REAGAN TO NAME ROBERT GATES TO SUCCEED CIA CHIEF CASEY AS TOP INTELLIGENCE AIDE

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00965R000707060020-3
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: December 19, 2011
• Sequence Number: 20
• Publication Date: February 3, 1987
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2011/12/19: CIA-RDP90-00965R000707060020-3
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ARTICLE APPEARED 3 February 1987
ON PA6E_1.QMEN.-.'
Reagan to Name Robert Gates to Succeed
CIA Chief Casey as Top Intelligence Aide
By JOHN WALCOTT
Staff Reporter of THf: WA1.i. STera:T JOURNAI.
WASHINGTON-President Reagan will
nominate Robert Gates, a career intelli-
gence analyst, to succeed William Case
as director of central m e gence, the
White House announced.
White House spokesman Marlin Fitz-
water said Mr. Casey, who is 73 years old
and was operated on Dec. 18 for the re-
moval of a cancerous brain tumor, stepped
down voluntarily because he realized he
wouldn't soon be able to return to his post
as the nation's top intelligence officer.
President Reagan accepted the resignation
of Mr. Casey, a longtime personal friend,
"with reluctance and deep regret," Mr.
Fitzwater told reporters.
As director of central intelligence, Mr.
Gates will in effect hold two jobs-one as
head of the Central
Intelligence Agency
and another as the
nation's top intelli-
gence officer coordi-
nating the activities,
budgets and prod-
ucts of all U.S. intel-
ligenceagencies-in-
cluding the Defense
Intelligence Agency
and the National Se-
curity Agency.
Congressional
sources predicted
that the 43-year-old
Mr. Gates will win Senate confirmation.
Intelligence professionals yesterday
praised Mr. Gates's skills as an analyst
who has specialized in strategic nuclear
weapons and in Soviet affairs, and as a bu-
reaucrat who helped reform the CIA's ana-
lytical arm and improve the agency's rela-
tions with other government agencies.
Praise also came from Adm. Bobby
Ray Inman, a for ner head of the National
Security Agency and deputy director of the
CIA who had argued that the CIA needs an
intelligence professional at its head to pro-
vide stability and continuity. Adm. Inman
called Mr. Gates "the best possible choice
the president could have made."
Mr. Gates isn't likely to have trouble
finding outlets for the formidable energy
his colleagues say he possesses. Congres-
sional and law enforcement investigators
are trying to determine whether CIA offi.
cials played a larger role than they've ad-
mitted in selling arms to Iran and deliver-
ing aid to Nicaraguan rebels. Intelligence
sources said Mr. Gates. acting in Mr.
Casey's stead, already has decided to give
early retirement next April to the agency's
former station chief in Costa Rica, who
was deeply involved in aiding the rebels,
known as Contras.
But Mr. Gates's first order of business
is likely to be rebuilding the agency's rela-
tions with Congress, which were strained
during Mr. Casey's six-year tenure. Law-
makers were upset by revelations that un-
der Mr. Casey the CIA had neglected to in-
form Congress of such covert actions as
the mining of Nicaraguan harbors, the
commissioning of a guerrilla manual for
the Contras, and the administration's se-
cret arms sales to Iran.
"Mr. Gates and I have discussed our
common goal of making sure that the intel-
ligence committee and the agency will be
able to share information and ideas on a
completely candid basis," said Sen. David
Boren (D., Okla.), chairman o t'~he senate'
ntenigence committee. in a statement.
"The establishment of mutual trust be-
tween the agency and the intelligence
oversight committee will be of great bene-
fit to the committee, the intelligence com-
munity and the country."
Lawmakers also have questioned Mr.
Casey's involvement in the reported fun-
neling of profits from the administration's
secret Iran arms sales to the Contras. He
has denied knowing about such diversion
before Attorney General Edwin Meese dis-
closed it last November. But a report by
the Senate Intelligence Committee said
that Mr. Casey was a major proponent of
the arms sales, and that he was warned In
early October by an old friend and by his
subordinates that profits from the sales
might have been diverted.
Mr. Casey, the sources said, also
worked closely with Marine Lt. Col. Oliver
North, the fired National Security Council
staffer who oversaw the Contras' private
aid network. It was Mr. Casey, U.S. intelli-
gence sources said, who in 1983 first pro-
posed creating the guerrilla manual for the
Nicaraguan rebels-an action for which
several lower-ranking CIA officers later
were reprimanded.
And some CIA officials who were ap-
proached by Col. North for help in deliver-
ing aid to the Contras say they were told
by their superiors to do what the White
House aide told them because Col. North
was acting with Mr. Casey's authority and
that of the president's national security ad-
viser.
While his standing on Capitol Hill is bet-
ter than Mr. Casey's, Mr. Gates lacks his
STAT
STAT
predecessor's close relationship with Presi.
dent Reagan, which helped Mr. Casey win
huge increases in the intelligence budget.
That relationship also gave the departing
CIA director considerable clout as an advo-
cate of aid to the Contras, of efforts to win
the release of American hostages in Leba-
non, and of the expulsion of Soviet diplo-
mats from the U.S.
A More Dispassionate Approach
Some intelligence officials said that Mr.
Casey sometimes ignored the intelligence
community's conclusions in making policy
recommendations to the president. They
said Mr. Gates is likely to provide top pol-
icy-makers with more dispassionate, more
objective analysis than his predecessor
did, and won't be the public advocate for
U.S. policies that Mr. Casey was.
Mr. Casey, who had been an operative
with the CIA's World War II predecessor,
the Office of Strategic Services, or OSS,
was a fan of covert action. Mr. Gates,
whose experience is as an analyst, en-
dorsed covert action in congressional testi-
mony last year as "an appropriate instru-
ment of foreign policy, as long as it is
taken within a broader context."
"Bob is a professional, not a politician,"
said one senior administration official.
"And what this administration desperately
needs is the kind of professional advice
that should have kept it out of things like
selling arms to Iran through private
dealers."
One top administration official said the
president's choice of Mr. Gates represents
"a recognition that what the CIA needs
now is professional leadership." White
House officials in recent weeks had been
trying to decide whether to name an intelli-
gence officer such as Mr. Gates or a politi-
cian such as former Republican Sens.
Howard Baker of Tennessee or John Tower
of Texas. to replace Mr. Casey.
Mr. Gates has served as Mr. Casey's
deputy since last April 18. He oversaw a
major overhaul of the agency's analytical
division during the four previous years,
when he headed the CIA's directorate of in-
telligence.
Mr. Gates, who holds a doctorate in So-
viet history from Georgetown University.
was assigned to the staff of the National
Security Council from 1974 until 1979. He
also has served as the CIA's top Soviet an-
alvst.
STAT
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2011/12/19: CIA-RDP90-00965R000707060020-3