10-30-95. Wash Rag: "Pentagon Plans More Espionage. Business Fronts Abroad Would Expand Efforts Of a Unified Service." The Defense Department has merged its separate covert intelligence operations and plans to expand its espionage abroad, starting with establishment of phony businesses overseas as cover, and has formed the Defense HUMINT (Human Intelligence) Service, or DHS. Under the fiscal 1996 intelligence authorization bill, the DHS has been given a trial period of three years to carry on commercial activities "to provide cover security to intelligence collection activities undertaken abroad." The authority "to provide bona fide commercial cover," was so that DHS's covert operatives could "withstand detailed investigation by hostile foreign intelligence services as well as domestic scrutiny." ... scandal of the Army's Yellow Fruit op ... CIA case officers are working with DHS on the cover companies abroad; cooperation is needed because in recent years military spies overseas inadvertently had set up relations with foreigners known to be double agents. Sen. Bob Kerrey called on CIA Director John M. Deutch to "develop his human collectors, planning 10 or more years in advance for their peak usefulness," a reference to placing them abroad under deep cover for use in future crises. DOD_com (8 kb)