THE BLAME FALLS ON CASEY

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP91-00901R000600420014-4
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 5
• Document Creation Date: December 19, 2016
• Document Release Date: December 27, 2005
• Sequence Number: 14
• Publication Date: October 28, 1984
• Content Type: NSPR

Approved Far_ Release 2006/01/17 :CIA-RDP9,1.00901 R
'~-*PQ WASHINGTON POST
28 October 1984
.Joseph Kraft
the Blame
Fails
.01"Ll Casey:.
The Central Intelligence Agency is
going into the public pillory again. But
this time nobody can blame those
favorite whipping boys-the liberals of
the 1970s.
This time the blame falls squarely
on the CIA and its present director,
William Casey. Under his tutelage, the
agency has misled the White House
and Congress, thus shattering the
base of bipartisan. support for intelli-
gence activities.
The agency originally came into bad
odor in the wake of Watergate and the
Vietnam War? Investigation by a Sen.
ate committee headed by the late.
Frank Church of Idaho showed that
the CIA had a hand in all kinds of dirty
operations, including attempted assas-
sinations. .
In that period, those who tried to
defend the agency as a valuable na-
tional resource could at least argue
that the temper. of the times was sour.
Unfortunately, ;jimmy Carter made
one of his worst appointments in nam-
ing Adm. Stansfield Turner to be di-
rector of Central Intelligence. Turner
very early began a feud, which. he is
still indulging in, ; with the "old boy"
network of CIA veterans.
But there were figures in Congress,
particularly among defense-minded
Democrats, who saw the need to re.
build. They. worked behind the scenes
to make more money available to the
agency and to restore morale. A 'good
example is Sen. Daniel Moynihan, the
New York Democrat, who has been
serving as vice chairman of the Senate
Intelligence Committee.
"When I came in," Moynihan re-
called recently, "I asked myself
whether we shouldn't scrap the CIA
and start over again. The officers who
came up here looked so. damaged.
They eauldn t"think -on their feet.
They couldn't play checkers,-let alone
chess. They were good people who
had been hurt. But . of course - we
couldn't close it down. So we tried
healing. We gave them money and told
them they were first rate. And there
were signs of progress."
The progress halted with the appoint-
ment of Casey as director in 1981, and
the onset of covert operations in Nicara-
gua.'Casey would have been' an embar-
rassment to any bureau of government.
Before becoming'director, he was mixed
up in charges of plagiarism and was hip
deep in Watergate. At the agency, he
was involved in smelly stock transac-
tions, dubious testimony on the Carter
briefing book and - association with
shabby characters. A former Republican
secretary of state, trying to defend
Casey, could only say, "He's not as
sleazy as he looks."
As to Nicaragua, the right-wing
dictatorship of the Somozas ? was
ousted in 1979. The successor re-
gime, democratic' at first, quickly
yielded to a group called the Sandinis
tas, with ties to Cuba and the Soviet
Union and a background in Marxism-
Leninism: The United States under-
took to harass the Sandinistas by sup-
porting against them a guerrilla force
known as the contras
"From the first it didn't feel right,"
Moynihan said' of the CIA operation
against the Sandinistas. "You knew you'
were dealing with one part of the agen
cy, not the whole. Somewhere in that
place were a group of people like ai out-
fit in a Le Carre novel. They were look-
ing for somebody to give them a job' again. Some of their briefings about
their plans came close to fantasizing.
Then they began to hide things."
One operation hidden from the Sen-
ate committee was the mining of Nica-
raguan harbors. When events dis-'
closed the fact, Barry Goldwater, the
committee. chairman, fired off an
angry message. to Casey.. Moynihan.
tried unsuccessfully to find out what
had happened. Then, on April 12;
1984, President. Reagan's national se-
curity adviser, Robert McFarlane, told
a conference at Annapolis that "every
important detail" of the mining had
been "shared in full" with the con-
gressional committee..
s rotest s against ung ca e a -
liar in public,' Moynihan resigned as
vice chairman. Casey, prodded by the
White House, made a public apology to
the committee. Moynihan claims that
McFarlane told him that in reporting
to the White House, the CIA had been
"either disingenuous or outright
wrong." A second case of "hiding"
now surfaces with the manual written
by a contract employee of the CIA
which advised the contras to "neutral-
ize," or assa. nate, Sandinista officials.
The Senate committee was not told of
that manual; which sanctioned terrorism
and violated a presidential order. In the
foreign policy debate, President Reagan
said -the- manual had been heavily ex-
cised both by the CIA in the field and at
headquarters. He claimed only a handful
of the original manuals was distributed.
That turns out to be a cock-and-bull
story. There was little editing, and hun-
dreds of manuals were distributed. But
what the president said was what the
CIA had told the White House. .
Obviously something is very wrong.
Congressional support for the agency is
now almost nil. Moynihan says of Casey
and the agency, "It breaks .my heart.
We need an intelligence capacity. But
they're hurting themselves and they
don't know it. They still don't under-
stand they are damaging the president,
not helping trim.". ..
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OMAItAFl GATEWAY (NE)
26 October ?1984
Former CIA head addresses current
issues in speech
By KAREN NELSON
The Central Intelligence Agency should suspend covert ac-
tions in Lebanon and Nicaragua, at least temporarily, according
to a former CIA head.
Stansfield Turner, head of the CIA from 1977 until 1982,
spoke at Creighton University last Tuesday night. Turner said
that pulling out of Beirut temporarily would be one way to
pressure the Lebanese government into providing more security
for the American embassy.
"There was no excuse for that truck bomb in Beirut," Turner
said. "We can't build ourselves into high walls and barricades."
Reliance on local informants, offering some intelligence ser-
vices to the Lebanese government and paying more attention
to physical defense of the embassy might have prevented some
of the terrorism, Turner said.
"In Lebanon, we work with the local police," he said. "They
become a small network of informants who turn in a small clue
now and then. Eventually, the clues can be all pieced together."
Turner said the situation in.Nicaragua was "but of control."
Although the CIA knew about Cuban support for the Sandinistas
when the takeover occured in 1979, he said he doubted whether
the takeover could have been prevented.
"The Cartier administration did not choose to try to stop the
takeover. Anti-Somoza feeling was too strong. Sometimes the
U.S. can't wave a wand and get things the way we want. This
kind of thing will happen again and again."
One place where a takeover of a government considered
friendly to the United States may happen is the Philippines,
Turner said. "Marcos is out of touch with what is going on. He
should use intelligence to 'Gallup poll' the Philippines."
Such a poll would then be used to show Philippine leaders
how and where attitudes are changing in hopes of getting leaders
to become more democratic, Turner said. "We'll tell Marcos
that we aren't going to stand on his bandwagon - you'll be
where Somoza is, where the Shah (of Iran) is." He said there
doesn't seem to be much hope of Marcos changing his positions.
Turiier said the CIA engages in three types of covert action:
propaganda, .including planting stories in newspapers which
would not be accepted if it were known the source was the
United States; political action, including supporting candidates
who are friendly to the United Staten; and paramilitary action,
including supplying arms and other forms of military assistance.
The CIA-sponsored manual advocating assassination of mem-
bers of the Sandinista government is not legitimate covert ac-
tion, according. to a 1974 law, Turner said. According to the
law, the President must approve any major covert actions and
notify Congress. The last three presidents (Ford, Carter and
Reagan) issued an executive order forbidding the CIA to par-
ticipate in assissinations.
Turner attributed the manual to "the over-enthusiasm of
over-dedicated people wanting to do their best for their coun-
try." He said! that with the increase in covert action, many
retired CIA agents were called back to duty, and some were
finding it difficult to adjust to the legal restraints.
"Twenty years ago, such a manual might have never sur-
faced," Turner said. The conflict between the need for secrecy
in intelligence and the rights of people to know what kind of
action their government is taking prompted the creation of com-
mittees which oversee the intelligence agencies. Turner called
them "surrogates - a few who know the secrets and pass
judgement on whether we are acting- properly."
One case, where the "surrogates" - committees in the
House, Senate and the White House - ruled against CIA action
was the mining of Nicaragua harbors. "The mining was ruled
out by the public. It was an action which could have harmed
innocent third parties who weren't even armed."
Turner said the ultimate success of last year's invasion of
Grenada may depend on how its next election turns out. "The
main choice seems to be between the kooky .right-wing gov-
ernment of Gary who is a believer in UFOs - he even offered
to be Carter's mediary to outer space - or the socialists. We're
banking on the centerists, but it could be that they'll elect the
same government we helped get rid of."
The case for the invasion, according to Turner, was how
seriously the American medical students were endangered. "I
talked to some of the students after the invasion. It seems to
me they were scared but weren't under a great threat. In one
case, it took two days for the army to reach the campus. That
was plenty of time for the Grenadians to massacre them if that's
what they wanted to do."
Turner said the., possibility of reaching a verifiable arms con-
trol agreement has become more remote since the days of SALT
II. "Verifying SALT II would have been tough, but it could have
been done," he said. "Since then, the Soviets have done some
things which would make verification of such an agreement
harder. It wouldn't have happened if SALT II were ratified be-
cause it's harder to break an agreement while negotiating a new
one."
As for a nuclear weapons freeze, Turner said it probably isn't
possible. "It isn't completely a bad thing to live under a nuclear
threat. Without such a threat, you leave the field wide open for
a Kadaffi and run the risk of World War III. Neither we nor the
Soviets want to fight because it's too costly."
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26 October 1984
ing an answer, to terrorism
EAPA, ;LECHER
WASHINGTON - Adm. Stans-
field Turner, a former director of
the CI,A was addressing the flap
over a pamphlet advising anti-
government guerrillas in Nicara-
gua on political assassinations'
and other dirty tricks.
He told reporters at a breakfast
meeting this week that one of the
problems was the -Administra-
tion's recall to active service of "a
lot of oldtime [CIA) employees,"
some of whom =ave not been
able to adapt" to the new restric-
tions on covert warfare.
It wasn't so many years ago
when the CIA was running the
Fhoenix program during the Viet-
nam war. For those with short
memories, that was a program
which in effect adopted the Viet
Gang's tactics of terrorism and as-
sassination against its own infra-
structure; of fighting fire with fire.
A succession of recent Presi-
dents. by executive order, have
barred assassinations, either di-
rectiv by American operatives or
;larly egregrious aspects, Reagan
,said, but somehow 12 copies of the
;original draft got out. . .
Subsequent reporting, howev-
er, makes clear that the advice on
"neutralizing" Sandinista judges,
security officials and others was
not deleted. Guerrilla fighters cer-'
tainly understand that neutraliza-
tion does not mean social shun-
ning or house arrest.
It is, of course, relatively easy
and correct for a civilized society
to condemn assassination '-as a
tool of national policy in a situa-
tion such as the covert war in
Nicaragua.
But that answer Is not so easy
In the case of state-sponsored ter-
rorism, such as the truck-bomb-
ings of American diplomatic and
military installations in Beirut.
US officials are trying to come up
with appropriate responses.
President Reagan, as he took
office at a moment when the na-
tion was frustrated over the hos-
tage trauma in Iran, vowed that
terrorists would no longer be free
to strike at American personnel,.
facilities and interests without be-
by their foreign hirelings or asso- ` ing visited with swift and harsh'
ciates. retaliation. That was before the;
The issue came up again in the acts of terrorism in Beirut.
televised campaign debate be- In this week's TV debate, Mon-
tween Ronald Reagan and Walter. dale said: "The terrorists have-.
Mondale. The President tried to won each time. The President told
lay the blame at the doorstep of a the terrorists that he was going to
CIA contract employee who was ' retaliate. He didn't. They called
hired to teach tactics to the Con- [his] bluff. And the bottom line is:
;tras and, he implied, overzealous-: the United States left in humili-
ly produced a how-to pamphlet . ation, and our enemies are stron-
that contravened national policy.' ger.'
Higher-ups excised some particu- To which Reagan responded:
"I'm tempted to ask you what you
would do .... We are busy trying;
to find the centers where these op-
erations stem from and retaliation
will be taken. But we are not going
to simply kill some people to say,,
'Oh, look, we got even."
Officials charged with trying to'
find meaningful answers are
nearly stumped. To be sure, They
j
are trying to improve their intelli-
gence, They are also urging Syria
to block the movement of explo-
sives to radical Shiites and Iran-
ians in Lebanon, and Israel to pur-
sue its own counterterrorist inter-
ests there. -
But they know that to simply
bomb a suspected terrorist train-
ing center near Baalbeck, Leba-
non, may kill some innocent by-
standers and perhaps lead to an
escalation of anti-US violence
throughout the Mideast and be-
yond. If the evidence should show
that the truck-bombings were
masterminded, say, in Tehran,
should they consider sending
.bombers or assassins there?
Would that be moral, legal, jus-
tifiable or effective? Would stern-
private warnings suffice or be
laughed off as a sign of weakness?
To the extent that state-direct-
ed terrorism increasingly becomes
viewed as a. low-risk, high-payoff,
politically potent alternative to
war-making against a strong,
civilized society, it presents a
threat that demands an answer -
and not just. television repartee.
William Beecher is the
Globe's diplomatic .correspon-
dent.
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,-)N PAVE 214 October 1984
...'
[logic Damage to the
CCL)
Along with that revival, though,
tiinsfi old Turner came a new system of Congressional
- -~ and White House oversight, designed
:'CLEAN, Va. --'Pae Central Intel- to help the intelligence agencie avoid
ti rence Agency is in the headlines the excesses of the past that had been
Tt:e most recent. episode fn- fostered by a near-total lack of ac-
-Ives the distribution of a pamphlet countability.
Nicaraguan rebels how to During the past three years, the
,: al ze" Nicaraguan officials. A oversight committees of the Congress
i wits ago, it was a question of have been arguing with the, Adminis-
.:i7 :they it was right for President tration over the C.I.A.'s covert role in
Re: an to blame yet another security Nicaragua. They have questioned
faiiare in Beirut on the deterioration whether the agency is funding the
cI our ir'eili;,ence-gathering capabil- contras legally; whether the mining
'tics before he came to office. of Nicaragua's harbors was legal and
On the latter paint, the President proper; whether the C.I.A. should be
a shouted down; indeed, he phoned providing assistance to American sol-
iii::rriy Carte: to apologize. On the - diers of fortune operating with the
question of whether t;?e urged the as- contras; whether the C.I.A. has been
__ sirtation of Nicaraguan leaders, keeping the Congress adequately in-
formed about its covert activities.
out; the President
._dict is still. ,s.~1f s r p%ct:: something is askew
cu r co at issioned two investiga-
s. cr. I what's right or
in t' ese TWO cases, there are
r issres here. Will there be'a re-
,-.vai of public skepticism about
k net: er the C.I.A. is operating under
o pqt,te control? And what impact
11 this have on the agency?
The r:-cord would say that public
of C.I.A. linen can only
4-rashittps
damage the agency's ability to func-'
Con effectively. That was what hap-
eened after the widespread public
criticism of 1975-?76. In those years,
thre4 i vrstigative bodies uncovered
past misdeeds by the C.I.A., the Na-
tional Security Agency and Army in-
telligence -? largely instances of im-
p-op,--r and unnecessary intrusions
into the privacy of Americans. The
resulting uproar injured our espio-
nage capability seriously. When the
Carter Administration took office, es-
-pionage activities had sunk to a very
low point, and covert actions, such as._
the current C.I.A. involvement in
Nicaragua, even lower. The reason
was not a lack of money or personnel.
'The C.I.A.'s espionage branch, com-
posed of conscientious professionals,
was simply hunkering down. Al-
though it is obvious that risk-taking is
essential to good intelligence, these
professionals were reluctant to take
risks that might lead to further criti-
cisms and endanger the agency's fu-
tare.
By about early 1979, criticism
began to diminish. When the public
sensed that it had cone dangerously
close to permanently damaging the
C.I.A., the professionals began to
take heart. Frorn the nadir of 1975-76,
espionage and covert action revived.
And there have been charges that the
agency has been politicized, first
when two senior analysts quit the
agency after claiming they were
being pressured to twist their analy-
ses of Central America to suit domes-
tic political requirements, and later
when the President attempted to cast
blame for the lack of security in Bei-
rut on failures of intelligence.
There is nothing wrong with t.l air-
ing of such criticisms. That's what
the oversight process is intended to.
do. What is wrong is that the Admi is-
tration persists in the covert action in
Nicaragua despite all evidence that it
is getting progressively out of control.
In sum, we are ominously close to a
replay of the 1975-76 public question-
ing of the C.I.A.'s integrity and judg-
ment - questioning that damaged
our espionage capabilities. There's
little evidence President Reagan
recognizes this as one of the costs of
continuing the contra operation in
Nicaragua cr that he recognizes that
by attempting to blame the latest Bei-
rut incident on the Carter Adminis-
tration he is politicizing intelligence.
If, as a result of all this, the public
should again lose confidence in the
C.I.A., the agency may well lose its
confidence in itself, leading to a repe-
tition of the unwillingness of the pro-
fessionals to take the risks associated
with good espionage. That could be a
disaster for intelligence on terrorism
in Beirut and on everything else. ^
Stansfield Turner, a retired admiral,
"was Director of Central Intelligence
in the Carter Administration.
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ON PAGE 5, Sec. 1 24 October 1984
n -H -C jrj~ -r-0, I * t G,- V
ual probers sp i er
0
r 'neutralization'
By "T"erry Atlas
Cn;;;ago 1 rbune
WASHINGTON-A CIA review of
i' psychological-warfare manual
fc'r Nicaraguan rebels left intact
?an,uage advocating "ne.utraliza-
t~o:i ' of key Nicaraguan govern-
ment officials, the agency told the
Senate Intelligence Committee on
.Monday.
rafter a three-hour closed-door
said that while CIA officials made
some deletions in the 90-page manu-
al, the term neutralization' was in
all the documents."
Nunn said he interprets the word
to mean assassination of govern-
ment officials. ::t ar.o.her member
of the panel, Sen. Malcolm Wallop
r., Wyo.], said he thinks the word
can cover a number of actions short
of that, such as discrediting, black-
mailing or kidnaping. "Sen. Nunn
and I disagree over what that word
implies," Wallop said.
But the CIA explanation to the
senators appears to conflict with
the scenario President Reagan of-
fered in his debate with -Walter
Mondale in Kansas City Sunday
night.
Reagan had said CIA officials had
deleted portions of the text after
they recognized that they were a
"direct contravention" of an execu-
tive order prohibiting American of-
ficials from conducting or advoca-
ting political assassinations. He .
added that 12 copies of the original
manual escaped that review, and
"some way or other ... got out
down there."
BUT NUNN said that even after
the deletions had been made by CIA
officials, the manual contained a
reference to neutralization and en-
couraged the rebels to create a
`'martyr" among their members
killed by Nicaraguan forces.
''There were deletions before
some printings were made'and be-
fore some distribution was made,
but all of the documents presum-
abl~' , . . had some of what would be
called questionable to some and to
others offensive language, including
language relating to so-called 'neu-
trallization,' " he said.
Nunn and Wallop v. ere the only
members of the Senate Intelligence
Committee who attended the
briefing by CIA officials on the
agency s continuing investigation
the manual's production, The maof
at!
ter is also being investigated by the
White House Intelligence Oversight
Board.
Wallop said he was 'satisfied that
the CIA is proceeding quickly with
its review and said there is "no
indication of any desire to hide
anything." He said the psychologi-
cal-warfare manual was prepared
to help bring some order and disci-
pline to the "wildly disorganized
and wildly operating hunch of guer-
rillas" fighting the leftist Sandinista
regime in Nicaragua.
THE CIA knows the i itity of
the manual's author, , former
Army officer from Ft. Bragg, N.C.,
but it is still tracking down who was
involved in the review process, he
said.
But the committee's vice chair-
nian, Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan
(D., N.Y.), who was filled in on
CIA's briefing by the committee
staff, criticized the agency late in
the day for failing to tell the panel
who was responsible. "The CIA has
;,ill not told us who ordered this
manual, who wrote it and who ap-
proved it," 'he said.
In another develoment,
Newsweek magazine reportped in its
current edition that key aides to
United Nations Ambassador Jeane
Kirkpatrick and CIA Director Wil-
liam Casey and Defense Depart-
ment officials discussed the need
for a handbook on guerrilla warfare,
in meetings during August, 1983.
About the same time, a U.S. expert
in psychological warfare was sent
to Honduras along with other CIA
advisers to train Honduran-based
Nicaraguan rebels, the magazine
said.
Speaking in Dayton, Ohio, on
:Monday, Kirkpatrick called the
Newsweek report ' "totally mistak-
en" and'said "there is nobody on
my staff who has had any such
role."
LAST WEEK, after the existence
of the manual became known a
senior White House official said it
was the work of a "low-level" CIA
contract employee, and was "not
ever approved or condoned at any
reasonable level" within the CIA.
He also said the administration
maintains its prohibition on political
assassinations.
Sunday night, attacked by Walter
Mondale for producing a manual
"ordering political assassinations
and other forms of terrorism,"
Reagan replied that it was written
by a "gentleman down in Nicara-
gua who is on contract to the CIA
advising, supposedly on military
.tactics, the contras.'
Reagan said only 12 copies es-
caped deletions made by the CIA
"agency head" in Nicaragua and
officials at CIA headquarters out-
side Washington. A minute later,
Reagan said he "misspoke" about
the CIA official in Nicaragua and
simply meant to say, "It was a man
down there in that area."
' 'Speaking to reporters Monday
morning, former CIA director
Stansfield Turner said Reagan
made a significant slip of the
tongue. "I don't think that even
after he corrected himself he really
understood what he had given
away," said Turner, who headed
the agency during the Carter ad-
ministration.
"We have never to myy know)-
edge, ever acknowledged havin a
CIA station in any country," ghe
said. "It's just a matter of policy.
You don't want the Nicaraguan gov-
ernment, or any government, to
come along and say we don't want a
CIA station in our country."
TURNER SAID Monday that the
pattern of American covert activity
in Central America suggests an ef-
fort by the CIA to topple the Ni-
caraguan government.
The CIA prepared manual for
U.S.-backed Nicaraguan rebels,
which follows CIA mining of Ni-
caraguan harbors earlier this year,
seems to go beyond Reagan's pub-
licly stated goal of preventing the
Sandinistas from exporting their
revolution to other countries in the
region, he said.
"I don't believe the majority of
the American people want to have
the CIA overthrow the government
of Nicaragua," he told a group of
reporters. "But there is no way you
can put what,. is going on in Nicara-
gua in any c ar terms."
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