ronald Reagan.

Thanks for listening.

</TD>
<TD WIDTH="10%" ROWSPAN="2">&nbsp;</TD>
<TD VALIGN="TOP" HEIGHT="250">