October 26, 1995
Web posted at: 7:50 p.m. EDT
From Correspondent Terry Frieden
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Nine months before the world's athletes convene in Atlanta, top U.S. officials acknowledge they have launched a huge coordinated security effort to protect the Olympic Games. Appearing before Congress, those officials said they are both haunted and motivated by memories of 11 Israeli Olympic athletes murdered by terrorists during the 1972 games in Munich, Germany. They vowed that nothing like that will ever happen again. "There's a lot of effort being focused in both the law enforcement and intelligence communities on the Atlanta Olympics," CIA General Counsel Jeffrey Smith testified.
He and other CIA and Justice Department officials told a Senate hearing Wednesday that the FBI is taking the lead in the government-wide intelligence effort to identify both domestic and international terrorist groups that pose potential threats. "We are on target," Deputy Attorney General Jamie Gorelick told senators.
Hezbollah and Hamas sympathizers in the United States are among many identified as potential threats, according to sources, who added that efforts will be made to penetrate groups both inside and outside the United States.
The CIA and FBI have a long history of poor working relations, but senators were assured that's changing. Government officials insist the Olympics is just one example of an effort to improve information-sharing between the two agencies.
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