COHEN EXCUSES GATES AS 'NEW KID ON THE BLOCK'

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP99-01448R000301270087-1
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: August 9, 2012
• Sequence Number: 87
• Publication Date: February 18, 1987
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

STAT
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/08/10: CIA-RDP99-01448R000301270087-1
18 February 1987
COHEN EXCUSES GATES AS 'NEW KID ON THE BLOCK'
BY DANA WALKER
wASHING,mN (UPI) _ Sen. William Cohen, R-Maine, was speaking as one
ambitious young man to another..
Cohen offered acting CIA Director Robert Gates, nominated to head the
agency, an avenue Tuesday for handling his Senate confirmation hearings that
most world agree rivaled any game plan entertained by Lt. Col. Oliver North:<
Plead ignorance in the Iran arms-Contra aid scandal. <
11You are, No. 1, an ambitious young man, Type A personality I assume,
climbing a ladder of professional success,'' the 47-year-old Cohen, one of the
younger senators, told the 43-year-old Gates, who will became the youngest CIA
director if confirmed after testifying to the Senate Intelligence Committee.<
That's not an affliction that's unknown to manbers of the Senate, and
indeed, members of this committee,'' Cohen said. As a matter of fact, once
you were sworn in, you essentially became the new kid on the block.<
" Basically, you're not prepared to lay your career on the line for a
program that you didn't have much involvement with. Isn't that essentially
what's involved here? ''<
Cohen, the committee vice chairman, was offering Gates a way out of
having to defend administration policy as Democrats questioned why the CIA
officer did not speak up sooner or protest loader about covert U.S. arms sales
to Iran and the possible diversion of sale profits to Nicaraguan Contra
rebels. <
Gates had been on the defensive about the doomed policy _ in place for
months before he became deputy director to William Casey last year _ for mach
of the daylong confirmation hearing.<
His voice raised at one point, Gates responded to one question by
saying, "At each stage, it seems to me that my instinct was not to sit on it,
not to try and make it go away." But he maintained that his actions and those
of Casey were defensible, as was the premise of the arms sale policy.<
Cohen disagreed, advising Gates it was futile to continue defending the
affair and also unnecessary because Gates need not bear blame. Most of that
burden has been laid on North, the fired National Security Council deputy who
has refused to testify, citing his Fifth Amendment rights against
self-incrimination.<
11I think it's important to add the perspective," Gates persisted,
" that while this was a risky operation, there was no reason to quarrel with
"Wait. Stop. Of course there were reasons to quarrel with it,''
countered Cohen, his hand raised. "It was not your recommendation and you
didn't want to throw your career down the drain. I don't fault you for that.<
" I'm just trying to put your candidacy and nomination in the kind of
perspective so you don't get caught in the crossfire that you're finding
yourself in right now. " <
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/08/10: CIA-RDP99-01448R000301270087-1