CASEY'S 'ACTIVE' COUNTERTERRORISM

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00965R000807540050-6
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 29
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: January 12, 2012
• Sequence Number: 50
• Publication Date: September 27, 1987
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

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---- ..aaulmyivn rVai 141
VEIL
THE SECRET WARS OF THE CIA, 1981.1987
Casey's `Active' Counterterrorism
When CIA Balked at Preemptive Strategy, Director Turned to Saudis
This is one of six sxcerpts from "VEIL. Ths Secret
Wars of the CIA. 1981-19187." VEIL was the code
word desuvnatinlg
aissitirr Ixfirmatioa
and documents
rie/ati,Mg to cowvt
actions dwiffg the
lastaewAdjoNy'
the Regglan
adssinistratiaL
By Bob Woodweid
W'-e- n,.e swr rhil..
The flames were flickering in the oval office fire-
place, suggesting intimacy, for the meeting that
fall afternoon just after the November 1984
election victory. CIA Director William J. Casey strode
in with his papers and a summary of talking points on
a single sheet of paper. He was certain he had re-
duced the issue to its basics: The Reagan administra-
tion looked impotent because of the fanatics and sui-
cide bombers who had destroyed U.S. facilities in Bei-
rut, and the president had agreed to do something
about it.
Casey had in mind a presidential intelligence order,
called a "finding," that would direct the Central Intel-
ligence Agency to train and support small . units of
foreign nationals in the Middle East so they could
conduct preemptive strikes
against terrorists. If intelli-
gence data showed that some-
one was about to hit a U.S.
facility, such as an embassy or
a military base, the units
would be able to move to dis-
able or kill the terrorists.
Casey explained to the
president that the finding was
simply to train and put the
units in place; another flodirtg
would be required to take ac-
tion in a specific case. The
Israelis were experienced at
this kind of covert preemptive
work, but it was essential that
the administration not get
into bed with them on this.
Any U.S. action had to be
seen as antiterrorist, not anti-
Arab.
With luck, no one outside a
small circle would ever know
The New York Times
The Washington Times
The Wall Street Journal
The Christian Science Monitor
New York Daily News
USA Today
The Chicago Tribune
Date .17
about the existence of these new units. At first, three
five-man units would be trained and set up in Leba-
non. Any preemptive hit would be carried out under-
cover; it would not be- traceable to the CIA or the
United States; all would have deniability.
The president told Casey to inform the congres-
sional intelligence committees but to invoke the pro-
vision in the law that allowed him to inform only eight
people-the chairmen and vice chairmen of the Sen-
ate and House committees; and the Republican and
Democratic leaders of the.Senate and House.
Casey said he would -see to it personalty; That
ers old know. e He the se saw a nsitivity.
staff-
to show that the
CIA could conduct truly secret operadooL
President Reagan signed the formal Sj&g'jnd an
accompanying National Security Dew Directive,
The immediate cost for the I--- rtaNlf wwM be.
About the Book
"VEIL" is based on interviews with
more than 250 people directly in-
volved in gathering or using intelli-
gence information and on more than
four dozen substantive discussions or
interviews with the late CIA director
William J. Casey. In addition, hundreds
of documents, notes and other written
materials were provided by various
sources. Because of the sensitivity of
intelligence operations, nearly all in-
terviews were on "background," mean-
ing the sources cannot be identified.
Where dialogue is used in the narra-
tive, it comes from at least one par-
ticipant in the meeting or conversa-
tion, or from someone's notes or con-
temporaneous memos. When someone
is said to have "thought" or "believed,"
that point of view has been obtained
from that person or from someone
who learned of that person's point of
view during a conversation.
-Bob Woodward
"soot it m ea, Whe. they
kasum w. to+
inddds tiiil11111t Wines in othetr
$&3 would W
Rear Aii U. NO.
dexter, then the deputy na-
tional security adviser, who
was at the meeting, later ng.
gested to a colleague that the
afternoon session was a mere
formality because Reagan and
Casey already had had a
meeting of the minds. "Casey
mumbled, and Ronald Reagan
nodded off," Poindexter said.
Casey's CIA had to be
dragged kicking and scream.
ing to this "active" counter-
terrorism. John N. McMahon,
Casey's deputy, had issued a
no-thank-you; the CIA did
intelligence, not killing.
But with the backing of Secretary of
State George P. Shultz, Casey had won
Reagan's support and was determined to
see this through. McMahon, however,
continued to resist and fight Casey every
step of the way, littering the bureaucratic
landscape with doubts, even after the
finding was signed by Reagan. Could they
trust the foreign nationals, particularly
the Lebanese? McMahon asked. Could
the CIA control them? As McMahon saw
it, either answer to the second question
spelled trouble. If the CIA had control,
wouldn't this involve the agency in assas-
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 .not have control, were they not launching
unguided missiles? And, McMahon won-
dered further. would they ever have in-
telligence of the quality, certainty and
timeliness to justify a preemptive strike?
They had never had it so far.
Casey had a written legal opinion from
CIA lawyers asserting that preemptive
action would be no more an assassination
than would a case in which a policeman
gets off the first shot at the man who is
pointing a gun at him. It was called "pre-
emptive self-defense."
But training the Lebanese in early
1985 was proving to be trouble, as
McMahon had predicted. Casey's own
CIA people began slowing down. In
Casey's view they were frightened by the
prospect of a real encounter with danger.
All the bold planning was going to be a
wasted effort. After four years of frus
tration with his agency and Congress,
Casey had reached the breaking point.
He decided to go "off the books," to go
outside normal CIA channels and turn
instead to King Fahd of Saudi Arabia and
the Saudi intelligence service.
Casey found the Saudis happily free of
the CIA's self-doubt, Under the Saudi
monarchy, there were no legislatures,
courts or oversight committees with
power to second-guess. In one secret
operation, the Saudis were already pro-
viding millions of dollars to the Ni-
caraguan contras. Casey's proposal for a
counterterrorist operation would be
more in line with the Saudi interest in the
Middle East, where the monarchy was
anxious to make a strong statement
against terrorism, particularly the radical
fundamentalist Moslems affiliated with
the regime of Ayatollah Ruhollah Kho-
meini of Iran.
King Fahd pledged $3 million of Saudi
money for the operation, enabling Casey
and the Reagan administration to circum-
vent both the CIA and Congress, which
would normally provide funds for covert
operations.
Fahd next dispatched a courier directly
to his ambassador in Washington, Prince
Bandar bin Sultan, with secret instruc-
tions to cooperate with Casey. Bandar,
36, a flashy, handsome man-about-town,
was the son of the powerful Saudi de-
fense minister. He exemplified the new
breed of ambassador-activist, charm-
ing, profane. The former air force pilot
was a kind of Arab Gatsby who waved
around Cuban cigars, laughed boisterous-
ly and served his favorite McDonald's Big
Mac hamburgers to guests on sterling
silver trays in his private office.
Bandar immediately made an appoint-
ment to visit Casey at CIA headquarters
in Langley. Casey saw him, but proposed
a second meeting elsewhere, saying,
"Let's have a bite." It was as if he didn't
want to talk at the CIA. They agreed to
have lunch over the weekend at Bandar's
residence, a palatial estate just a mile
down Chain Bridge Road from the CIA. i
ambassador's wife friendly and nice. The
lunch, she felt, was just another Wash-
ington social obligation. "For no purpose
at all that I could see," she said later.
After lunch, Casey and Bandar walked
alone out to the garden. When they were'
about as far away as possible from the
house and the security guards, Casey
withdrew a small card from his pocket
and handed it to the ambassador. It con-
tained the handwritten number of a bank
account in Geneva. The $3 million was to
go there.
"As soon as I transfer this," Bandar
said, "I'll close out the account and burn
the paper." He would make sure there
were no tracks on the Saudi end.
"Don't worry," Casey said. His end
would be clean, too. "We'll close the ac-
count at once."
Bandar knew how to have a conversa-
tion that never took place. Though it wag
widely suspected that the Saudis were
funneling millions to the contras, Bandar
denied it routinely with a 'confident laugh
and a long lecture about implausibility.
Their relationship was the kind that both
Bandar and Casey valued-one in which
men of authority could have frank, deni-
able talks and emerge with an agreement
only they understood.
Bandar and Casey agreed that a dra-
matic blow against terrorists would serve
the interests of both the United States
and Saudi Arabia. They knew from their
intelligence reports that a chief support-
er and symbol of terrorism was Sheikh
Mohammed Hussein Fadlallah, the fun-
damentalist Moslem leader of the mili-
tant Party of cod, Hezbollah, in Beirut.
Fadlallah had been connected to all three
bombings of American facilities in Beirut
during 1983 and 1984. He had to go. The
two men were in agreement.
Englishman or his Beirut
operation.
The Englishman estab-
lished operational. com-
partments to carry out
separate parts of the as-
sassination plan; none had
any communication with
any other except through
him. Several men were
hired to procure a large
quantity of explosives;
another man was hired to
find a car; money was paid
to informers to make sure
they knew where Fadlal-
lah would be at a certain
time; another group was
hired to design an after-
action deception so that
the Saudis and the CIA
would not be connected;
the Lebanese intelligence
service, a lethal organization that had
close ties to the CIA. hired the men to
carry out the operation.
On March 8, 1985, a car packed with
explosives was driven into a Beirut sub-
urb and parked about 50-yards from Fad.
lallah's high-rise residence. The car ex-
ploded, killing 80 people and wounding
200, leaving devastation, fires and col-
lapsed buildings. Fadlallah escaped with-
out injury. His followers strung a huge
"MADE IN USA" banner in front of it
building that had been blown out.
When Bandar saw the news account,
he got stomach cramps. Tracks had to be
meticulously covered. Information was
planted that the Israelis were behind the
car bombing. But the Saudis needed to go
further to prove their noninvolvement.
They provided irrefutable intelligence
that l
d F
d
e
a
lallah to some of the hired
Control Shifted to Saudis operatives. As Bandar explained it, "I
Knw. own: there
ere noNothingrecords.was The written
Upon arriving at Bandar's house, So- k
Saudi $3 million
phia recognized that she and her husband deposited in the Geneva account was
had once looked at the house and had "laundered" through transfers among
considered buying it; Casey had liked the other bank accounts, making certain it
large library. At lunch, Sophia found the could not be traced to the
Later Casey decided to give effective
operational control to the Saudis, partic-
ularly as the CIA bureaucracy grew still
more resistant. The Saudis came up with
an Englishman who had served in the
British Special Air Services, the elite
commando special operations -forces.
This man traveled extensively around the
Middle East and went in and out of Leb-
anon from another Arab nation.
The CIA, of course, could have nothing
to do with "elimination." The Saudis, if
the operation became exposed, would
back a CIA denial concerning involve-
ment or knowledge. Liaison with foreign
intelligence services was one CIA activity
out of the reach of congressional over-
sight; over the years Casey had flatly re-
fused to tell the committees about this
kind of sensitive work. And in this case,
take a shot at you. You suspect me and
then I turn in my chauffeur and say he did
it. You would think I am no longer a sus-
pect."
Still, Fadlallah was a problem-after
the assassination attempt, potentially a
bigger problem. The Saudis approached
him and asked whether, for money, he
would act as their early-warning system
for terrorist attacks on Saudi and Amer-
ican facilities. They would pay $2 million
cash. Fadlallah said he would agree if the
payment were made in food, medicine
and educational expenses for some of his
followers. This would enhance his status
among his people. The Saudis agreed.
There were no more Fadlallah-sup-
ported bomb attacks against Americans,
as far as the CIA could determine.
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-It was easier to bribe him than to kill
him," Bandar remarked.
Casey was astounded that such a com-
paratively small amount of money could
solve such a giant problem.
Efforts in Chad and Libya
Bandar and the Saudis undertook two
other covert operations at Casey's re-
quest. One was to bolster efforts in Chad
designed to thwart Libyan leader Moam-
mar Gadhafi. This was a particularly del-
icate undertaking for the Saudis because
Gadhafi was a fellow Arab. The Saudis
secretly put $8 million into an ongoing
operation.. It was also supported by the
CIA and France, the colonial power in
Chad until 1960.
The second was even more sensitive
for Casey and the United States. Deter-
mined to thwart communism every-
where, Casey was worried about the
growing influence of the Communist Par-
ty in Italy. Though it was still a minority
party, polling about 30 percent of the
vote, there were projections that the
Communists would get more votes than
any other Italian party in the May 1985
election.
Keenly aware that Congress had no
stomach for covert action in Western Eu-
rope, Casey turned to the Saudis, who
supplied $2 million for the Italian elec-
tion. It could not be learned what impact,
if any, this money had, but in the election
on May 13, 1985, the Communists failed
to outpoll the Christian Democrats.
The two operations were never traced
to the Saudis or exposed.
Intelligence Finding Rescinded
Failure of the March 8, 1985, mission
to kill Fadlallah left Casey despondent.
The CIA role in training the units put the
agency in jeopardy. Even though the Leb-
anese intelligence service had only the
comparatively small role of hiring the
nien to plant the car bomb, this all tied
the CIA too closely to an assassination
plot. McMahon, who was not aware of
the Saudi role, wanted a "disconnect"; he
said urgently that the agency had to get
out of covert antiterrorist training. Casey
had no choice, and Reagan rescinded the
finding that allowed the operation to go
forward.
At The Washington Post, we had
learned that Reagan had signed the find-
ing to create three secret Lebanese units
for preemptive attacks on terrorists. We
then learned that the finding had been
rescinded after the Beirut car bombing
had killed 80 people. We knew only about
the role of the Lebanese intelligence ser-
vice at that point, and nothing about the
secret role of the Saudis or their $3 mil-
lion contribution to the operation. The
CIA tired to dissuade us from running a
story. We saw no reason to withhold a
story, since the operation had failed and
the finding was history.
1985: "Antiterrorist Plan Rescinded Af-
ter Unauthorized Bombing." It described
the bombing as a "runaway mission" not
authorized by the CIA, though the finding
gave the agency "an indi-
rect connection to the car
bombing."
Casey called me at the
paper 10 days later.
"Lives are in danger," he
said. "I'm not sure it was a
story that had to be writ-
ten, but I can't control
that. Maybe I should,
though. It's the way it got
picked up-as if we had
our own hit team out
there." He said that it
would make life more'dif-
ficult for him and his agen-
cy. The matter has lethal
consequences, he said,
and care must be exer-
cised in not just the facts
but in the impression cre-
ated. "You shouldn't have
run it." His tone was mat-
ter-of-fact, but it turned to
ice: "You'll probably have blood on your
hands before it's over."
Ransoming U.S. Hostages
Though the terrorism from the car
bombs had been stopped, Americans con-
tinued to be taken hostage in Beirut. Da-
vid P. Jacobsen, director of the American
University Hospital there, was kidnaped
on May 28, 1985. Several others were
still being held, including CIA station
chief William Buckley, who had been hos-
tage for more than a year. Something
more had to be done.
In the White House, Marine Lt. Col.
Oliver L. North, who was in charge of
counterterrorist operations for the Na-
tional Security Council and frequently
consulted with Casey, developed a plan.
Two agents of the Drug Enforcement
Administration had been told by an in-
former they had used on Middle East her-
oin trafficking that $200,000 could get
two American hostages out, and that one
of them would be Buckley. CIA opera-
tives raised doubts about the informer's
credibility and suggested that such a pay-
ment would violate U.S. policy not to of-
fer ransom to terrorists.
Nonetheless, national security adviser
Robert C. McFarlane won the president's
approval for a plan to raise the ransom
money privately. The task fell to North.
He contacted Texas billionaire H. Ross
Perot, who in 1979 had hired a seven-
member commando team to rescue two
of his employes held captive in Iran.
Perot was always willing to help the
White House. He sent the $200,000 to an
account in Switzerland.
3,
North met in Washington with the
DF,A informer and then wrote a June 7,
1985, TOP SECRET EYES ONLY SEN-
SITIVE ACTION four-page memo to
McFarlane. The memo described the
$200,000 as only a down payment. "The
hostages can be bribed free for $1 million
apiece," North wrote. "It is assumed that
the price cannot be negotiated down, giv-
en the number of people requiring
bribes." McFarlane initialed-RCM-in
the "approve" box. The $200,000 was
dispatched to the informant. But nothing
happened.
The next month the administration
became involved with Israel in the first
stages of the secret arms sales to Iran.
The same pattern emerged. To achieve
its counterterrorist objectives, the ad-
ministration developed a covert plan that
included payment of ransom for hostages.
This time the payment was weapons to
the Iranians who had influence over those
holding the hostages in Lebanon.
North TeMes About Plan
North testified last July to the congres-
sional Iran-contra committees about
Casey's "off-the-books" approach to co-
vert action.
"The director was interested in the
ability to go to an existing-as he put
it-off-the-shelf, self-sustaining, stand-
alone entity that could perform certain
activities on behalf of the United States,"
North testified on July 10. "Several of
those activities were discussed with both
Director Casey and with Adm. Poindex-
ter. Some of those were to be conducted
jointly by other friendly intelligence ser-
vices. .. ."
In his testimony, North described
Casey's off-the-books approach only as a
plan for the future. He said nothing about
past operations, and it could not be
learned whether he or Poindexter had
any knowledge of the Fadlallah incident
or the Saudi role.
NEXT.- Threats from Libya
Barbara Feinman of The Washington
Post was research assistant for "VEIL:
The Secret Wars of the CIA, 1981-87,"
? 1987 by Bob Woodward, published by
Simon and Schuster Inc. All rights
reserved.
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The New York Times
The Washington Times
CIA Director William Casey had a passion
for covert action, with the emphasis on
action. While the Cabinet and even Reagan
himself endlessly assessed, debated and
floundered, the director took American
foreign policy into his own hands
`ILLDOrr MYSELF
GODDAMMIT'
BY BOBWOODWARD
ABOUT 1 P.M. ON DEC. 3, 1986, 1 PHONED THE DIRECTOR OF THE
Central Intelligence Agency, William J. Casey. It was a week after-Attorney
General Edwin Meese III had, at his now-famous nationally televised press
conference, disclosed the diversion of funds from the Iranian arms sales to
the Nicaraguan contras. Casey was eating his lunch as we chatted. It would be our next
to last conversation, one of more than four dozen interviews or substantive discussions
we had had in the past four years. The Iran-contra affair was unraveling, and a number
of administration and congressional leaders were saying that Casey was finished at the
CIA, his days of freewheeling covert operations about to come to a crashing halt.
"We'll come out smelling like a rose," he said between bites, categorically disputing
what I had heard, claiming that the chairman and the vice chairman of the Senate Se-
lect Committee on Intelligence believed the CIA was clean. "We were barred by law
from supporting the contras, and we didn't." He munched on his sandwich, a note of
seeming casualness in his voice as if he had spoken the final word on the subject.
The CIA had made two trivial mistakes on the Iran arms sales, he said. "It's not a
Supreme Court case," he added. It was one of his favorite lines.
Was the whole thing a big sting operation by the Iranians to get some U.S. weapons?
"Bullshit-the president said woo them and we did."
THIS IS THE FIRST IN A SERIES OF SIX EXCERPTS. THE SECOND WILL APPEAR ON PAGE Al IN MONDAY'S PAPER.
The Wall Street Journal
The Christian Science Monitor
New York Daily News
USA Today
The Chicago Tribune
Date ~7 2 EP B 7
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To another question, he said, "Goddammit
I M
don't needle me
,
.
donft know why I take your calls." But in four years
he had nev-
,
er once denied my request to speak with him.
I said I thought he had to know the contras were receiving
diverted funds. The contra cause was his pet covert operation.
He had conceived, managed' and nurtured it for five
e
ar
It
y
.
s
was, by his own account, the key to the counter-strategy to
thwart the Soviets worldwide. But he denied any knowledge, a
position he maintained until a final conversation before his
death. Finally he grew impatient with my questions and took a
more personal tack. "I expect you to exercise the normal re-
straint of an adult," he said.
Well, others, many others, are saying that you knew more,
had to be involved. The logic was overwhelming.
`That's why I wouldn't have your job for all the money in the
world," the director said crisply, "You're destined to be right
only a part of the time."
THE CIA Jltit`WAS NOT CASEY'S FIRST CHOICE AFTER MANAG.
ing RonaM, lib 's-election victory in 1980.1 had secretly
wanted: _y of `4s` defense. State and Defense
counted... They would be the instruments of Reagan's foreign
and military DOEicy, A month before the election, anticipating a
Reaps victory, Cam' bad positioned' himself for the job at
State, creating a little-noticed interim foreign-policy board and
identifying the most immediate and important challenge for the
incoming boa-the communist insurgency in the tiny
Central American country of El Salvador.
But Casey understood that be might have to settle for less
than State. At 67, he was, if anything, a realist: Though a ded-
icated, lifelong Republican, he had not been, _a loingtime
com-
mitted ~t or one of Reagan's California intimates.
strong bonds to his candidate. Reagan was
only two years older, and the two men shared a generational
view. Both had been poor as children. Casey was attracted to
the variety in Reagan's life-sportscaster, actor, labor union
officer, governor and conservative spokesman with stamina. It
mirrored somewhat the variety in Casey's-lawyer, author,
Office of Strategic Services spymaster in World War II (he was
riti
w
ng a book on the OSS) and former government official.
They had both seen the Depression and four wars.
Casey practiced a rich man's law from his office at 200 Park
Ave. in New York. Since grammar school in lower-middle-class
Queens, N.Y., his life had been a steady march to the other,
better side of the tracks. He had learned the art of advancement
on two levels: first, through business and personal wealth (his
net worth was $9,647,089); second, through political involve-
ment. All this had been earned, he realized, at the partial ex-
pense of his reputation. Many saw him as an unsavory business-
man, a corner-cutter who had made quick money through a
string of opportunistic investments, and as a man who astutely
played the stock market he had regulated as chairman of the
Securities and Exchange Commission in 1973-74.
After Reagan's election, Alexander M. Haig Jr. emerged- as
the front-runner for State. Nancy Reagan thought of him as a
dashing figure, a kind of leading man. Casey wasn't. The few
strands of wiry white hair on the edges of his bald head each
embarked on its own stubborn course, contributing to the ap-
pearance of an absent-minded professor. His ears were over-
large, even Happy. Deep facial wrinkles shot down from each
end of his flat nose, passing his mouth on either side to fall be-
yond his chin and lose themselves in prominent jowls. His face
and head seemed not just old, but haggard, and he walked with a
rickety swagger as if he might tip over. He told a friend, "I
FROM VEIL- THE SECRET WARS OF THE CIA 1951-1587 COPYRIGHT m
1987 BY BOB WOODWARD. PUBLISHED BY SIMON AND SCHUSTER INC.
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
PRESIDENT REAGAN MET WITH ADVISERS, INCLUDING CASEY, SECOND
FROM RIGHT AT TOP, AFTER THE JUNE 1985 HIJACIUNG OF A TWA JET-
LINER. ABOVE, CASEY AND REAGAN SHARED A LAUGH OUTSIDE CIA
HEADQUARTERS IN MAY 1984.
As he reflected on
Reagan's offer to head
the CIA, Casey realized
that he yearned to go
back to intelligence
work where evil-
particularly the
Soviet threat-
could be confronted.
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won't get State. We all supported Haig. We need the prestige."
But when he didn't land Defense, he was miffed and went home
to New York to catch up on the rest of his life. When Reagan
called with the offer to head the Central Intelligence Agency
with the additional responsibility for U.S. intelligence agencies
as director of central intelligence, or DCI as it was called,
Casey's first response was cool. He said he wanted to think it
over and consult his wife, Sophia.
THERE WAS NO QUESTION THAT THE CIA JOB APPEALED TO
him. He was an intense, driven man who believed in ideas-his
ideas-and in risk-taking. In the couple of years before he
joined the Reagan campaign, Casey had written a book. Ten-
tatively titled The Clandestine War Against Hider, the 600-
page manuscript recounted OSS spying operations in World
War II and had two main characters. The first was Casey. The
second was Casey's mentor and surrogate father, Gen. William
(Wild Bill) Donovan. Casey drew a loving portrait of the OSS
founder, a roly-poly man with soft blue eyes and an unrelenting
curiosity and drive. Donovan had been twice the age of the 30-
year-old Lt. j.g. Casey when they met in Washington in 1943,
but Donovan had closed the multiple gaps of generation, mil-
itary rank and social background. Donovan wanted to know
what someone could do. Results counted. "The perfect is the
enemy of the good," Donovan said often. Casey would have
walked through fire for him. Donovan always visited the scene
of the action, showing up at nearly every Allied invasion as if it
were opening night on Broadway.
Donovan had bestowed great responsibility on Casey during
the last six months of the war. Casey had written a memo say-
ing, "OSS must be ready to step up the placing of agents within
Germany." Donovan wanted an instant spy network behind Ger-
man lines, and he named Casey chief of secret intelligence for
the European theater. As best as Casey could remember, Don-
ovan's command was no more than "Get some guys into Ger-
many." What was lacking in detail was made up in authority.
Casey, by then a 31-year-old full lieutenant, commanded colo-
nels and dealt with British and American generals more or less
as equals. Ordered out of uniform, he was sent to Selfridge's on
Oxford Street in London to buy a gray suit that would blur, if
not conceal, the distinctions in rank.
Casey had thrown himself into every detail of spy-running.
Selecting credible spies was difficult. Americans just wouldn't
cut it at Gestapo headquarters in downtown Berlin. About 40
anti-Nazi POWs were chosen-a violation of the Geneva Con-
vention prohibition against the use of prisoners of war for es-
pionage. Casey didn't blink. Necessity.
By February 1945, there were two agents inside Berlin. By
the next month, Casey had 30 teams. "A chess game against the
clock," he wrote in the OSS manuscript. By the next month, he
had 58 teams inside Germany. One team, code-named Chauf-
feur, used prostitutes as spies. It was war.
Now, as he contemplated the post of DCI, Casey summarized
his conclusions about intelligence. He called it "the complex
process of mosaic-making." Bits and pieces formed the intell-
igence puzzle. Things didn't turn out as you expected. It was
possible to infer if you had many pieces, but to infer with a few
was a mistake. After the liberation of Germany, Casey had been
thunderstruck on a drive from Munich through southern Ger-
many to Pilsen when all he could see were white flags. A sheet
here, a towel, a shirt. No one had asked the Germans for this
abject display. It mocked the idea that this had been a master
race. The Germany he had imagined when he. sat in London
headquarters creating a spy network didn't exist.
"Intelligence," he wrote in his book, 'Ss st* a very uncertain,
fragile and complex commodity." Be des gathering the infor-
mation, evaluating its accuracy, seeing, it fit into the mosaic
and determining meaning, he wrote, intelligence included at-
tracting the attention of powe fl Buie and then forcing a de-
cision. The intelligence person shou* oot be passive. It would
ligena giant ce or of miscalculation, the role of iatel-
Getting, sifting, distributing intelligence was only the start.
"Then you have to get him to act," he wrote.
There was also, Casey figured, a moral dimension to life that
could not be escaped. He had gone to Dachau a few days after it
was liberated in April 1945. And he would never forget the piles
of shoes, the bones and the decaying human skin. People had
done this to people? It was unthinkable. There was verifiable
evil in the world. There were sides, and a person had to choose.
As he reflected on Reagan's offer, Casey came to realize that
he yearned to go back to intelligence work where evil-partic-
ularly the Soviet threat-could be confronted. His talk with
Sophia lasted only 10 minutes. She called it a 'love-story" job
for him. He told Reagan yes.
CASEY'S FIRST WEEKS WERE A DELIGHT. HE WAS THE OLD OSS
hand come back as the leader, a brother. It had not leaked that
he had wanted State, and the widely held view in the agency
was that, as Reagan's campaign manager, he could have chosen
any job, and he had picked them. People noticed him in the cor-
ridors, moved out of his way, very nearly saluted. Perhaps no
head of an agency or department-is treated with such deference
as the DCI. Nearly everyone used the appellations "the direc-
tor" or "Director Casey" or "the DCI" or "sir." That was the
culture. Every message leaving Langley was headed "Cite Di-
rector," followed by a sequential number giving those mes-
sages-the cables, requests and orders-the stamp of ultimate
authority, though Casey saw only several dozen of the hundreds
that went out each day. Every message from the stations to
headquarters was addressed to the director.
Each day there was a pile of new material. The morning mes-
sages from the Langley operations center highlighting occur-
rences overnight came in a separate folder. Another folder con-
tained the embassy and station reports routed for his attention.
He received a nice crisp copy of the beautifully printed Pres-
ident's Daily Brief, 10 pages of the best intelligence that went
each morning to Reagan, Haig and Secretary of Defense Caspar
Weinberger, and the National Intelligence Daily, a less sensitive
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but nonetneiess top-secret code-word document that was cir-
culated to hundreds in the government. Blue-border reports
from human sources were hand-carried to him throughout the
day. Big red folders marked TOP SECRET TALENT KEYHOLE-
the code for overhead surveillance-arrived, containing reports
of satellite and other reconnaissance photography. Most of the
intelligence reports were all-source, meaning that someone had
taken the intercepts and satellite, human and other reports and
digested them into a summary. At times, Casey called for or
was automatically routed the full intercept. Whenever he
wanted more, all he had to do was ask for it, and the file or a
summary or a briefing would be provided. At certain times, he
had to restrain his instincts as a reader and an amateur histo-
rian.
Despite all this paper, he felt dissatisfied. He found himself
wondering more and more, What is really going on out there?
"Out there" meant the CIA stations abroad. Reports showed
that several of the eta a provided great intelligence 'on the
host government and the Soviet Embassy in that country, but
many stations sent in little'of nce, often drivel. He was
eager to visit his stations. These would be his opening nights.
In early March, Casey flew off to the Far East. The CIA sta-
tions he visited there had operations providing a systematic
monitor of the growing Soviet presence in their count. Us-
ing the local police and the host intelligence, immigration and
customs services, the stations pretty well tracked all arrivals
and departures of Soviet citizens, They generally received a
copy of the passport photo; a surveillance team with a photo and
audio van could follow and monitor selected targets; observa-
tion and photo posts provided good data on the comings and
i
f k
go
ngs o
ey Soviets; and a so-cal ed Special Collection Ele-
ment, a joint CIA and National Security Agency team, could
conduct telephone tapping and room eavesdropping. Postal in-
terception was possible in selected cases. The stations had "ac-
cess agents" who knew Soviet targets and provided personality
data. Several stations had high-level sources in the host govern-
ment, but really useful political intelligence was scanty.
The operations officers ranged from excellent to only ade-
quate, Casey found. But no one seemed to be going for the big
play. The atmosphere was not creative. No one spent enough
time brainstorming, listing the real targets and then maximiz-
ing the effort to recruit human agents or place the key eaves-
dropping device. The stations waited for opportunities, rather
than going out and finding them.
Casey came home with an overriding impression: America's
allies and friends were looking for the United States to take the
lead, and his stations were looking to him.
What kind of direction should he give them?
Nearly 50 years earlier, Casey had learned that rules could
be mindlessly obeyed or imaginatively interpreted. That was
1937, when he was a 24-year-old law school graduate. It was
id
D
m
-
epression, and jobs were hard to come by. Casey found
employment with the Tax Research Institute of America in
New York. For $25 a week, his task was to read the New Deal
legislation closely and issue reports explaining and summarizing
it. Businessmen, the leaders of American industry, neither un-
derstood nor welcomed FDR's efforts. Casey quickly estab-
lished that the businessmen wanted neither comment nor praise
nor criticism. Instead, they wanted to know how to achieve min-
imum compliance with the law: How do we get by FDR and
Congress' new programs? Casey, dictating his summaries into a
primitive machine that used wax recording cylinders, did well at
this.
Now in his first year at the CIA, Casey decided he would
have to set an example. For some time, one of his Middle East
stations had been talking about placing an eavesdropping device
in the office of one of the senior officials in that country, a main
figure whose conversations would provide vital hard intelli-
gence. At the station, it was back and forth about the risk as-
sessment-hesitancy and floundering-as the operations offi-
cers debated how to make an entry into the office. They had
raised irresolution to an art form.
"I'll do it myself, goddammit," Casey said. Though it was to-
tally against tradecraft practice to risk using even an operations
officer for such a mission, the DCI insisted and placed the bug
during a courtesy visit to the official-another violation of
tradecraft. By one account, he inserted a thin, miniaturized,
long-stemmed microphone and transmitting device shaped like
a large needle in a sofa cushion during his visit. By another ac-
count, the listening device was built, Trojan-horse style, into
the binding of a book that Casey brought as a gift for the official.
One senior agency officer insisted that the story was apocry-
phal, but others said it was true. Among several Directorate of
Operations (DO) officers, it was accepted gospel.
Casey only smiled when I asked about this incident several
years later. But he glowered dramatically when I mentioned the
name of the country and the official. He said that should never,
never be repeated or published.
BUT INTELLIGENCE GATHERING, EVENS IN ITS MOST DARING
form, was still passive. Casey wanted active anticommunism.
The first plan in Central America approved by the White House
and the president was to support democracy in El Salvador.
Again, that was comparatively passive. Casey wanted more.
Secretary of State Haig had cane in with a cry of alarm but no
plan. Casey dipped into the CIA institutional memory some
more-the files, briefings. He probed the minds of key, CIA
people, frequently jotting on small index cards. World history in
the last six years had been dominated by one conspicuous
trend-the Soviets had won new influence, sometimes predom-
inant influence, in nine countries:
South Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos in Southeast Asia.
Angola, Mozambique and Ethiopia in Africa.
South Yemen in the Middle East and Afghanistan in South
Asia.
Nicaragua.
It was clear to Casey that the Soviets, exploiting the after-
math of the U.S. withdrawal from Vietnam, had used surrogates
and proxies to stage revolutions and takeovers. Was there a
way to do it to the communists? Not just a piecemeal approach.
He was interested in taking one back from the Soviets-a vis-
ible, clean victory.
"Where can we get a rollback?" Haig had asked.
"I want to win one," the president had said.
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WILLIAM CASEY WITH HIS WIFE, SOPHIA, ABOVE, IN JANUARY
1983 AT A WHITE-TIE DINNER, AND AT LEFT OUTSIDE HIS ROS-
LYN, N.Y., HOME THE FOLLOWING DECEMBER.
When Reagan called
about the CIA
directorship,
Casey's first
response was that
he wanted to think
it over and consult
his wife, Sophia.
Casey realized that this meant guerrilla warfare. He had re-
inforced his education in the importance of guerrilla movements
five years earlier while researching his book on the American
Revolutionary War. Published in 1976, for the Bicentennial, the
344-page book, Whm and How the Way Was Fought, was the
inspectionresult of the Casey method-extensive reading and on-scene
inspection.
The real joy of his research had been a string of weekend
field trips. Casey loved traveling with his wife, Sophia, and his
daughter, Bernadette. It was a comfortable trio. One Thursday
they all took a night flight to Maine, and for four days they fol-
lo
then wed the route of Benedict Arnold along the rivers to Quebec,
Lake Colo St. Lawrence to Montreal, and the Richelieu to
~? Washington's trail fitim V~ was spent following
Jersey battle site& TheydidFBO the Delaware to New , New
York, the Carolinas, Georgia, On a cruise they ? Philadelphia, a New
route from Annapolis to Yorktown down Chesapeake Bayhad his .
notes, books, photocopies of the relevant maps,
BO tnees
psLa Ined wilt Armco Rsoairtion? He went to the
h-di and Bernadette followed each carefully eyed the relics, Sophia
"I found the most vivid and immediate sense of being there,.
actually seeing the tactical and stra
Arnold trail . ? " he wrote. Each time he wanted to go to the
exact spot and unravel the Revolutionary geography as it was
then, often hidden under modern cities and pavement.
On the excursions, and as he waded through the books,
Casey asked the central question: How and why did the Amer-
icans win? How had such a ragtag group been able to defeat the
finally wrote, were power, the British? The Revolutionaries, he
victorious because they used -wregular par-
tisan guerrilla warfare." They were tV ? par-
Afghanistan. The spirit, tco~i the rebels in
the irregulars. t the tactics were with
You really had to appreciate a native resistance,
he said. It was the side to be on. This was, Casey felt, a point of
continuity between the 18th and 20th centuries. Now he could
apply it. If the native resistance did not come banging on the
door of the CIA, then maybe the CIA had to go out and discover
it.
BY LATE 1981 CASEY SUCCEEDED IN ESTABLISHING AN OF-
fense. The president signed a formal intelligence order, or find-
ing, authorizing a covert support operation of $19 million to the
Nicaraguan resistance, or contras, who were attempting to
overthrow the leftist Sandinista government. The CIA opera-
tion was ostensibly designed to support the contra effort to in-
terdict the communist arms flow from Nicaragua to other leftist
rebellions in Central America, particularly in El Salvador.
Adm. Bobby R. Inman, Casey's deputy, was deeply skeptical
of the contra operation. In nearly three decades of naval ser-
vice, Inman had achieved preeminence in the intelligence world
as director of naval intelligence (1974-76) and director of the
National Security Agency (1977-1981), the largest of the spy
agencies, which intercepts communications worldwide. He
knew the intelligence business cold and had close ties to Con-
gress, which had virtually insisted that he be Casey's deputy.
With his boyish, toothy smile, large head and thick glasses,
Inman looked like a grown-up whiz kid. He was a technician and
did not like covert action.
Casey and Dewey Clarridge, the Latin American division
chief in the DO, were running the project without input from
other key people normally involved. Clarridge's boss, Deputy
Director for Operations (DDO) John Stein, had complained to
Inman that he was being cut out. Though the general operation
was not kept from Hunan, he had to crowbar in to find out de-
tails, and he did not like what he found. Covert assistance was
about to be given to contra leader Eden Pastore, the notorious
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Commander Zero who had broken with the Sandinistas after the
revolution. Pastora was a "barracuda," Inman said. Pastora's
contra forces operated out of Costa Rica, which is to the south
of Nicaragua. El Salvador is to the north of Nicaragua. All some-
one had to do was look at a map and see that Pastora was op-
erating more than 300 miles from any possible arms-supply
routes into El Salvador. That simple fact put the he to asser-
tions that the Nicaragua operation was for the purpose of inter-
dicting arms. Inman knew that assistance to Pastora was in-
tended to demolish and oust the Sandinistas. The uncompromis-
ing, even snarling, comments from Casey about the Nicaraguan THREE WHO WORKED WITH
regime told Inman all he needed to know. Diplomacy was a long, CASEY WHILE HE WAS CIA
drawn-out process, very frustrating. Covert action was, at first DIRECTOR. CLOCKWISE
blush, cheaper and certainly less frustrating. That was naive, FROM TOP: CIA DEPUTY DI-
NT,
Inman believed. The quick, covert fix was a fantasy. INMAN'S BREPLACEMENT
,
When had one of the directorate's paramilitary covert plans OHN McMAHON; AND A
worked? Not ever, in Inman's view. And even if one were to SI TA TSECRETARY OF
work, a new, U.S.-backed government could easily turn out to
CAN FOR Y
be worse than the one it had replaced, or it might not be able to CAN TA CA AFFAIRS IN L. L. ANTHONY
govern or hold power. MOTLEY.
Inman left for what was supposed to be a two-week getaway
in Hawaii in early 1982. After 10 days, he returned to Langley
and intentionally barged in on Casey and Clarridge. They were
busy building an army, and Inman had some questions: Where
are the contras going? Where is the CIA heading? The admin-
istration? Is there a plan? Won't the Pastora connection make it
clear that this is not an arms interdiction program? Do we know
who these people are? They are not fighting to save El Sal-
vador. They want power, don't they? This is an operation to
overthrow a government, isn't it? That raises problems with the
finding that authorized the program. The agency is on the
verge, in the midst, of exceeding that authority, of breaking the
rules
isn't it?
,
Casey and Clarridge didn't have answers, and they didn't like
the questions. This was administration policy, approved all the
way up the line to the president-perhaps not in the finding,
but it was what Ronald Reagan wanted. Casey was sure he was
on solid ground.
After half an hour, Inman stiffened. Bonfires were burning
inside. He marveled momentarily at his absolute consternation.
Casey and Clarridge, intoxicated with their certitudes, were not
listening. Inman was an outsider. An obstacle.
Finally he rose and stormed out.
Inman had never done that before. His advancement through
the ranks of naval intelligence had been based on an ability to
convey soothing impressions, avoid confrontations. He had
crossed a threshold with Casey, and with himself.
On March 22, 1982, he quit, the first domestic casualty of
the contra war. But he believed in loyalty to the commander in
chief and never went public with his real reasons for leaving.
Casey was given 48 hours by the White House to come up
with a deputy acceptable to the Senate Intelligence Committee,
where Inman had been beloved. The obvious choice was John N.
McMahon, a 30-year agency veteran, a husky, outgoing Irish-
man who had had most of the top jobs in the CIA, including
three years as deputy director for operations. McMahon had
found the fine line between independence and loyalty. He could
put up a fuss, but he knew how to take orders. He did so with-
out resentment.
But the contra war was not going down well in Congress. By
December 1982, Congress had imposed the so-called Boland
Amendment, which prohibited the expenditure of funds "for the
purpose of overthrowing the Government of Nicaragua." Casey
felt they could live with it. Legalistic descriptions of intelligence
operations mattered much less than what was going on in the
field. However, in the spring of 1983, McMahon's own worries
were increasing-about Casey, the CIA and the contras. The
ranking House Intelligence Committee Republican, J. Kenneth
The contra
operation would get
the CIA in trouble,
deep trouble, John
McMahon said in a
closed Senate Intelligence
Committee session.
The ag
fvAn ency's reputation
was on the line.
J3
a&+
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Robinson of Virginia, challenged McMahon one day about the
growing number of contras. Why had 500 grown to 5,500? Rob-
inson, an administration and CIA loyalist, was almost harsh.
McMahon answered that the intelligence committees were be-
ing fully briefed. But Robinson was not happy, and McMahon
figured that his testiness meant the Nicaraguan program was
headed for further trouble.
McMahon also appeared before a closed session of the Sen-
ate Intelligence Committee, where there was sniping from all
quarters and suspicion, even hostility, about each number, as
well as about the program's broad intentions and goals.
Sen. Patrick J. Leahy (D-Vt.) jumped hard on McMahon:
"You guys are setting yourselves up for a fall." The operation
was going to get out of hand, and it probably wouldn't succeed.
"No one is going to blame the White House," Leahy said, "or the
State Department or the Pentagon for this." When the opera-
tion fails, Leahy said, the CIA will be blamed. It's the agency's
war, not Reagan's war, or even Casey's war, but the CIA's war.
Reagan, Casey and McMahon will be out of office someday, but
the agency will still be there. The intelligence committee has
some obligation to protect the institutions of American intelli-
gence-gathering, Leahy said. "So do you."
Yes, McMahon said, he agreed. The contra operation is go-
ing to get the agency in trouble, deep trouble, he said. It's going
to get Congress in trouble, too. McMahon turned red and began
waving his hands for emphasis. He had been there in the 1970s
when the agency was driven right down into the pits. There had
been little or no support from the public, the press, Congress.
Deep emotions began to pour forth. McMahon said this ex-
posure would not just hurt his buddies in the agency, or his par-
ticular notion of how they ought to gather intelligence and run
operations, but would destroy the value of anything the CIA
might do. The reputation of the CIA was on the line. No less. At
the same time, the CIA had to go along with what the president
and the director wanted. They ordered and supported this op-
eration each step of the way. So the task was to find a way to
work themselves out of this hole-to protect the CIA but obey
the orders. And they, the senators on the oversight committee,
should realize that he understood those high stakes. He needed
their help, he said.
There was silence in the hearing room when McMahon had
finished.
THAT SPRING OF 1983, CASEY HAD TO FIND A NEW NATIONAL
intelligence officer for Latin America to coordinate the reports
and formal estimates for the region. He selected John Horton,
62, a former senior operations officer who had retired eight
Years earlier. Horton was stiff and brainy, and he was men-
tioned with great respect, even affection, by the old-timers.
Casey promised Horton he would be kept fully informed about
the operational end, particularly the contra war. His operational
counterpart, Dewey Clarridge, outlined the problems. First
there was the State Department. "At State they are defensive
and don't do what the administration wants-those bastards,*
Clarridge growled in one discussion with Horton. If the agency
ever gets like that, we don't deserve to exist."
The major stumbling block on Nicaragua, Clarridge said, was
that "McMahon is against this. He's never done a thing for this."
Tagging McMahon with one of the cardinal sins, Clarridge said
that McMahon had friends in Congress and that they were feed-
ing one another's weaknesses.
In early summer 1983, Casey scheduled a secret two-day trip
to Central America. He decided to take McMahon along. It was
highly unusual for both the No. 1 and the No. 2 to leave the
country, but Casey wanted his deputy more closely involved in
the Nicaragua operation. The joke around the agency was that
Casey was trying to implicate McMahon, to get his fingerprints
on the secret war. Of course Clarridge would come. And, mak-
ing good on a promise, Casey included Horton, his new national
intelligence officer for Latin America. The fifth member of the
travel party was the head of the International Activities Division
(IAD), a unit within the DO that handled the outside contract
work, the so-called "talent." The LAD moved from one covert
operation to the next, providing logistical support, particularly
aircraft, boats and backup for propaganda and psychological-
warfare operations.
Casey felt comfortable with all four of his traveling compan-
ions; McMahon, Clarridge, Horton and the head of the LAD all
had experience in the DO.
McMahon and Horton drove out together to Andrews Air
Force Base, where a 12-seat special-mission aircraft waited. A
summer thunderstorm had just blown in. His initial impression,
Horton volunteered, was that, overall, CIA work in Central
America was suffering. Stations weren't keeping tabs on the
Soviets. Penetration of political groups in most of the countries
was weak to nonexistent, much less than he had imagined. It
should be better, but Nicaragua was receiving all the attention.
McMahon didn't respond.
Nicaragua is eating them up, Horton said.
"I've been up one side of the decision tree and down the oth-
er side," McMahon said. He shook his head. He was worried.
The contra effort is too public, too much politics, he said. How
can it work? He had a very pessimistic feeling about the pro-
gram. It isn't going to turn out well, not well at all. But it is bed-
rock with Casey and Reagan.
When they arrived at the plane, one of Casey's security men
begged them not to let Casey nap during the flight. "If he does,"
one said, "he'll be up talking and asking questions all night."
After the plane took off, Casey settled in. He was a seasoned
traveler, laughing off any turbulence in the air. "Like bumps in
the road," he said. He was off with his boys to plan war.
They landed in Tegucigalpa, Honduras. Casey had his bags
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dropped at the residence of the U.S. ambassador and was im-
mediately off on a whirlwind. He wanted to see everyone, and
he scheduled back-to-back meetings, making sure he chatted at
least briefly with each CIA operations officer in the station. The
group piled into cars and went to a safe house, where the contra
operation was being run.
Clarridge kept trying to direct the discussion to the nuts-and-
bolts issues: How many weapons do we have? Are there enough
weapons? How about ammunition? Let's try this, try that.
Casey and McMahon attempted to focus on the next phase.
They were thinking about how the operation was going to be
explained to Congress. There was also criticism within the CIA
that the contras didn't have any political sophistication, that
they were just armed bands of malcontents roaming the moun-
tains. Casey said he had a broad goal. The contras had to come
down from the hills, enter the cities, spread their message, in-
corporate the mounting anti-Sandinista feelings, become a po-
litical force.
Clarridge didn't like this kind of talk. He was running an ar-
my, not a political party. And such notions skimmed precarious-
ly close to violating the Boland Amendment, which prohibited
efforts or operations "for the purpose of overthrowing" the San-
dinistas. A sophisticated political force could overthrow a gov-
ernment, and that certainly would be their goal; an army of ir-
regulars didn't have quite as visible or identifiable a political
purpose.
Casey wanted a political message, he wanted the contras to
emerge as a political force inside Nicaragua. He believed that
the Nicaraguan people would flock to a new force that espoused
both democracy and capitalism. People would respond to image
and message.
The band flew 140 miles west to El Salvador for another se-
ries of political and intelligence meetings. Casey took the time
to have a friendly word with each of his operations officers, the
cherished field men and women who did the real work. He had a
politician's ease with people-looking them in the eye, offering
a brief, informed word of encouragement or asking a pointed
question and stopping dead in his tracks to listen to the answer.
At the end of the trip, Horton jokingly asked Casey why the
trip had been so short. Why were they in such a hurry?
"What the hell else do you want to do?' Casey replied, smil-
ing. He had proved that he could cover the territory faster and
better than anyone.
CASEY WAS DELIGHTED WITH THE NEW ASSISTANT SECRE-
tary of state for inter-American affairs, L. Anthony Motley, who
coordinated the contra operation for the administration. A pro-
fane, happy-go-lucky former U.S. ambassador to Brazil, Motley
had guts and the political backing of the White House. And Mot-
ley delivered. Casey had been impressed with the intelligence
reports Motley, fluent in Portuguese, had filed after regular
steak-and-beer evenings with the Brazilian president. Motley
had outshone the CIA station and the NSA intercepts.
After settling into his new office on the seventh floor of the
State Department, Motley called Clarridge. "I'm devoting a
whole day to it, and I want to come out there." Motley wanted
the full dose.
Clarridge brought out maps, lists, charts, files. He was a
walking encyclopedia on the operation, the detailed geography,
hills, roads, weather and every important contra personality. "A
real asshole," Clarridge said many times of the various contra
leaders. There were, however, many tough fighters, for exam-
ple "these animals down south." Like Pastora, Commander
Zero. On occasion, Clarridge would remark that someone else
was a "good guy."
In some respects, the contras were the Hell's Angels of Cen-
tral America, but overall, Motley was impressed. Clarridge had
created an army and had a personal hands-on working knowl-
edge that was staggering.
So, Motley asked, what's next?
"Casey wants something that makes news," Clarridge said,
explaining that they were all under tremendous pressure to get
the contras to come out of the hills. Beating bands of Sandinis-
tas in the mountains was no longer enough, he complained.
Casey wanted the contras to "do the urban bit." Clarridge
quoted Casey: "Get something." This "news" was not just going
to be for domestic political consumption in the United States. It
was to establish credibility within Nicaragua for the contras.
This sounded reasonable to Motley.
We can't just jump from the hills to the cities, Clarridge said
with exasperation. It is much more complicated. The contras
wouldn't do any better than any hill people going into any city.
It takes them 40 days to get into a city, creating a resupply
nightmare.
So what are you going to do?
Clarridge smiled. There was a way, always some way. He'd
find some one-time operation, something to make a big splash.
War was hell and you had to improvise.
EARLY ON THE MORNING OF THURSDAY, SEPT. 8, 1983, SENS.
William Cohen (R-Maine) and Gary Hart (D-Colo.) and a Marine
major escort officer left on an Air Force C140, due to land in
Managua about 9:15 a.m.
About an hour outside the Nicaraguan capital, the pilots were
told that the Augusto Cesar Sandino Airport was closed. There
had been some kind of an air attack. A propeller-driven twin-en-
gine Cessna with a 500-pound bomb strapped under each wing
had been shot down, crashing into the control tower and the
terminal building.
After they finally arrived at the Managua terminal, in the
early afternoon, Hart was astonished at the destruction. Smoke
damage was everywhere, and the center of the terminal was
wiped out. Broken glass and oil were scattered all about. And
the fuselage of the downed plane was cut in half. The pilot and
the co-pilot were both dead. Forty people waiting for flights had
run for their lives. One worker had been killed. The VIP room
where the senators were to have given their press conference
had also been hit. Cohen calculated that if they had arrived be-
fore schedule that morning, they might be dead.
The Nicaraguan news media were there to ask questions.
One reporter said that the bombing attack was obviously a
CIA-supported contra raid.
"The CIA is not that dumb," said Cohen, a member of the
Senate Intelligence Committee.
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i ne Nicaraguan otilcials produced a briefcase that had been
.. K.. retrieved from the plane. Cohen and Hart peered inside. There
SENS. GARY HART AND WILLIAM COHEN, LEFT, ARRIVED AT
THE MANAGUA AIRPORT SHORTLY AFTER A CIA-SUP-
PORTED CONTRA RAID IN SEPTEMBER 1983. TOP, THEY
TALKED WITH REPORTERS AT THE AIRPORT A FEW DAYS
AFTER THE BOMBING. BOTTOM, THE AIRPORT TERMINAL
AFTER THE ATTACK.
was a manifest instructing the pilot to meet someone in Costa
Rica at a certain restaurant, a bill of lading from Miami and the
pilot's Florida driver's license, U.S. Social Security card and
American credit cards.
And there was more, including some code-word identifica-
tions for the operation and the contract. Both Cohen and Hart
recognized them as authentic CIA paperwork.
After dinner, Cohen and Hart, both exhausted, went to a mid-
night meeting with the CIA station chief. They reported that
information on contra operations was leaking to the Sandinistas.
The station chief hesitated, shuffled around, began to justify the
bombing raid, an initial effort by Eden Pastors's "new air force."
Hart was tightly wound and popped off. These stupid oper-
ations are what will kill the CIA, thinking you can get away with
something like this, he said. The pilot had the name and phone
number of a CIA operator from the U.S. Embassy in Costa Rica
in his pocket.
A civilian airport, Cohen said, not even a military target. How
could they think it would achieve anything? It would be a fun-
damental mistake to turn the people of Nicaragua against the
contras, and that's exactly what will happen. There had been
dozens of civilians in that airport. Suppose someone had tried to
bomb a civilian airport in the States?
The station chief said that it was intended to show that the
contras were serious and could strike at the capital.
What do you think this was, asked Hart, yelling, some kind of
first Doolittle raid over Tokyo?
Well, the station chief said, the contras are free agents, and
the CIA cannot control them. They pick their targets.
What land of stupid idiot would carry the CIA paperwork in a
briefcase on a covert bombing raid? Hart asked. You're fools,
incompetents. Raging and red-faced, Hart shouted, "Phis is bad
politics, bad diplomacy and bad operations."
The station chief sent a high-priority cable to CIA headquar-
ters, explaining that two very, very unhappy senators were
about to return to Washington.
The same day, Tony Motley, traveling in Honduras, received
word of the failed bombing raid. He called Clarridge.
"Dewey," Motley said, "you're crazy! How can you do this
when the assistant secretary of state for the region is in Hon-
duras? I don't want any more [crap] like that going on when I'm
traveling."
"Look," Clarridge replied, "there isn't any instant command
and control on this. You can't pin down an operation-whether
it's going to happen this day, that day. You can only get within
several days." Casey wanted news, something to get attention,
Clarridge added. Well, the contras were out of the mountains,
as the director had demanded.
What kind of stupid
idiot would carry
the CIA paperwork
in a briefcase on a
covert bombing
raid? Gary Hart
asked. `This is bad
politics, bad
diplomacy and bad
operations.'
CASEY REGULARLY GAVE SPEECHES AROUND THE COUNTRY.
The first I attended was April 17, 1985, in Cambridge, Mass., at
a conference run by the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy.
The DCI was aware that I planned to write a book about the
CIA, and he came over and asked whether I wanted to fly back
to Washington with him on the CIA plane. It was about 10 p.m.,
and I had checked into the hotel where the conference was be-
ing held, but I quickly checked myself out. He came out of the
hotel with an expensive, new heavy overcoat buttoned up hap-
hazardly, like a kid who does not understand clothes and has to
be dressed up by his mother.
His plane was a propeller-driven Gulfstream that would pro-
vide a slow trip. Casey took a seat, loosened his tie and had his
security man bring us scotches and a fresh can of mixed nuts,
which he stuffed, handful after handful, into his mouth. The se-
curity man drew the heavy curtain, leaving us to a two-hour
uninterrupted talk. The director said he was a little uneasy
Sao /6.
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about not having someone from the agency there to monitor
him. "Everyone always says more then they're supposed to," he
had once told me. He reminded me that he required others in
the CIA to avoid interviews with journalists alone. But he pro-
ceeded to answer most questions as we ranged over subjects
including Donovan, an advanced secret satellite system, the
Nicaragua operation, his kidnapped Beirut station chief William
Buckley, who had been held hostage for more than a year, the
Republican conventions he had attended dating back to 1940,
Reagan, the Reagan Cabinet, McMahon and the CIA. About his
father, Casey would offer only one sentence: "He was a civil
servant in the New York pension system his whole life."
Two weeks later, I flew to New York to attend his luncheon
speech at the Metropolitan Club. He again offered me a ride
back in his plane. We covered Reagan, the contras, Lebanon,
terrorism, his friends, his money, his goals. He talked about his
childhood in Queens, a universe of simple, permanent affilia-
Casey was struck by
the overall passivity of
the president
passivity about his job
and about his approach
to life. There was an
emotional wall within
the man.
tions. Walking to and from public schools 13 and 89, there were
fistfights, he recalled. It was the 1920s, after World War I,
when boys just circled up and fought. "Win some, lose some," he
said. Did he remember any of the kids who beat him? "Of
course, do you think I forget anyone?" He stared hard, his den-
tures full of nuts. "Particularly anyone who beat me?'
Referring back to a recent congressional defeat of an admin-
istration request for $14 million for the contras, Casey said,
"Abysmal handling. The White House can't do two things at
once ... The president is uninterested. He still has his in-
stincts, but he will not even focus on the objectives, let alone
the way to get there." He shook his head in dismay. "The pres-
ident is not paying attention to Soviet creeping expansionism."
Casey found Reagan strange. Reagan had said he would have
stayed in the movies if he had been more successful at it. He
probably had no real friend other than Nancy. Lazy and dis-
tracted, Reagan nonetheless had a semiphotographic memory
and was able to study a page of script or a speech for several'
minutes and then do it perfectly. Casey was a serious student of
Reagan, but he said he had not yet figured him out.
Casey continued to be struck by the overall passivity of the
president-passivity about his job and about his approach to
life. He never called the meetings or set the daily agenda. He
never once had told Casey, "Let's do this" gr "Get me that,"
unless in response to the actions of others or to events. There
was an emotional wall within the man. Perhaps it was a re-
sponse to his father, who had been an alcoholic and unemployed
during the Depression. Casey noted in amazement that this
president of the United States worked from 9 to 5 on Mondays,
Tuesdays and Thursdays, and from 9 to 1 on Wednesdays,
when he'd take the afternoon off for horseback riding or exer-
cise; and on Fridays he left sometime between 1 and 3 for Camp
David. During the working hours in the Oval Office, the pres-
ident often had blocks of free time-two, even three hours. He
would call for his fan mail and sit and answer it. Many evenings
he spent alone with Nancy in the residence, where they had
dinner on TV trays. On Saturday nights at Camp David, where
they could have any guests in the world, the two had a double
feature of old or new movies, and the staff joined them to
watch. Casey seemed to be saying there was unexercised au-
thority and unmet responsibility. The passive Reagan approach to decision-making com-
pounded the problem. Casey knew, clear as a bell, where Ron-
ald Reagan stood, what he believed, but there was no telling
what Reagan would do. "Yes," the president would say. Then
"Well ..." Then "No." "Yes ... well ... no" became a meta-
phor. There were many other variations-starting with a "no"
and skidding through a "yes" to eventual irresolution. White
House Chief of Staff James A. Baker III had buttoned up Rea-
gan's decision-making completely in the first term. Casey could
get his say, he could even get a private meeting with Reagan in
the White House residence. Casey played this card about twice
a year. The president was always so friendly, all ears and nods.
But at the end of the meeting or later, through Baker or nation-
al security adviser Robert C. McFarlane, came the inevitable
questions. What does George or Cap think? That brought Shultz
and Weinberger into the issue. Properly so, but then the wobbly
seesawing would begin. "Yes ... well ... no."
The plane was landing at Andrews Air Force Base, from
which Casey was immediately departing for a 10-day swing
through the Far East and the Philippines, where there was trou-
ble and where he planned to meet with President Marcos.
"Don't say a word to anybody," he directed. He then asked
that I stay behind in the plane to hide until he had embarked on
the large jet waiting for him. I could see a group of CIA people
waiting for him at the foot of the ramp. A van would take me to
a taxi, he said. "They might think I'm indiscreet, bringing you
here." The director then bounded down the ramp, leaving me
alone in the plane.
I REVIEWED MY NOTES IN THE TAXI BACK TO WASHINGTON.
He had said some things that resonate today. "I have a lot of
freedom in my job. I can take initiatives." He added that he had
tolerance for mistakes. "Anyone with ideas has got to have
some good ones and some bad ones.
"I never stayed in a government job more than two years,
and I often quote [former Treasury Secretary] John Connally
that after two years you become part of the problem.
"But I haven't lost interest. I like the importance of it. I like
the style, the spirit of the organization.
"I can get a couple of things done a month."
Two weeks later, on May 17, 1985, upon his return, Casey
received a five-page memo from his national intelligence officer
for the Near East and South Asia. It was headed: "Toward a
Policy on Iran."
"The U.S. faces a grim situation in developing a new policy
toward Iran ... The U.S. has almost no cards to play ... It is
imperative, however, that we perhaps think in terms of a bold-
er-and perhaps riskier-policy." ^
Bob Woodward is assistant managing editor for the investigative
unit of The Washington Past Staff mearcher Barbara Feinman
contributed to this article
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VEIL
THE SECRET WARS OF THE CIA, 1981.1987
This is one of six excerpts
from "VEIL. The Secret
Wars of the CIA,
1981-1987" VEIL was the'
code word designating
sensitive information and,
documents relating to
covert actions during the
last several years of the
Reagan administration.
st ri L
?o uric limes
_
The Washington Times
The Wall Street Journal
The Christian Science Monitor
New York Daily News
USA Today
The Chicago Tribune
Date - i __-s4eP Q .
The Vulnerable Presideney
After Reagan Was Shot, a Sense of Peril Guided Casey and Policy
By Bob Woodward
Waehintton Poet Staff Writer
T wo months and 10 days into his presidency,
Ronald Reagan was shot by John W. Hinckley Jr.
The bullet, lodged about an inch from his heart,
was removed during surgery. "Honey, I forgot to
duck," he told his wife, Nancy, and to his doctors he
quipped, "Please tell me you're Republicans."
His display of courage and optimism won universal
praise. When Reagan left the hospital on April 11,
1981, after a two-week stay, cameras were allowed in
close to record the almost miraculous recovery of this
70-year-old president. Though slightly thinner in the
face, he emerged cheerful, wearing a red cardigan
sweater. He and Nancy had an arm around each oth-
er, their other arms high in the air, just as on that
night nine months earlier, on a raised platform, when
Reagan had accepted the Republican presidential
nomination. The famous smile was intact, as was the
presidency.
Reagan's closest advisers soon learned it was an
act. The next morning the president limped from his
bedroom to an adjoining room in the upstairs resi-
dence of the White House. He emerged slowly, walk-
ing with the hesitant steps of an old man. He was pale
and disoriented. Those who observed were fright-
ened. Reagan hobbled to a seat in the Yellow OM
Room, started to sit down and fell the rest of the way,
collapsing into his chair.
He spoke a few words in a raspy whisper and then
had to stop to catch his breath. He looked lost. The
pause wasn't enough and his hands reached for an
inhaler, a large masklike breathing device next to his
chair. As he sucked in oxygen, the room was filled
with a wheezing sound.
Reagan could concentrate for only a few minutes at
a time, then he faded mentally and physically, his
wounded lung dependent on the inhaler. During the
following days, he was able to work or remain atten-
tive only an hour or so a day.
The few who were granted access to the president
were gravely concerned. This was supposed to be the
beginning of the Reagan presidency, but at moments
it seemed the end of the Reagan they knew. At times
the president, was overcome with pain; he seemed in,
constant discomfort. His hearty, reassuring voice
sounded permanently injured, his words gravelly and
uncertain. His aides began to consider the possibility
that his was going to be a crippled presidency-that
1.
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 Declassified and Approved For
- .u.r urgmnmg,
devolve into something similar to
Woodrow Wilson's at the end, a
caretaker presidency, and that
they would be reduced, or elevat.
ed, to a team of Mrs. Wilsons.
The senior aides were intent on
protecting this terrible secret and
their own uncertainty, at least un-
til the prognosis was clearer.
Those with intelligence or law en.
forcement responsibility, such as
CIA Director William J. Casey,
were reminded of the vulnerabil.
ity of the presidency, the neces.
sity to take every extra measure
of security to protect the country
and its institutions. The precar-
iousness of the world situation
seemed clear enough. These men
sensed that more than the pres-
ident had been wounded.
'On the day of the. shooting,
March 30, 1981, many things had
gone haywire, exposing weak-
nesaes in People and systems in
the administration. Asked on live
television, "Who's running the
government right nowt White
House spokesman Larry Speakes
had flubbed, "I cannot answer that
question at this time." Secretary
of State Alexander M. Haig Jr.,
watching this shaky performance
in the Situation Room, had
marched before the cameras and
misread the Constitution, placing
himself after the vice president,
who was not in Washington, in the
chain of presidential succession.
He added, "As of now, I am in
control here, in the White
House."
At the hospital, the president's
military aide, the emergency-war-
orders officer who carried the
codes and orders that might be
used by a president to launch nu-
clear weapons, had fought a los-
ing battle with the Federal Bu.
reau of Investigation over Rea-
gan's possessions and clothes,
which the FBI had seized as pos-
sible evidence. The FBI had car-
ried off the president's secret
personal code card, which he kept
in his wallet. The card provides a
code that can be used to authen-
ticate nuclear-strike orders in an
emergency, should the president
have to use unsecure voice com-
munication to the military. Offi-
cials insisted there was no loss of
control over U.S. nuclear forces,
but the confusion pointed to Sit
weakness in fail-safe management
of nuclear weapons.
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There was a feeling of execu-
the U
S
l
tive disorientation in the White,
House, and the president's shaky
condition only heightened it. But
slowly, Reagan's voice returned,
and he had periods that suggested
he was on the road back. Ten
days of rest in the White House
residence helped, and on April 21
he spoke on a radio talk show to,
lobby for his spending and tax-cut
plans. The next day he granted an
interview to the senior wire ser-
vice reporters and seemed fine.
But he had no endurance, and his
aides still worried.
On Saturday, April 25, the Rea-
gans went to Camp David for the
weekend. The spring days at the
mountain retreat were just the
right cure. When the president
returned to Washington, he had
snapped back and the perceived
crisis in the White House abated.
But the people who had seen or
knew remained on edge.
The Reagan presidency, from
the inside, would never be the
same. That sense of peril, that
anyone or anything might
strike-terrorists
a quick
,
move
by the Soviets, other adver-
. -
saries-became a permanent en
during influence on administra.
tion policy.
Nowhere was this more true,
or more deeply felt, than in the
office of the director of central in-
telligence. Protecting the pres.
ident was not a part of the job
that Casey had anticipated, but
whenever an intelligence report
was received about some plot
against Reagan-however bi-
zarre or improbable-Casey fol-
lowed up. The operations people
and the analysts often responded
that such reports were not to be
taken seriously and generally
amounted to nothing more than
two guys in a bar in Tanzania say-
ing they would like to shoot Rea-
gan.
"I want a team on it," Casey or-
dered after each report.
Gadhafi's Loose Talk
Four months later, about 7
a.m. on Wednesday, Aug. 19,
1981, Libyan air force jets at-
tacked two U.S. Navy F14 fight-
ers on dawn patrol more than 30
miles inside the territorial waters
claimed by the Libyan leader, Col.
Moammar Gadhafi. Under in-
structions to defend themselves,
.
. p
anes retaliated
d
.rrt
shot down two of Gadhafi's jets.
Three days later, Gadhafi was
in Ethiopia's ancient capital,
Addis Ababa, meeting with that
country's leader, Lt. Col. Men.
gistu Haile Mariam, a young, fiery
Marxist. In the room at the time
was a senior Ethiopian official, a
secret Central Intelligence Agen-
cy source of such sensitivity that
his reports went only to a select
group of key people granted ac.
cess to sensitive intelligence from
human sources, The CIA's Direc.
torate of Operations evaluated
him as "generally reliable" to "ex-
cellent."
At that meeting, Gadhafi de-
clared he was going to have Pres.
'dent Reagan killed, the
Ethiopian
reported. When that Port reached Washington, it car-
ried this evaluation; "Mengistu
was convinced Gadhafi is very se.
rious in his intention and that the
threat should be taken seriously."
Shortly afterward, the National
Security Agency intercepted one
of Gadhafi's conversations in
which in eftendgllly made the
same threa this was about Casey realised that
good as intel-
ligen hh ever an intercept
and report that
his own 0 Directorate
said should be taken "seriously."
Other than a military attack, the
warning was perhaps the most se.
rious matter he might ever ad-
dress, a threat to the life of the
president. Action had to be taken.
But what? They couldn't go and
shoot Gadhafi.
A week passed without an at-
tempt on the president's life. Ev-
eryone seemed to cool off-but
not Casey. He ordered all the in-
telligence agencies to report any
whisper to him directly.
About that time, in late August,
a CIA European source reported
that a key Palestinian had con-
ferred with a member of the Lib-
yan General Staff and had agreed
to a joint action against Reagan. A
report from another high-level
Palestinian said that the shadowy
group Black September had been.
reactivated to move against U.S.
and Israeli targets.
In early September 1981, an
unidentified relative of a Libyan
diplomat in New Delhi wrote a
letter to the U.S. Embassy there
saying that Libya planned to as-
sassinate Reagan. It was a frag.
ment, untested and unexpected.
2
Wn_J
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should be taken seriously? Casey
thought that even unlikely
sources deserved attention until
their information could be dis-
counted.
Next, "a casual informant with.
excellent access to senior Libyan
military officers" delivered two
intelligence reports: one, that
Libya was preparing to attacks
American interests in the Med-
iterranean area; the other, that
Libyans in Rome were preparing;
to kidnap or murder the U.S. am
bassador to Italy, Maxwell M.:
Rabb.
On Sept. 9, a European intel.
ligence service reported that the
Italians had arrested and expelled
a number of Libyans believed to
be involved in a plot against Rabb.
A week later this same intelli-
gence service confirmed that a
Palestinian group had agreed to
assist Libya in attacking Reagan
and other American targets.
On Sept. 19, another classified
intelligence report stated that
Libya would launch a suicide at-
tack against the aircraft carrier
USS Nimitz, which was off the
coast of Libya in the Mediterra-
nean.
On Oct. 9, there was a report
from a European intelligence ser-
vice that Gadhafi was in Syria and
had met with four key terrorist
groups to enlist their support in
attacking U.S. targets in Europe.
On Oct. 17, "an informant with
demonstrated access to senior
Libyan intelligence personnel" re-
ported that Libyans had left for
Europe to engage in attacks on
U.S. embassies in Paris and
Rome. Within a week, there was a
report from a CIA source with ac-
cess to Libyan intelligence offi-
cers that five Libyans, possibly
members of a hit team, had ar-
rived in Rome.
On Oct. 30, the Italian intelli-
gence service, SISMI, told the
CIA that the team had passed
through Rome and gone on to an
unknown destination.
On Nov. 12, a gunman fired six
shots at the U.S. charge d'affaires
in Paris, Christian A. Chapman.
how, for example, to hit an Amer.
ican limousine caravan. The in-
formant passed polygraph tests.
This informant added that* if
President Reagan proved too dif-
ficult a target, the Libyans were
to go after Vice President Bush,
Secretary of State Haig or Sec-
retary of Defense Caspar W.
Weinberger as "potential alter-
nate targets."
Faced with more than a dozen,
intelligence reports, Casey felt
Gadhafi's enterprises, assertions
and promises had to be
countered. Any adventure within
U.S. borders had to be thwarted
at almost any cost, at once. Casey
inundated the White House with
this information. He wasn't going
to be caught napping. Better too
much than too little.
Reagan's White House aides
ordered a stepped-up security ef-
fort, mcludmg the dispatching of
decoy limousine caravans about
Washington while Reagan trav-
eled caravan. ~ another
cc misWes
were stationed next to the White
House.
The Immigration and Natural.
ization Service sent a seven-page
memo stamped EXTREMELY
SENSITIVE to its major border-
crossing and airport offices. Com.
posite sketches of five of the al-
leged hit men soon were leaked
and the sketches appeared on
television news shows, a major
disclosure that gave credence
publicly to the threat.
At a top-secret Nov. 30 Nation-
al Security Planning Group meet-
ing, the key national security
gathering of top Reagan advisers,
the president asked that plans be
developed for "a military re.
sponse against Libya in the event
of a further Libyan attempt to as-
sassinate American officials or at-
tack U.S. facilities." A long TOP
SECRET memo on "counterter.
rorist planning toward Libya" was
drafted for Reagan on Dec. 5 by
Haig, Deputy Defense Secretary
Frank C. Carlucci (standing in for
Weinberger) and Casey.
He narrowly escaped injury. The A "TOP SECRET chart listed
CIA believed Libya was behind. 'five graduated responses," First,
the attack, a direct attack on terrorist train.
On Nov. 16, an informant mg sites in Libya. The second
walked into a CIA station at a contingency was a strike at Gad-
U.S. embassy abroad, claiming he hafts airfields; the third, a strike
had left one of aGadhaf broad, claiming training on his naval facilities; the fourth,
camps. He gave detailed descrip. on his military equipment stock-
piles, and the fifth, an attack on
naval vessels in port. using spe-
cial Navy SEAL (sea-air-land)
teams.
Meanwhile, the threat of pos-
sible Libyan hit squads had be-
come so public that Gadhafi ap-
peared in a live television inter-
view Dec. 6 to deny that he had
sent anyone to assassinate the
president or anyone else. But his
eyeball-to-eyeball with the news
media convinced no one in the ad-
ministration and the president se.
cretly sent a direct threat to Gad-
hafi-through Belgium, because
the United States and Libya had
no diplomatic relations.
"I have detailed and verified in-
formation about several Libyan-
sponsored plan and attempts to
assassinate U.S, government of-
ficials and attack U.S. facilities
both in the U.S. and abroad," the
President said in the TOP SE-
CRET EYES ONLY age,
The warning seemed to work.
Within the OW week, a senior
intelhgenoe official came
to the Uvked and said that States as an envoy
CadhaB wasdes-
to OPM a cihmel to the theine
would be no terrorist or a
nation operation.
On Dec. 18, the CIA Intelli-
gence Directorate issued a SE-
CRET report that assessed the
credibility of the earlier intelli.
gence. "Subsequent reports on
actual plans to carry out attacks
against senior U.S. government
officials, however, have come
from sources with only indirect
access, whose credibility is open
to question. It is possible that
some of the reporting may have
been generated because infor-
mants are aware we are seeking
this information.-
A later SECRET State Depart.
ment analysis from the depart-
ment's intelligence division raised
similar concerns after reviewing
CIA records. " ... the source of
one of the reports that Libya in-
tends to attack the Sixth Fleet
has in the past sustained contact
with a Soviet diplomat." The anal.
ysis also said that most of the oth-
er reports of plans to attack U
S
.
.
officials were "later discounted"
and it noted "the obvious probe.
bility that reporting breeds re.
porting where the U.S. is per.
14
3.
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 Declassified and Approved For Release 2012/01/12 : CIA-RDP90-00965R000807540050-6
celved to nave an interest." in an,
the memo suggested that all the
hit-squad reports may have been j N`E`r CE ~ o Casey, the attempt on
misinformation feeding off itself. 1 ,::1
at rl
Much of this latter information ,I
n President Reagan's life
was traced to a shadowy figure
with ties to the Iranian and Israeli .,,,,,..-?`'~ underscored the perils of
intelligence services-Manucher
Ghorbanifar, a wealthy Iranian
arms salesman who also had been
a secret CIA source since 1974.
He had seen the initial hit-squad
reports as an opportunity to make
trouble for the Libyans, and he
singlehandedly kept the issue
alive for several months.
The CIA later determined that
Ghorbanifar's information not
only was wrong but had been in-
tentionally fabricated. In 1983,
the agency terminated his rela-
tionship as a source. In 1984, it
the office and deeply influenced his
approach at the agency. After intelligence
reports of planned Libyan actions against
Reagan and other U.S. targets, Casey and
senior officials drafted a memo listing
military responses, including attacks on
Libyan naval facilities and airfields.
issued a formal "burn "talented notice," In the early hours of April 5,
warning that he was a another intercepted message
fabricator." from East Berlin to Tripoli re-
(Nonetheless, in 1985. Casey ported that an operation was
approved the use of Ghorbanifar "happening now" and would not be
as a key intermediary in the se- traceable to the Libyans in East
cret U.S.-Iran arms sales. Casey Berlin. Within 10 minutes, at 1:49
was alert to the danger, but Ghor- a.m. Berlin time, a bomb deto-
banifar was the sort of person nated at the LaBelle discotheque
who often became an intelligence in West Berlin-a known congte.
asset; sleaze was no barrier to gation point for off-duty Americin
usefulness.) military personnel. The explosion
An IntNllgeece Coup killed one U.S. serviceman and a
Turkish woman, and injured 230.
On Jan. 27, 1982, in a televi- Casey now had his smoking
sion interview, President Reagan gun. Though the individual mw
was asked if the hit-squad reports sages might be somewhat ambig.
were untrue. uous, taken together they provid.
"No," Reagan responded. "We ed the elements his intelligence
had too much information from analysts considered crucial. Se-
too many sources, and we had our cret planning for a retaliatory mil-
facts straight. We tried to sit on hazy raid began.
them. We tried to keep that all On Monday, April 14, 1986. 30
quiet ... but our information was U.S. bombers attacked Gadhafi's
valid." personal compound and other tar-
During the next four years, gets. In a television address from
Casey and the administration re- the Oval Office two hours after
mained obsessed with Gadhafi the raid, President Reagan said:
and his activities. In March 1986, "Today we have done what we
Casey's people pulled off a spec- had to do. If necessary, we shall
tacular intelligence coup: They do it again."
began regularly intercepting mes- NEXT: An asset in Lebanon
sages from Gadhafi's intelligence
headquarters in downtown Trip- Barbara Feinman, of The
oli. The exact method was a Washington Post, was research
closely guarded secret, but by one assistant for "VEIL: The Secret
count, they received and decoded Wars of the CIA. 1981-1987."
388 messages. One three-line ?1987 by Bob Woodward,
message, sent March 25 to eight published by Simon and Sc iuster
of the Libyan People's Bureaus- Inc. All rights reserved.
the Libyan equivalent of embas-
sies-instructed them to stand by
to execute the "plan."
4
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 Declassified and Approved For Release 2012/01/12 : CIA-RDP90-00965R000807540050-6
V t I L . ne wasningion Post
___-- ?-?--- -- ._ The New York Times
This is one of six excerpts Iron, "VEIL: The Sec, t
Wars of the CIA, 1981-198Z" VEIL was the code
word designating
sensitive information
and documents
relating to covert
actions during the
last several years of
the Reacan
admin,stration.
At 34, Gemayel had developed into ene of Leba-
non's most powerful and charismatic leaders, forging
a unique and important future role for himself. Is-
rael's game plan seemed to be working, and to ensure
its success, Sharon had a request of Casey: Could he
provide $10 million in secret CIA paramilitary sup-
port to GemayeL'
CIA Director Casey found It hard to saver relations with Bashlr Gemayel, shown reviewing peacekeeping troops.
Alliance W'tha Lebanese Warlord
At Israeli's Urging, Casey Pressed Covert Aid for Bashir Gemayel
By Bob Woodward
w.+i.{ta, Pout staff writer
' n early 1982, CIA Director William J. Casey re-
ceived a visit from Israel's defense minister, Ariel
Sharon, a burly, truculent former general with
extreme, hawkish ideas. Lebanon, and the Palestine
Liberation Organization strongholds in that country,
were on Sharon's mind. Israel was determined to
drive the PLO terrorists out of southern Lebanon. It
was also trying to extend its influence over that coun-
try, torn by fighting between Christian and Moslem
groups, by giving covert paramilitary support to the
main Christian militia-the rightist Phalangist Party,
headed by Bashir Gemayel, a baby-faced ruthless
warlord.
The Washington Times
The Wall Street Journal
The Christian Science Monitor
New York Daily News
USA Today
The Chicago Tribune
Continued
Page L?
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The request met with stiff opposition from Casey's
deputy, Adm. Bobby R. Inman. After a year of work-
ing with Casey, Inman was growing increasingly trou-
bled. Particularly with the expansion of covert ac-
tions. Casey was aligning the Central Intelligence
Agency with some of the major unsavory characters
in the world Bashir Gemayel was one of them,
Gemayel was a savage rderer. In 1978, Ge-
mayel's forces had made a lightning attack on the
summer resort home of Tony Fragpeh, the political
heir to the rival Christian i
his wife, their 2-year-old faction, ~u
and even the domestic staff. In~1980, GGemayei a mt
Lebanon's ex-pre dent Cam militsa
But there was more- eomethiria bidden is the m
telligence files at CIA headquarters in Langley,
In the 1970s, after studying political scierw and
law in Lebanon, Bashir Gemayel had must to the
United States to work for a Washington law fins and
had been recruited by the CIA. He was not an agent
who was controlled,. though he was paid CIA money
regularly and was given a crypt-a spe-
Cal coded -- -
tor-so that his re-
ports could circulate widely with few peo-
ple knowing the source's identity. Initial-
ly, the payments were taken amounta-oi14
several thousand dollars.-.a straight ex-
change of cash for infonsation.
As the youngest of the six children of'
Pierre Gemayel, then tbs Phalangsst:
leader, Bashir seemed destined for rel-
ative obscurity in the powerful family. By
Lebanese custom, his oldest brother was
first in line to inherit leadership in the
party, founded in 1936 as a sports and
military youth movement. But in 1976,
Bashir took charge of the militia in place
of his brother, and both the payments and
his importance to the CIA grew.
The CIA maintained a large presence
in Beirut, the crossroads of the Middle
East, the most westernized of the Arab
capitals, teeming with intrigue, as pow-
erful and wealthy Lebanese traveled the
region, providing good intelligence about
less accessible Arab countries. The CIA
soon considered Bashir Gemayel a "re-
gional influential," a major asset. At the
same time, within Lebanon, he was
evolving into a leader with wide appeal, a
patriotic visionary who spoke of a "new
Lebanon."
There was an inclination in the CIA to
side with the Christians over the Mos-
lems in Lebanon. But old CIA hands who
had served in Lebanon knew that the
Christians, particularly Gemayel and his
Phalangists, were as brutal as anyone and
would never win the allegiance of the
country's large Moslem population. The
relationship was hazardous. "What worth-
while relationship isn't?" Casey asked,
trying to calm the agency's hand-
wringers.
Nonetheless, Inman stilt considered
Gemayel a murderer and felt strongly
that the CIA should not dance with this
devil anymore. He recommended against
providing the $10 million in covert aid
that Sharon had requested. The Israelis
and Sharon were cooking up something;
they had too much influence in Lebanon,
and were seeking more.
Sharon turned up the heat all through
the top reaches of the Reagan adminis-
tration. He was close to a fellow former
general, Secretary of State Alexander M.
Haig Jr., sec etpaa. Haig was trammitting.
Sharon!& wie
Inman last-ld the battle. President Res-
gan signed' a top.secret order, called- ar
"finding," that autlhorbed the $10 dlioq-,
In covert aid to Gemayell!4 Militia, .: !I
Islam Iowa" " it Rretsu i
A few e'eoeths law, is the spring
1982, Casey met again with Shnron;.w6a
was in Washington making the ro,mds,
Shame taBobd about countermoves s In
Lebsost; 8 the PLO strihw herw
will strike tiMV4 "Lebanon," Sharon gaicl?`
his tone dripping sarcasm, as if the dpi
try were a geograpMc fiction. "Dis"k be
surprised. Let's get tiis:carde cm-thb ti'
We. If you, don't dot soesetbag wr wii8.,
We won't tolerate it."
Casey understood that Lebanon, was
the one Arab state where Israel. could
extend its influence, and he concluded.
that Sharon wanted to create circum-
stances that would justify an Israeli mil-
itary move.
Casey appreciated Sharon's style, see-
ing him as both an activist and a thinker,
a man who had a sense both of his coun-
try's vulnerability and its destiny. It was
also clear that Sharon had Israeli Prime
Minister Menachem Begin mesmerized.
Sharon was calling the shots.
On June 6, 1982, Israel invaded Leb-
anon, citing as justification the attempted
assassination of its ambassador to Lon-
don three days earlier. Israeli intelli-
gence, the CIA and soon the British knew
that this stated reason was bogus. The
Israeli ambassador's assailants were part
of the Abu Nidal faction that was at war
with the mainline PLO.
At CIA headquarters in Langley, Casey
convened a meeting in his office. One
question was whether Israel was using
U.S.-supplied weapons, and many at the
meeting voiced concern that the United
States would be seen as an accomplice
and Congress would raise questions. "I
don't give a [expletives about that,"
Casey said. "The situation is fluid. Any-
I?-
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t(ting can happen. How do we turn this to service. It would have to share sophis- who benefited most from Gemayel's
our national interest? That's the question ticated weapons as well as equipment for death. Who wanted a weak Lebanon?
I want answered." electronic surveillance, and communica- Who most feared a strong tie between
In the weeks after the invasion, there tions. Israel and Lebanon? The answer was Syr-
were indications that Bashir Gemayel President Reagan approved a finding ia. Still, in the end, Casey had to accept
was headed for the presidency of Leba- for the operation that called for an initial the unwil of the White House and
non. He had eliminated his competition expenditure of about $600,000. It was the state Department to publicise a Syr-
among the Christian factions. His good projected to grow quickly to more than ion role.
relations with the Invading. Israelis gave $2 million a year, perhaps as much as $4 Casey had an uo't
him a lever. The pro-isaell elements in miIIiao. hands. The CIA rd rlati s on his
Lebanon looked on Gemayel as the new On the afternoon of Sept 14 to b break reak with Ge-
light; the anti-Israeli elements nts (Moslems , 1982. mnayd, the decision to it a~ Ge-
and ; the Drugs led by (Moslem nee days before he was to take office, 091708 request for protection, the ad-umblatt) andsleerst him they
only person who Gemqd was speaking at the local office mini tradoa's decbisn to grant it and the
might be able to gt the Israelis to with. of his Pbabut Ply in East Beirut. He subsequent asesesisatim-this was a
emald get had beeoare the was sol eel to and at 5 p ma wilts. mess. But i'was a wed .
draw. Bashir G
group of ima "h~tellligeaoe a8bras.tsuei . It stayed ascwt
I'allying point. Now, instead o g I* eqmd the ing the s t y . At *1% a: bomb dwmww&w&- i
m. eeg the b lows and T~ M Codm
CIA s use of Gesard, Casey moved to him. 0- --- ~....._.._
sever it. Since that 19?? public disclosure iu Clio hat art bad titie to The. **ar Nola do~a alb eel
that King Husapio of Jordan had been a cavort tar *0altwe~cisdGem* semrity
CIA-paW agent foes 20 yesw4 the agent? pt ogtant into i 4R~/rt?~: ageclel pe+esidee-
There ?0 tonsCIA
had been rewcu oils MM brads of state
- . e 1dr
kA~~~ar i5:-C! - . ~aasftR opera-
on the payroll;.im Gs~d was thrust
ter ter CrA to h am s
more into the ---- exposure of his
CIA connections could end his career, if The wsa that was art a-
not his life. The reladmahip was opt of Q w
the CIA's most guarded secrets. Every. can Of otrr eosnlw 1118 tit
WaWd
day'' Israeli forces aftwi8
thing was being done to pr+seect it. units to eelec
On
..19'82, 21k months after
n~i
aui
E
~
a
. in B on a of r
Israeli m
the
vaeioct. Beattie Gemayel was oostraR Who re"Em
elected presideale aft-I-Alter. Ile was to comes of two of tlteslt cao~si, ~, ` aft ia: their ifght
take office the asst seeuth The few who ShstI, hove` ateoe becoerr put of tort ' l t
knew about the reeecrn severed CIA history of m 'ncc~s Israeli ir!^~npou -. Nr e+eplag5ure the money
relationship could. fed a*. & mature of calculated that there seers. 70A to 8081 l + t e Gipt4ri operado., But
joy and horror. Lehaooe was a country of and Nlesdnian vietans, 01517 of them wooteo~: I theme war; It dinky of be ire the
no permanent friends, no permanent en- children, paper work arsivei at Sera o select
Within two week
envies
Th
U
S
thi
M
u
h
d
.
e very
s,
.
.
at
ngs t
at ma
e %A%-
ete were Commeiltee on. Ia informing it
mayel the likely leader left him with nu- stationed at a strategic location in bar- of the U2110611s.
merous enemies. The Moslems were for. racks near the Beirut airport. As part of a. Gives the motne-, :$a Mties and
tified by the rise of Ayatollah Ruhollah joint peacekeeping mission, they had no altepticipm about the &mdra operation
Khomeini in Iran; the well-financed PLO specific goal other than to assist Lebanon within the committee, the delay in giving
still had a presence in Lebanon, though - and oversee the eventual withdrawal of this routine notification renewed feelings
the evacuation from Beirut of 11,000 foreign troops. that the CIA was not leveling with its
PLO fighters, including PLO Chairman Israel's intelligence service, the Mos- congreesiooel overseers. Some Demo-
Yasser Arafat, had begun. sad, and its military intelligence agency crats saw it as an opportunity to string up
A Lebanon under Bashir Gemayel, began inquiries to determine who had Casey.
strategically allied with Israel and the killed Gemayel. They traced the bomb to But the record showed that Casey had
United States, would upset the regional a 26-year-old member of a rival party of been out of town at the time of the dis-
balance of power. Powerful Syria to the the Phalangists, whose "operator," or bursement. It was Casey's new deputy,
north and east haddad the Bekaa case officer, was a captain in the Syrian John N. McMahon (who had replaced
Valley in Lebanon ' and, in fact, intelligence service. The Israelis estab. InmanI who had not notified the commit-
considered all of Leba part of "greater lisped that the captain reported directly tee promptly. The Democrats hunting for
Syria.* Syria's Soviet as were also un-. to the lieutenant colonel in charge of Syr- Casey's scalp had come up with McMa-
happy with the prospect of Lebanon un- ian intelligence operations in Lebanon. hon's instead.
der such strong Israeli influence. The Israelis believed that Syrian Pres. This was almost too good to be true for
Faced with this array of internal and ident Hafez Assad had such an iron grip the conservative Republicans on the com-
external enemies, Gemayel passed a on his country that he had to have known
message to the CIA requesting a new that such a plan was under way. But
relationships He wanted to be provided there was no proof, and the intelligence Continued
h
owing the alleged complicity of
with security and intelbgrenoe assistance. L oc s
Casey felt the CIA had an obligation to the Syrian intelligence officers were
help Gemayel, but it could not be done highly classified.
openly. A largu?-scale covert operation Casey saw these reports of Syria's al-
was necessary. To be effective, the CIA leged involvement, which were provided
would have to become more closely in- by Israeli intelligence. They were con-
volved with the Lebanese intelligence vincing enough, and they fit with his own
analysis. It was necessary to consider
3.
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 Declassified and Approved For Release 2012/01/12 : CIA-RDP90-00965R000807540050-6
mittee, who saw McMahon as fundamen-
tally anticontra and too cautious. McMa-
hon had to explain his slip to each of the
key senators. In the course of this, he
realized he was not up to speed on the
Nicaragua operation. Contra support,
training or arms interdiction efforts were
under way in Guatemala, Costa Rica, El
Salvador, Honduras and Panama He had
not realized the magnitude of Casey's
undertakings. McMahon was the deputy
director and he had been bypassed. The
situation was intolerable.
McMahon protested to Casey that he
could function as a deputy only if he was
in the loop. There could be no repeat of
the experience with Inman, who had quit
in part because he had been cut out of the
contra operation. Neither Casey nor
McMahon wanted that. Casey stared and
then agreed; new procedures were es-
tablished to include McMahon fully.
Seeing more of the expanding contra
war only increased McMahon's unease.
In his best I-am-loyal-to-you style, he
suggested that they could find another
way to handle it. Perhaps now that the
operation was in the open, it belonged in
the hands of the Defense Department? It
did, after all, have the appearance of war.
Casey didn't like the idea. If the CIA
couldn't handle the tough assignments, if.
it had to shuffle them off to the military,
the CIA's paramilitary capability-which
he had vowed to restore-would be a
joke. These operations were the hard
calls. Besides, the military didn't have
the stomach for such an operation. And a
superpower could not take on a pip-
squeak nation like Nicaragua with a fron-
tal military assault.
McMahon argued passionately, insist.
ing that he was on Casey's side. He had
been there in the 1970s, he had experi-
enced first-hand the congressional inves-
tigations into covert actions, the low mo-
rale, the crack-up and the crippling of the
agency that had occurred before Casey
took over.
Casey
that they both talk to
others on the Natitional security emu,
The idea of passing the contra operation
to the Defense
presented to Defense SecretarytCasper
W. Weinberger, national security adviser
Wiliam P. Clark and Secretary M State
Gdibegp. shift ,
Wewberger'a response was simple:
over his dead body. He was determined
to keep the cry out of anything that
did n o t have the f i l l backinatios
efforts from both internal and, e3dernal forces--
coups, terrorism, assassination, Al aaoat sdverwtly,
these regimes wanted protection. That meant trdd-
in& expertise and equipment, and no country was
better equipped to provide such protectioq. 00.1k,
United States. And no arm of thf U.& goeer
was more experienced in aiding leaders secretly thso
the Central Intelligence Agency, an expertise that
went baci, to the agency's earliest daps.
Over the years, the CIA had developed extensive
programs to provide seemity assistance and hntelli`
gence training to foreign jovernme a.. These .p
grams were designed to preserve the regimes, mw
change them. Nonetheless, any CIA effort to Wfht-
ence events in a foreign country was oonilOred"ce-
vert action" and required a formel presidential order,
Page `J ,
ub"
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 `.rw a ....am.5 , AGGU1117 dA318C-
ance and intelligence training
were included in that definition.
At a cost from $300,000 to
More than $1 million, the CIA
sent in a team, often only three or
four agents. Run by the CIA's
special International Activities
division, with assistance from the
Office of Technical Services and
the Directorate of Operations,
the team would set up the train.
ing and delivery of equipment.
Training was given to the per-
sonal security force or palace
guard and, often, to the country's
intelligence service or the local
police. Equipment included the
best automatic weapons and
handguns; high-tech night-vision
equipment; walkie-talkies and the
most advanced communications
gear, often with encryption capa-
bility; a helicopter; security
alarms, locks and lightweight bul-
ktPr00f vats. sundar to ones
worn by agents who protect the
president of the United States
and, occasionally, by the presi.
dent himself. Advanced tech.
niques in perimeter defense of a
building or palace, in monitoring
terrorists and in ensuring liaison
with the intelligence service and
the police were also passed on.
One such covert assistance
program was in place in Morocco,
where for years the CIA had pro-
vided technical assistance and
training to King Hassan II. (Dur-
ing World War II, a young U.S.
military officer, Vernon A. Wal-
ters, had met the young Crown
Prince Hassan, then age 13. That
began a friendship that extended
to the period 1972-76, when Wal-
ters was deputy director of cen-
tral intelligence, and was almost
considered the king's can off.
cer.) The CIA assistance program
had helped to keep Hassan in
power since 1961; his rule was
one of the longest of any African
state.
In return. Hassan allowed the
CIA and the National Security
Agency, which intercepts com-
munications worldwide, to have,
virtually free run of his country.
Extensive, sensitive U.S. - intelli-
gence operations with advanced
technologies were set up in Mo-
rocco. This was particularly im-
portant given Morocco's strategic
location at the Strait of Gibraltar,
controlling the western entrance
to the Mediterranean.
In effect, the United States and
the CIA station in Morocco-and
the stations in many other coun-
tries-were saying, "We are your
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inns ana we want to take care of
you." In highly volatile domestic
political environments, this CIA
assistance could mean survival.
Once invited into the presence,
office, palace and life of a leader,
the CIA team learned a great
deal-schedules, routines, the
identities of those with real influ-
ence and real information, the
quirks and peccadilloes of the
friendly leader, his family, his ad-
visers. There were also opportir
pities to plant eavesdropping de-
vices, and the communications
gear issued to the security and.
intelligence forces was known to
the CIA and NSA, as were its pre-
cise uses, its frequencies and, if
applicable, the codes.
But perhaps most important,
there was a chance to recruit
those human sources. The visit-
ing CIA team or the station per-
sonnel had access to the people at
the working level-guards, radio
operators, others in key positions.
Training sessions, discussions,
meetings, long lunches, longer
dinners were all part of protect-
ing the leader, honing the skills,
Warning the equipment, sharing
the risk, the purpose.
The result was often effective
and multiple penetrations, human
"moles" or electronic devices in
many key friendly countries.
Some CIA people considered this
extremely dangerous-little
more than intelligence "sting"
operations designed less to help
the leader than to gather intelli-
gence. But Casey felt it would be
criminal not to use the advantage
that had been handed to them. At
various times he called these op-
erations "a duty" and "business."
The United States was vulnera-
ble, he said.
Once inside a foreign country,
CIA officers were free to conduct
espionage. There was only one
rule, Casey said: "Don't get
caught. If you do, don't admit it."
Some critics within the agency,
however, felt that Casey paid too
little attention to the conse-
queaces of exposure. But that
was just the kind of mentality
Casey was fighting: he wanted
offense, not defense; boldness,
not caution.
Enhancing the power of his
chiefs of station abroad was an-
other of Casey's goals. Nothing
increased a station chiefs power
and status within the country and
at CIA headquarters in Langley as
much as the security and intelli-
gence-assistance operations. Sta-
tion chiefs were given a laminated
plastic card that listed available
services, including head-of-state
protection. The card was handed
to heads of state so that they
could select from the menu. Suc-
cessful operations gave the sta-
tion chiefs fantastic power within
the U.S. embassy, particularly if
the security operation yielded
good political intelligence from
the presidential palace.
In 1983, the ever-changing list
of major recipients of this intel.
ligence and security assistance
numbered about 12. At that time,
it included:
? President Hissene Habre of
Chad, the former French colony
south of Libya. Libyan Wader
Moammar Gadhafi was spear-
gti campaign to overthrow
the Hae government. Habre
came to power in 1982 after ceiving covert' CIA paramilitary
assistance under one of the early
Reagan administration findings
designed to -keep Gadhafi boxed
in.
? Pakistani President Mo-
hammed Zia ul-Haq. No Wader
ruled a country in a more precar-
ious geographic situation. It was
virtually surrounded by unfriendly
nations-Iran to the west. Af-
ghanistan to the north, bitter foe
India to the east and south and
the Soviet Union just a few miles
beyond the Afghan border. The
CIA station in Islamabad, the cap-
ital, was one of the biggest in the
world; it funneled growing
amounts of paramilitary support
to the rebels in Afghanistan fight.
ing against their Soviet-domi.
nated government.
? Liberian leader Samuel K. Doe.
The deputy chief of Doe's person.
al guard, Lt. Col. Moses Flanza-
maton. became a CIA agent and
later, in 1985, attempted to seize
power by leading a machine-gun
ambush on Doe's jeep. Doe was
not injured. but Flanzamaton was
captured. confessed to CIA ties
and embroidered his tale to in.
clude CIA sponsorship of the as.
saaeination. It was white knuckles
at Langley for days, where top
officials feared that the agency
would be accused unfairly: of an
assassination attempt. But Flan-
zamaton was executed a week
after the coup attempt, and the
agency's fears went unrealized.
6.
Declassified and Approved For Release 2012/01/12 : CIA-RDP90-00965R000807540050-6
 Declassified and Approved For Release 2012/01/12 : CIA-RDP90-00965R000807540050-6
? , Midippine Yreeaaent r'erdinand
Marcos, a key U.S. friend, who
permitted the United States to
maintain air and naval bases.
Marcos was also dealing with a
coniMuilitt insurgency. Marcos'
rulle.ended last, -Vearwhen he fled
the piiee. ... y .,.
^ Sudan President Jaal yc Nimeri,.
who "maintained close relations
with, the United States and was
another barrier to Gadbafi in Af-
rica. He was overthrown by his
defense minister in an April 1985
bloodless coup.
^ Leban President: Amin Ge-
mayeL Thj CIS} was, a to
ensure that h4 was over,
thrown or *dk4 like his
Bashir who "fed' in a,
bomb explosion shortly before he,
was to take office as ptvpeident in,
September 1985. 1
There were more-some ob-
vious, some not so obvious. But in
Casey's bag of intelligence oper-
ations, the security-assistance
operations were among the best.
Casey felt that he had to be the
unremitting advocate for these
covert actions and relationships,
even if they counted only for mar.
ginal gain, or if there were no
apparent gain. It was a way of
getting the agency's foot in the_
door, and as far nN'6 ey was con-
cerned the CIA needed its foot in
every door in the, works. Could
these arrangement, go too far?
Ywhe realised, at least theoret-
ically. So how were they to be
simple. He would
involved in monitoring them.
Outmausuveria= Mubarak
The value of knowing the hab?
its of a Menddy foreign leader ben
carne evident in October 1985,
when four Palestine Liberation
an ItWbn cruise ship, =
Lauro, with 438
aboard. An Am
his Klingbaffer, k 69. and t
murdered
In
board. Evenha docked in Egypty, the cruise ship
U.S. intelligence agencies had a
longstanding relationship with
Egypt and had supplied its pres-
ident, Norm Mubarak, with a se-
cure communications system.
Mubarak hated the system. It had
a push-to.tadk handset, so that the
person on the other-end could amt
receive while talking. That made
it hard to interrupt. So Mubarak
frequently used an ordinary
Phone, which made eavesdrop.
ping by satellites relatively easy.
Mubarak had been saying pub-
licly that the hijackers had left
Egypt. But early on the morning
of Oct. 10, one of Mubarak's
phone conversations was inter-
cepted by satellite, the result of
stepped-up intelligence gathering
ordered after the ship was seized.
The intercept told a different sto-
ry. Mubarak was overheard tell-
ing the foreign minister that the
Macke=
shouted thawere still in t George P.SShultz,
the U.S. secretary of state, was
"crazy" to think that Egypt would
turn over the hijackers to the
United States as requested.
> rpt Arab. country and
could its back on its PLO
brothers..
During .the iernoon, the NSA,
rovided 10 inM[ epts of Mu-
er hale ail t plans PLO
.deliver the e to the PLO
in Algiers. The tranacrlb(Cs
showed Mubarak s distress as he.
maneuvered. At first be had noi;
known of Klinghoffer's murdser;
when he found out, he realised
the United States would have to
act.
Shortly after midnight local
time, four U.S. planes forced an
Egyptair plane down in Sicily, and
the hijackers were captured It
was President Reagan's first
clear-cut victory over terrorists,
and he was flooded with praise
from the publicc, Republicans and
Democrats. Knowing the impor.
tance of the intercepts, the nett
time the president saw Casey, the
commander in chief almost bowed
before his director of amtrat io
Recruiting Soviet Source,
While spy on trhsde wee-
useful, eves necessary, the pro.
jest of paramount importance to
Casey was recruiting and devei?
oiling hwna