WASHINGTON'S COWBOYS

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP91-00587R000100220006-3
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: May 11, 2011
• Sequence Number: 6
• Publication Date: November 17, 1986
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2011/05/11: CIA-RDP91-00587R000100220006-3
ON PAGE .
T I NIE
17 November 1986
Washington's Cowboys
As news of secret US. dealings with Iran began to appear last
week, attention inexorably turned to a cluster of suites in
the Old Executive Office Building next door to the White
House. They house a select band of globe-trotting staffers of
the National Security Council. the executive agency that coor-
dinates U.S. defense and foreign-affairs activities. Known for
its bravado and love of derring-do, the small group conceived
and ran the secret talks with Iran. While the group is part of a
crisis-management team within the 46-person NSC staff, its free-
wheeling style has led Washington insiders to call its members
the "cowboys."
The most prominent is Lieut. Colonel Oliver North. 43, a
Marine who earned the Silver Star and two Purple Hearts-
among other medals-in the Viet Nam War. He is deputy direc-
tor for political-military affairs on the NSC. A close friend and
military comrade of former National Security Adviser Robert
McFarlane, North arouses strong emotions in people. "Nobody
can be indifferent to Ollie," says the wife of a top foreign diplo-
mat. "Either you love him, or you hate him with a passion."
Since he joined the NSC in 1981, North has handled many
highly sensitive missions. After the 1983 Beirut bombing that
killed 241 U.S. Marines, North led the hunt for those responsi-
ble. The chief suspect, however, managed to escape. When ter-
rorists seized the Achille Lauro cruise ship off the coast of Egypt
last year. North arranged the midair interception of an Egypt-
Air jet carrying Abul Abbas, the mastermind of the hijacking,
to safety in Tunisia. North helped plan the 1983 U.S. invasion of
Grenada and last April's Libyan air raid. It was not surprising
that North turned up in Cyprus last week just when Released
Hostage David Jacobsen arrived there. "Oliver North is the
prototype of the modern American hero," says a friend and col-
league. "Wherever and whenever Americans are in trouble,
sooner or later you will see him at the scene."
Yet North's global troubleshooting has sometimes landed
him in trouble. As head of NSC operations in Central America, he
organized a private supply network that provided aid to the con-
tra rebels seeking to oust the Marxist Sandinista government in
Nicaragua. Senate and House committees investigated North's
role last year. but found no proof that he had violated a U.S. law
regulating aid to the contras. The colonel's name briefly surfaced
again last month when Gunrunner Eugene Hasenfus was cap-
tured in Nicaragua after his plane was shot down while he was
flying weapons to the contras. A card found in the wreckage be-
longed to a businessman thought to have links to North.
A confirmed workaholic, North regularly puts in 16-to- 18-
hour days while in Washington. He dislikes paperwork, and
once groused to a friend, "Every time a terrorist fires a bullet,
we have to fill out a pile of papers." Colleagues quip that North's
real power comes from two office computers hooked into the
major U.S. intelligence-gathering agencies, and from a secure
telephone line that he uses for classified conversations. For his
own protection, the slender officer is rarely photographed or
quoted in news accounts. "He is there to serve the President,
and that is it," a colleague says.
Like North, the rest of the cowboys tend to be hard-line
conservatives who crave adventure and seem to generate con-
trnv~r
ics tea expert on the Middle
East, recently emerged as a source of a Washington d ms'
cam designed to suggest, among (;her things, that the
U.S. was
r m( gill
tratron ca a or as mon t
ports were false.
Teicher, who speaks fluent Hebrew, caused another flap
five yeah ago when he tried to publish a fictionalized account
of Israel's nuclear secrets. The manuscript was confiscated by
the Israeli military censor, and Teicher did not seek to publish
it elsewhere.
Another zealous cowboy is Vince Cannistraro 4 I .._a twelve-
year veteran o the CIA He too over Central American o6e -
tions from North last spring after first being responsible for op-
stations in Africa.' He has directed the channeling of weapons
and aid to onas Savimbi's UNrrA rebels fighting the Marxist re-
gime in Angola. Insiders say Cannistraro managed to supply
Savimbi with more arms than the White House originally in-
tended. A quiet official who joined the NSC in 1983. Cannistraro
has helped funnel supplies to the mujahedin guerrillas at war
with the Soviet-backed government of Afghanistan.
Other members of the crisis-management team are more
shadowy figures. Robert Earle. 42. a Marine lieutenant colonel
and Rhodes scholar, ours Tie stn from the
an now serves as N ort's deputy. He meets regularly with
foreign counterterrorist experts and coordinates operations
with them. Craig Coy, 36, a Coast Guard commander. joined
the NSC after serving on a White House terror task force. Lieut.
Colonel Jim Stark. 38. worked with North in planning last
spring's Libyan air raid. He is considered to be more disciplined
than his sometimes freebooting colleagues, while sharing their
tough-minded attitudes.
The crisis-management cowboys. of course, have attracted
critics. and their methods are often questioned. One congressio-
nal staffer calls North a "ruthless operator." But if the cowboys
sometimes appear to ride roughshod. NSC officials say, they are
only carrying out Administration policies. -&yJaMas