c. 1996 Religion News Service

(Charles W. Colson, former special counsel to Richard Nixon, served a prison term for his role in the Watergate scandal. He now heads Prison Fellowship International, an evangelical Christian ministry to the imprisoned and their families. Contact Colson via e-mail at 71421,1551(at sign)compuserve.com.)

(RNS)-My prison ministry has taken me to more than 50 countries, and often, particularly in Third World nations, people have spread rumors that I was still connected to the U.S. government.

Some have accused me of being a spy for the Central Intelligence Agency. In one Latin country, I was denied the opportunity to speak to the parliament because some lawmakers were convinced these rumors were true.

My experiences have been tame compared to what others have gone through. In the Middle East, Latin America and Africa, missionaries have been imprisoned on the suspicion that they are CIA operatives. Such charges are often a foreign government’s weapon of choice against efforts to spread the Gospel.

After World War II, it was not uncommon for spies to operate under the guise of clergy. But ironically-for me, at least- Congress put an end to that terrible and abusive practice in the Watergate era.

Or so we thought. According to recent congressional testimony, the CIA, in fact, has admitted to using journalists and would use missionaries for intelligence-gathering. This shocking disclosure should spark a national outrage.

One of Watergate’s many revelations was that the CIA had been feeding information to the news media about some of the defendants in the case, myself included. The reason, as the CIA disclosed in its own file, was that the agency wanted to deflect attention away from investigations into Watergate burglar E. Howard Hunt’s relationship with the Mullen Agency, a public relations firm that was acting as a CIA cover for two agents abroad. Some in the agency believed that by leaking information on me and others, investigators would be drawn off the CIA’s trail.

At the height of the Watergate investigation, I was invited by the late Fred Buzhardt, who was then President Nixon’s special counsel, to visit him in his office. He showed me the CIA file that contained damaging admissions about the agency’s meddling in domestic politics, its involvement with the press and its knowledge of Watergate. Buzhardt invited me to copy the file. I did so and later turned it over to the Watergate special prosecutor.

That file, the contents of which were disclosed in the minority report of the Ervin committee, inspired the Rockefeller Commission to probe the agency. Out of that probe came the revelations that the CIA had been using journalists and missionaries in various escapades abroad. A huge uproar resulted. The CIA subsequently established rules that”prohibit establishment of a covert intelligence relationship with any U.S. clergy or missionary whether or not ordained, who was sent out by a mission or church organization to preach, teach, heal or proselytize.” Yet by its admission, the agency has violated that agreement, claiming that a”loophole”allows it to use journalists and missionaries in some circumstances. This is ludicrous. Clearly, the Justice Department has its work cut out for it. Whoever is involved in this breach should be prosecuted, and the agency should be forced to abandon this practice once and for all.

News executives already have spoken out on the danger such a policy presents for their employees. The church community should do the same.

Like journalists, missionaries are often suspected of being spies, even though many of these courageous people would not work for the CIA if you put a gun to their heads. This taint of suspicion undermines the most important part of a missionary’s role: his or her religious witness. It is clearly much less likely that a missionary will be taken seriously if, instead of being seen as a person of faith, he or she is suspected of using the cloth as a cover for espionage.

This suspicion also is a valuable tool for hostile governments. What better way to distract the populace from a ruler’s shortcomings than to round up some missionaries or journalists and try them as spies-spies, indeed, for the Great Satan?

Now, with the disclosure that the CIA is breaking its own rules, missionaries and journalists are in ever more peril. Oppressive governments, especially some Arab states, can say to their people:”Look, we told you these people were spies, and this had been confirmed by none other than the United States government.” Congress and the Justice Department must act quickly to protect the reputations and lives of Americans abroad. The CIA may have started again to believe that anything goes. It is time to teach the agency a different lesson.

MJP END COLSON