FOIA
THE CIA: A STRAIGHT ARROW FOR DIRECTOR
Document Type:
Collection:
Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST):
CIA-RDP90-00965R000605790007-1
Release Decision:
RIPPUB
Original Classification:
K
Document Page Count:
2
Document Creation Date:
December 22, 2016
Document Release Date:
July 3, 2012
Sequence Number:
7
Case Number:
Publication Date:
March 16, 1987
Content Type:
OPEN SOURCE
File:
| Attachment | Size |
|---|---|
 CIA-RDP90-00965R000605790007-1.pdf | 229.14 KB |
Body:
STAT
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/07/03: CIA-RDP90-00965R000605790007-1
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ON RAI3E
NE'ISWEEK
16 March 198
The CIA: A Straight
Arrow for Director
Can William Webster buff up a tarnished agency?
F trst there was William Ca-
sey, felled by a brain tumor
just as the CIA began to be
pulled into the deepening muck
of the Iran-Nicaragua affair.
Then there was Robert Gates,
the boyishly handsome career-
ist whose nomination as CIA
director lasted exactly 29 days.
When questions about the
agency's involvement in the
scandal clouded his confirma-
tion hearings, Gates loyally
withdrew his name from the
Senate's consideration. And
last week, as Ronald Reagan
scrambled to put the Iran affair
behind him, the frazzled spooks
at Langley, Va., were alerted to
yet another change at the top.
This time their leader-to-be
was none other than FBI Direc-
tor William H. Webster, 63, a
sternly rectitudinous former
federal judge who may be the
straightest straight arrow in
Washington.
Webster has one known
vice-an inordinate affection
for tennis. He has many vir-
tues, the most pertinent of
which is an unquestioned rec-
ord for probity and discretion in
the enforcement of the nation's
laws. He is widely credited with
having restored the FBI's mo-
rale and reputation in the after-
math of J. Edgar Hoover's 47 t z -
year reign. Though accurate
enough, that judgment may be
Sen. David Boren of Oklahoma, chairman
of the Senate Intelligence Committee, in
which he insisted he had done no wrong.
But, he conceded in a letter asking the
president to withdraw his nomination as
CIA director, the questions about his con-
duct would inevitably lead to "a prolonged
period of uncertainty [that] would be harm-
ful" to the CIA and to national security.
Tower, intent on a European vacation
and a new career in the private sector,.
turned the president down-
and Reagan, who was planning
to announce his latest CIA
nominee before his Wednes-
day-night speech to the nation,
placed an urgent call to Web-
ster Tuesday morning. Webster
convened his FBI aides, con-
sulted some of the wise men
in the intelligence communi-
ty and talked to his three
children. (His wife, Drusilla,
died in 1984.) Then-after leav-
ing the White House on ten-
terhooks through much of the
afternoon-he called the presi-
dent back shortly after 6 p.m.
and accepted the job. His for-
the-record comment, before a
whirlwind photo-op at the
White House, reflected both
the hectic pace of the decision
and his taciturn public perso-
na. "Too much, too soon," he
said with a smile.
Shadow world: Assuming that
his Senate confirmation is as-
sured, which now seems likely,
Webster will take over later
this spring as the nation's 14th
director of central intelligence.
The job in fact is much larger
than running the CIA: the di-
rector has the responsibility of
coordinating the intelligence
"product" of 11 different agen-
cies, including the CIA, the Na-
tional Security Agency, the Na-
tional Reconnaissance Office
and the intelligence arms of all
four military services. That
A DeBORCHGRA\E-G,A .I MA.LiAISO\
The judge in his FBI office: No question' who is in charge
unfair to former Director Clarence M. Kel-
ley (1973-1978), who actually began the
complex process of bringing the bureau
and its 9,100 gumshoes into the modern
era. It was Webster, however, who had the
force of character to remove the bust of
J. Edgar from the director's office, and it
was Webster who, after nine years in the
FBI's top job, won unanimous acclaim
from Capitol Hill when his nomination to
succeed Casey was announced last week.
"A superb choice." said Sen. Patrick Lea-
hy of Vermont, a member of the Senate
Intelligence Committee and no fan of Wil-
liam Casey. "[I am] surprised and delight-
ed," said Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan of
New York. "He is a man of impeccable
authority."
Webster was actually Reagan's second
choice. The first was former Sen. John Tow-
er of Texas, chairman of the presidential
commission whose report on the Iran-Nica-
ragua affair had, among other things, cre-
ated a whole new set of problems for the
luckless Gates. The Tower commission
faulted the CIA for not acting more force-
fully to notify the president and Congress
when the first rumors of a contra-funding
diversion surfaced at the CIA last fall.
Gates, who philosophically accepted that
he had been "in the wrong place at the
wrong time," wrote a four-page letter to
means, at the very least, an enormous
expansion in the scope of Webster's re-
sponsibilities and a sudden shift from
the orderly ambit of U.S. law to the shad-
ow world of international spycraft. "The
CIA is not an institution of lawyers."
growled one agency veteran. "For the
troops here and abroad, it's going to be
very puzzling." Gates, however, was more
gracious-perhaps because he will stay on
at the agency as Webster's deputy. "The
overwhelming sentiment on the part of
[the CIA's] senior management," he told
NEWSWEEK, "was... pleasure at his
appointment."
Webster's track record at the FBI is usu-
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/07/03: CIA-RDP90-00965R000605790007-1 i
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/07/03: CIA-RDP90-00965R000605790007-1
z
ally regarded as stellar-though it is not
entirely unblemished. He firmly estab-
lished his enforcement objectives, which
were counterterrorism, counterespionage,
organized crime, white-collar crime and
government corruption. He brought more
blacks, Hispanics and women into the
ranks, and he established an ethos of un-
swerving devotion to both the letter and
the spirit of the law. FBI surveillance of
domestic radicals was reduced to a level
that seemed to satisfy even the American
Civil Liberties Union: at the same time, the
bureau succeeded in breaking a number of
spectacular espionage cases, such as the
Walker family spy ring, under Webster's
leadership.
Abscam, the FBI's sting operation
against corrupt public officials, led to the
convictions of a U.S. senator and six con-
gressmen-and triggered a chorus of com-
plaints on Capitol Hill about entrapment.
Webster was politic enough not to persist in
such investigations when the Abscam
cases were wrapped up. But the bureau
botched its surveillance of Edward Lee
Howard. the first CIA man to defect to the
Soviet Union, and it was slow to detect the
treason of Richard Miller, the first FBI
man ever convicted of spying for the KGB.
Despite those difficulties, Webster's ad-
mirers are confident that he will quickly
succeed in his new assignment. Jim Ad-
ams, who served as Webster's chief deputy
at the FBI in 1978, described his old boss
as a take-charge administrator who dele-
gates authority, encourages dissent-and
demands results. He likes to have the sys-
tem keep him informed of what's going on,"
Adams said. "He doesn't cut your head off if
you make a mistake, but if you do anything
to weaken the credibility of the institution,
he's very tough." At the CIA, Adams says,
"there will be no question in anybody's
mind but that he's in charge." And if the
CIA continues to mount "cowboy" covert
cps in the future. Adams added, it will be
because the new director wants it that way.
Covert action: Webster must nevertheless
walk a very fine line in the months to come.
For one thing, some members of the House
and Senate are intensely interested in why
he agreed to delay an investigation into
weapons shipments to Central America by
a charter airline with CIA connections;
sources say Webster can testify that he
protested the decision by Attorney Gener-
al Edwin Meese III. More important, how-
ever, Webster will quickly find himself
caught in the political undertow that once
again surrounds the CIA. On one side are
those, like Casey himself, who think the
agency must continue to perform covert
missions such as supporting the contra in-
surgency in Nicaragua. On the other side
are those like Senator Boren, who wants
"more selective use of covert action." Sena-
tor Leahy, for example, hopes Webster will
"insist on scrupulously objective intelli-
gence analysis ... no matter what the true
believers in the White House, the Pentagon
or elsewhere may want to hear."
The controversy over the CIA's role in
the Iran-Nicaragua affair, in short. is noth-
ing less than a dispute between Congress
and the president over the goals of U.S.
foreign policy. Webster will soon be in the
thick of it-but unlike Gates, he has plenty
of experience in defending his actions on
Capitol Hill. He also has a proven propensi-
ty for stubborn independence on policy is-
sues-which may make him a tougher cus-
tomer than either Congress or the Reagan
administration had bargained for.
Tom MORGANTHAO
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