Skirmishes Over a Primer

The infamous CIA manual on guerrilla warfare might have been written with the jungles of Nicaragua in mind, but its chief effect so far has been to provoke conflict in Washington. Last week skirmishes were raging not only between the Reagan Administration and Capitol Hill but within the CIA. Five middle-level agency officials, targeted to be disciplined for their part in drafting the contentious primer, said they were being used as scapegoats. Congressional critics charged that the five were victims of a cover-up designed to protect senior officials, notably CIA Director William J. Casey, who has supervised the covert assistance to anti-Sandinista contras.

The latest flap began when President Reagan received the disciplinary recommendation from the CIA's inspector general. Reagan had ordered the internal investigation amid a continuing clamor over sections of the manual that advocated the "neutralization" of local Nicaraguan officials. Critics seized upon that term as a code word for assassination. Furthermore, they charged, the manual shows that the CIA is violating a 1982 congressional amendment barring it from engaging in any activity aimed at overthrowing the Sandinistas. Reagan responded with the credulity-straining explanation that the word neutralization meant nothing more than "you just say to the fellow that's sitting there in the office, 'You're not in the office any more.' "

The White House blamed the manual on a single, "lowlevel" contract operative, identified pseudonymously as John Kirkpatrick. The still secret inspector general's report apparently suggested that Kirkpatrick resign, two employees be suspended without pay and three others receive formal letters of reprimand. New York Democrat Daniel Patrick Moynihan compared the disciplinary measures with canceling "weekend privileges for a month."

Both the Senate and the House Intelligence Committees are expected. to reopen their investigation of the guerrilla manual in early December. Some legislators even want to see the matter referred to the Justice Department. Says Democratic Congressman Norman Mineta of California: "The CIA and the President owe us some answers, and the inspector general's report fails to give them."