ODOM, JONES TOP LIST FOR CIA DEPUTY

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP99-01448R000301270035-8
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: August 9, 2012
• Sequence Number: 35
• Publication Date: February 23, 1987
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

STAT
I Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/08/10: CIA-RDP99-01448R000301270035-8
1.1'11.',0
ARTICLE APPEARED 1 23 February 1987
Odom, Jones top
list for CIA deputy
'7 By Bill Gertz
;HE WASHINGTON-TIMES
Officials have assembled a short
list of candidates to replace Robert
Gates as deputy CIA director, but so
far they are unable to agree on a
choice, according to Reagan admin-
istration sources.
Mr. Gates, the president's choice
for intelligence chief, became acting
CIA director when William J. Casey
resigned after being stricken with
cancer in December.
Mr. Gates was inundated with
questions about the Iran-Contra af-
fair during two days of confirmation
hearings before the Senate Intelli-
gence Committee last week.
Senate Majority Leader Robert
Byrd said Mr. Gates did not appear
to be in any immediate trouble in the
Senate. But he said a vote could be
delayed as long as a month because
of congressional probes into the
scandal.
"It's unfortunate that the adminis-
tration did not nominate someone
who was removed from all possible
taint," Mr. Byrd told the Los Angeles
Times over the weekend.
White House officials have said
President Reagan does not plan to
nominate a No. 2 man until after a
new CIA chief is in place.
But the White House has put to-
gether a "short list" of senior mili-
tary officials. The list has triggered
a political debate inside the adminis-
tration over who should assume the
important post, according to admin-
istration sources who asked not to be
identified.
The most controversial candidate
on the list is Vice Adm. Donald S.
Jones, until recently a former mili-
tary assistant to Defense Secretary
Caspar Weinberger. ?
Adm. Jones, currently on leave
while awaiting retirement, served as
a military assistant to Frank Car-
lucci, now the White House national
security adviser, in 1981 and 1982
when Mr. Carlucci was deputy de-
fense secretary.
Mr. Carlucci recently angered
some intelligence officials by re-
placing NSC Intelligence Director
Kenneth de Graffenreid with Barry
Kelly, a former CIA official who rose
to prominence under the Carter ad-
ministration CIA director, Adm.
Stansfield lbrner.
According to several administra-
tion sources, Adm. Jones is a leading
candidate for the deputy CIA post,
despite Mr. Gates' preference for Lt.
Gen. William Odom, the National Se-
curity Agency director.
One senior administration intel-
ligence official said Adm. Jones was
nominated to be NSA director early
in the administration, but his name
was vetoed by Mr. Casey.
According to the official, Mr.
Casey blocked Adm. Jones for the
NSA post because of his ties to Adm.
Bobby Ray Inman, who resigned as
deputy CIA director in 1982 after
clashing with White House national
security officials over a series of
proposed anti-spy programs.
Mr. Casey "didn't want an Inman
protege at NSA," the official said.
"What you've got is Carlucci put-
ting his agents of influence in place
at the CIA," said the official.
The official said the deputy CIA
director's post has increased in im-
portance in recent years because of
the huge growth in the U.S. intel-
,ligence community.
Directing U.S. intelligence "is
really a two-man job ? running the
community and running the CIA,"
the official said.
Another intelligence source close
to the CIA said the general reaction
among some senior intelligence offi-
cials to Adm. Jones is: "Oh no, not
another admiral."
The source said Adm. Jones re-
presents a faction of the U.S. intel-
ligence community, led by such for-
mer intelligence officials as Adm.
Turner and Adm. Inman, that is
"contemptuous of conservatives."
Privately, Mr. Gates recently told
a Republican senator that he would
like his deputy to come from the
military and said Gen. Odom was his
choice.
Gen. Odom, a Soviet affairs spe-
cialist, as is Mr. Gates, has the back-
ing of administration officials who
support the activist foreign policy of
covert support for anti-communist
resistance movements.
In a recent interview, Gen. Odom
described U.S. support for the Af-
ghan guerrilla movement as a
critically important strategic com-
petition with the Soviet Union that
could eventually lead to the dissolu-
tion of the Soviet empire.
An Afghan guerrilla victory
there, "would mark a dramatic shift
in the correlation of forces in favor
of liberal democracy," he said.
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/08/10: CIA-RDP99-01448R000301270035-8