AN ASPIRIN FOR THE CIA, BUT MAJOR SURGERY NEEDED

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00965R000403730008-0
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 2
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: February 8, 2012
• Sequence Number: 8
• Publication Date: February 8, 1987
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

STAT
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/02/08: CIA-RDP90-00965R000403730008-0
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U
LCS ANGELES TIMES
8 February 1987
An Aspirin for the CIA,
rery Needed
but Major Sug
u J~ offer assistance for future NSC arms-
:less for-hostages operations. Such actions led 1? -10 d CAMMUDGM one congressman on the House Foreign
Like who its resigned director, last week William J. . Casey, following Affairs Committee to declare, "'t'here are
ng clearly elements who believe they are a
brain surgery for a malignant tu- government unto themselves." And Adm.
rdor, the Central Intelligence Agency in A Stsnafiel Casey's pred'-eeso aV
seriously ill and the prognosis is for a slow t1WC IL, said. "I I'd have found out that
recovery.
Chosen by President Reagan to nurse
tte agency back to health is Robert M.
Gates a 43-year-old Soviet a yes o
-'!l9lrsei ed as Casey's deputy since April,
1986. Although the choice of Gates has
drawn support on both ends of the
political spectrum, his selection repre-
sents little more than an aspirin where
major surgery is called for.
Among the most striking revelations to
emerge from the recently released Senate
Intelligence Committee report is the pic-
ture it paints of a weak and confused
Casey attempting to run an agency in
search of a purpose. For decades pure
espionage-the collection of intelli-
gence-has shifted to the more cost-ef-
fective technospies: The sensitive ears of
the National Security Agency and the
telephoto eyes of the National Reconnais-
sance Office. To fill the void, the CIA
turned more and more toward covert
operations, an area that Casey, a former
Office of Strategic Services operative, was
familiar with.
But, as the intelligence committee re-
port vividly shows, Casey was too weak a
director even to maintain the agency's
control over covert operations. Thus it
was not an experienced CIA official who
played a key role in arranging the early
arms-for-hostages transfers, but
A. Ledeen, a neophyte part-time a y -
l~'6rTh National Security Council who
acted more like a lobbyist for Israel than a
U.S. representative, and Lt. Col. Oliver L.
North, a monomaniacal Marine also on the
NSC staff. Ledeen was later replaced with
various arms dealers.
An even more disturbing revelation to
emerge from the Senate report was the
agency's lack of control over its own
covert-action specialists. For example, it
was not Casey but John N. McMahon, the
agency's deputy director`aTdirec-
tor while Casey was in China), who
ordered that no further CIA activity in
support of the NSC operation be conduct-
ed without a presidential finding author-
izing covert actions.
Nonetheless, despite the fact that a
finding was not issued until Jan. 17, 198%
nearly two months later, the agency's
Covert Action Unit secretly continued to
there was an intelligence operation run
without my knowing it, I'd have quit the
next day."
Finally, the CIA under Casey may have
severely damaged one of the agency's
most important intelligence sources close
liaison activities with friendly govern-
ments. It is far easier, for example, for the
West German government to infiltrate
the East German intelligence network-
and then share the result with the
CIA-than it is for the CIA to spend years
attempting to train Americans to do the
very same thing.
But developing such assets often takes
years of patience and, especially trust.
Loss of that trust may result in a cutoff of
key intelligence for a long time. Unfortu-
nately, it is just such trust that the CIA
under Casey and Gates has been rapidly
squandering. How can any foreign gov-
ernment, for example, trust its secrets to
an agency that warns them against selling
arms to terrorist nations while at the same
time is secretly doing precisely that; or
allows highly sensitive covert operations
to be conducted by a group of inexperi-
enced comic-book characters; or misplac-
es tens of millions of dollars in secret
funds: or supplies doctored intelligence to
one side in a war while secretly sending
arms to the other? The argument that
senior agency officials had no idea that
any or all of the above was taking place
would only compound, not lessen, the
mistrust of friendly intelligence services.
These are just a few of the problems the
new director must overcome if the CIA is
to regain its credibility. Unfortunately.
Gates does not measure up to the job. His
main virtues appear to be a strong
ambition and an ability to follow orders
unquestionably. He also appears to have
been heavily involved with Casey-not in
trying to get to the bottom of the illegal
diversion of funds from the Iran deal to
the contras, but in trying to cover it up.
Gates, for example, was first informed
by a CIA analyst of the possible diversion
of funds as far back as Oct. 1, 1996. During
their discussion, however, there was
never any mention of potential illegality,
only talk about the inappropriate com-
mingling of separate accounts and the risk
of the operation's discovery. Not until Oct.
7 did dates and the other official brief
Casey on the likely diversion.
Adding to the worry was the fact that
earlier that same day Casey had met with
Roy M. Furmark, an old friend, who
warned him that two Canadian business-
men, who had put up money for the arms
deal, had not been repaid-and they were
threatening to go public. Soon after the
meeting, Casey and Gates informed Vice
Adm. John M. Poindexter, then Reagan's
national security adviser, of the possible
diversion of funds to the contras and the
possibility that the operation might be
blown.
What Casey and Gates were obligated
to do at this point was inform the
congressional Intelligence Committee and
also the President's Intelligence STAT
sight Board, a small White House way
charged with looking into possible illegal
intelligence activities. What they did
instead was to try to turn a blind eye to
the whole operation. According to one
report. Gates told the Intelligence Com-
mittee that it was CIA policy "to not even
want to know about funds being diverted
to the cart's:." "If we even knew," Gates
said, "we would be blamed for it."
Thus, even though North, over lunch
with Casey and Gates on Oct. 9, made
reference to the Swiss bank account and
money for the cost tea, neither CIA official
were interested in hearing any more
about it. All they wanted to know was
whether the CIA was "clear}." Assured by
North that it was, Casey and Gates
pressed no further and again made no
mention to any oversight body. The most
they did was to ask the agency's in-house
general counsel to review all aspects of
the Iran project to ensure that the CIA
was not involved The general counsel,
without questioning North or, apparently,
anyone else with any potential knowl-
edge, quickly came up with a clean bill of
health for the CIA.
Over the next six weeks, growing
evidence of the funds diversion continued
to flow into the offices of Casey and Gates.
Yet the cover-up continued. On Nov. 21,
Casey testified before the Senate Intelli-
gence Committee and made no reference
to the contra diversion. Later, Gates
weakly defended the deception, saying
that they (Casey and Gates) didn't have
enough information to go on. Yet, Gates
added, "It was enough to raise our
concerns to the point where we expSTAT
them to the White House."
There is no doubt, as many have
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indicated, that Gates represents a vat
improvement over his former boa. He is
bright, articulate and capable. He also
appears to be more comfortable with
congressional oversight than Casey, who
viewed the intelligence committees with
disdain and suspicion. But, his actions
during the Iran-contra affair leave a great
deal to be desired. Unlike his predecessor.
McMahon-who protested loudly over
such improper activities as the lack of the
presidential finding and then resigned
apparently at least in part as protest to the
agency's continued involvement in the
arms-for-hostages deal-Gates shows no
such inclination toward moral courage. In
choosing someone to head up the entire
U.S. intelligence community, such a qual-
ity must be a principal requirement.
In its confirmation hearings next week
the Senate Intelligence Committee should
send the nomination of Gates back to the
White House with the clear message that
what the agency needs is candor, not
cover-up. The most effective cure for the
CIA's ills is a new director from outside
the agency with stature, broad foreign-
policy, defense and intelligence back-
ground and a free hand to make all the
necessary changes. Such an appointment
may be the only way to get the agency off
the critical list and into the recovery
room. 0
James Bamford is author of "The Pile
Palace," an examination of the Nati at
Security Agency.
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/02/08: CIA-RDP90-00965R000403730008-0