PROFESSIONAL DIRECTOR OF NSA SUDDENLY IN SPOTLIGHT

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00965R000100270015-9
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: January 6, 2012
• Sequence Number: 15
• Publication Date: May 13, 1986
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

Declassified and Approved For Release 2012/01/06: CIA-RDP90-00965R000100270015-9
N MTKA.L APPENIED
ON PA(iE_
WASHINGTON POST
31 May 1986
Professorial Director of NSA
Suddenly in Spotlight
By Charles It Babcock 1977 and drafted Odom as his, military as- Donald P. Gregg, who worked with Odom
Wx*mgt0O Pod Staff writer d P.... 11.11 Od ' , th C
t W
U
h
U. Gen. William E. Odom, the professori-
al director of the once-secret National Se-
curity Agency, suddenly finds himself and
his agency at the center of national atten-
tion this week, thanks to the trial of a for-
mer NSA technician named Ronald W. Pel-
ton.
Pelton is charged with betraying some of
the NSA's most sensitive secrets to the So-
viet Union for $35,000. According to the
government, he told the Soviets where they
were losing communications to the United
States and-probably more important-
about how effectively the NSA is able to
interpret and decode the Soviet signals it
intercepts.
For the director of the agency-a mas-
sive bureaucracy with a $4 billion annual
budget-Pelton represents the ultimate
nightmare. Odom has told acquaintances in
recent months that he fears that publicity
.about Pelton's disclosures might persuade
other NSA employes that, since many of the
most important secrets have been revealed,
they are freer than before to discuss what
the agency does.
Odom's concerns about leaks led him to
take the initiative this week in the Reagan
administration's effort to tell the news me-
dia how to cover Pelton's trial. After press
accounts of the trial's opening day Tuesday
alarmed Odom, he proposed a public warn-
ing to the media not to speculate or report
additional details about the case. CIA Direc-
tor William J. Casey also signed the warn-
ing, which caused a furor among news ex-
ecutives. But the furor would have been
greater if Odom's original draft had sur-
vived; he proposed concluding the warning
with a threat to prosecute reporters who
ignored it.
That Odom finds himself a lieutenant
general running an intelligence agency with
50,000 employes is a surprise even to him,
according to old friends. Ten years ago he
was a lieutenant colonel who doubted that
he would ever make full colonel, and was
teaching courses on Soviet government and
comparative politics at West Point.
Odom's meteoric rise since then was
made possible by a professor he knew at
Columbia University named Zbigniew Brze-
zinski, who became President Jimmy Car-
ter's national security affairs adviser in
r
n et Zia s wmg, om s e a er
sistant
ate House and is now na-
career flourished in a way reminiscent of tional security adviser to Vice President
Alexander M. Haig Jr., whose service as a Bush, said yesterday, "I found Bill Odom a
military assistant to national security affairs very bright, tremendously energetic guy
adviser and then secretary of state Henry .... He comes on strong sometimes. But
A. Kissinger in the Nixon White House led he knows where the Soviets come from his-
to accelerated promotions from colonel to torically. He is steeped in the history of the
four-star'general. Bolshevik revolutioq. He taught it. He saw
While working for Brzezinski, Odom had,` -"--"' IM "I ? IU ?Ci11n anu inos-
cow .... He'4 .a realist but not a
a reputation as being a hardliner-"Zbig's d ri mg crazy byi as-4iesns," '
superhawk" is how one former colleague Oixom moved- to the Pentagon in early
put it. His only formal assignmetlt o4 the 1981 as the No. 2 person in Army intelli-
National Security Council staff was "crisis gence and got the top job, as assistant chief
coordinator" and as such Odom was privy toil of staff for intelligence, that fall. One official
planning responses to the Soviet idvseiasrgri who knew him then described Odom as "a
Afghanistan and the Iranian capture.of
U.S. embassy. in Tehran. To reaert brilliant man. He was extremely bright and
for news leaks authorized by Brzezinski.
Because of his close working relationship
with Brzezinski, Odom also worked on nu-
clear targeting, civil defense, terrorism and
plans for a military rapid deployment force.
Brzezinski, a counselor to Georgetown
University's Center for Strategic and inter-
national Studies, said in an interview it
would be fair to call Odom his "Al Haig."
"Gen. Odom is a top-notch professional.
He is the military's top expert on the Soviet
Union, and he's also a good tennis player.
He would do well in any administration,"
Brzezinski said.
A native of Cookeville, Tenn., Odom was
graduated from West Point in 1954 and
quickly began to specialize in Soviet affairs.
He studied the Russian language and Soviet
area studies and then served as a military
attache in Berlin in the mid-'60s, and in
Moscow in the early 1970s. His wife, Anne
Curtis Odom, is a museum curator. They
have a son in college.
One official from the Carter National Se-
curity Council staff, who asked not to be
identified, said he believed Odom survived
and was promoted in the Reagan adminis-
tration because "his superhawk credentials
are beyond reproach." This ex-official re-
membered Odom as being distrustful of
arms control treaties and as champion of a
plan to spend $Ir billion a year on civil de-
fense. "He had the the idea that a nuclear
war with the Soviet Union could be fought
and won," the ex-official said.
Another colleague agreed that Odom
earned his reputation as a hardliner on the
Soviet Union. "But it isn't a knee-jerk re-
action. He has studied the issues. There is a
depth to his understanding,
But he wasn't a good people manager. He
was not a real proponent of human intelli-
gence-collection. He was much tnore inter-
ested in technical systems."
This official recalled hearing that Odom
once traveled to.Europe and told members
of an Army counterintelligence unit that
technical collection systems were so sophis-
ticated that there was little need for human
operatives. "That's not a great way to boost
the troops' morale," the official said.
During Odom's tenure as Army intelli-
gence chief there was a controversy about a
secret intelligence unit-the Intelligence
Support Activity-started by his predeces-
sor. Newspaper reports in 1983 said that
congressional oversight committees had
discovered that ISA had operated without a
charter for more than a year. In one case it
had given financial aid to an unsuccessful
search for missing U.S. soldiers in Laos
headed by former Green Beret James (Bo)
Gritz without the knowledge of superiors.
But one knowledgable Defense Department
official said Odom worked quickly to bring
ISA under control.
Early last year, while still head of Army
intelligence, Odom told the audience at a
Washington seminar that the Soviet Union
might attempt to ease its disadvantage in
technical competition with the United
States by trying to negotiate an arms con-
trol agreement or Increasing trade in stra-
tegic materials. President Reagan's Stra-
tegic Defense Initiative research program
was a challenge of "enormous dimensions"
to the Soviets, Odom said.
Declassified and Approved For Release 2012/01/06: CIA-RDP90-00965R000100270015-9