EX-DIRECTOR OF CIA SAYS HE TRIED TO HALT AIDE

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP99-00418R000100370004-8
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 2
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: May 10, 2012
• Sequence Number: 4
• Publication Date: July 11, 1991
• Content Type: BIO

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Sl Declassified in Part -Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/05/10 :CIA-RDP99-004188000100370004-8
Ex-director
of CIA says
he tried
to halt aide
By JAMES LONG
of The Oregonian stafl
Think of a character from a Tom
Clancy novel: asquare-built guy in
his 60s, medium h~iglit, silver hair,
clear blue eyes in a creased, deeply
tanned face.
Something about his civilian suit
says he isn't used to wearing it; that
he'd feel more at home in crisp Navy
whites with gold shoulder boards
and four stars.
Add something else for the Clancy
plot: In 1977, this ex-admiral comes
out of retire-
ment to take
over the Cen-
tral Intelli-
Bence Agency
for another
ex-Navy
officer and
ibrarer t3eor-
gia peanut
farmer,
Jimmy
TURNER Carter.
Nothing
much is standard about this former
admiral, former CIA Director Stans-
field Turner, except his. central~ast-
ing appearance.
A Rhodes scholar-; a graduate of
Oxford as well as Annapolis, Turner
may have been the most unpopulalc
CIA director in history as he cleaned
house there - or tried to - in 1977-
81.
Turner flew into Portland: on
Wednesday to call attention to his
new book, "Terrorism and Democra-
cy," during, a round of appearances
at boolt>tboros sad radio and televi-
sion tallc shows. In an interview.
Portland Tnternational Airport,
Turner grimaced at a headline about
a former subordinate who had just
put the CIA, and maybe the White
House itself, on the spot again with a
crime confession in federal court
Tuesday.
"I'm not surprised," Turner said
of his ex-subordinate, Alan D. Fiers
Jr., who pleaded guilty to withhold-
ing information from Congress. "I
didn't trust him while I was there.
He was headed for an important job,
and I tried my best to derail him,
and the system was just gong ho to
put him there. And I lost."
The Washington Post
The New York Times
The Washington Times
The Well Street Journal
The Christian Science Monitor
New York.Dally News
USA Today
Oate _11 /
Turner wouldn't say what job
Fiers was given. l~u ~~~ever, the story
said Fiers was running the CIA's
covert Central American operations
in 1984-86.
Fiers said in federal court that Lt.
Col. Oliver L. North told him in the
summer of 1986 about the illegal
Iran?Contra arms enterprise that
North was running. The enterprise
involved selling arms to Iran despite
a federal embargo and using the
profits to support anti-Communist
guerrillas in Nicaragua -another
direct violation of federal law.
Fiers said he briefed a superior
about North's revelation and that
the superior ordered him to repeat
? the information to Clair E. George,
then deputy director for operations,
the No. 3 official in the CIA.
This was before Iran-Contra
became general knotvledge.
Fiers said George ordered him to
lie when Congress started subpoena-
ing CIA ofScials that October to see
what the agency had known, and
when,-.about the North operation.
Fiers. claimed, under oath, that
he'd goften his information about
the scam by watching a CNN televi-
sion report.
Fiers' guilty pleas were signifi-
'cant because they marked the first
,time a senior CIA official publicly
aulliiii6u nu~wu.g SvO:;. ta,2 .,An?
Contra affair before the world knew.
Also, by fingering a CIA official as
,high as George, Fiers may have
opened the way for a new look not
only at Iran-Contra but at the se-
called "October Surprise" plot.
"October Surprise" is a tangled,
unproved rumor having to do with a
supposed conspiracy by the Reagan
presidential campaign under the late
.William Casey to delay the release of
U.S. Embassy hostages from Iran
until after the November 1980 elec-
' tion.
Alleged plot outlined
Casey and his cohorts supposedly
made a deal to sell arms to Iran,
despite an official embargo, to
ensure that President Carter
. wouldn't spring the hostages at the
last minute and tip the election away
from Reagan.
r~c~N~1NUEB
Peps
Declassified in Part -Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/05/10 :CIA-RDP99-004188000100370004-8
 Declassified in Part -Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/05/10 :CIA-RDP99-004188000100370004-8
a
The hostages :~: ere released the
day Reagan was i~iau~urated.
' Turner said he knew the Iranians
at least approached the Reagan cam-
paign about arms "and they
approached John .-Anderson's cam-
paign. It was completely beyond my
imagination that either one of them
would try to make a deal of this
nef2rious sort. I Stever suspected
this."
But looking back. Turner said, he
thinks there's enough circumstan-
tial evidence to ??arrant an iavestt-
gation, even at this late date.
"An accusation of delaying the
release of Americans is a very terrl-
ble one," the ex-Ct a director said. "I
don't have any more information
about it than anything you get out of
the media."
But Turner doesn't doubt that
Casey was capable of it. "Oh, I
wouldn't put it past hitA for two min-
utes," he said.
~- Declassified in Part -Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/05/10 :CIA-RDP99-004188000100370004-8