LETTER TO JOSEPH LELYVELD FROM LEO CHERNE

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP87-00462R000100100015-9
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 3
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: December 10, 2009
• Sequence Number: 15
• Publication Date: January 21, 1985
• Content Type: LETTER

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January 21, 1985
Mr. Joseph Lelyveld
The New York Times Magazine
229 West 43rd Street
New York, New York 10036
Dear Mr. Lelyveld:
I should have learned a long time ago that when being inter-
viewed by a journalist -- and you are one of the most able --
to turn on a tape recorder of my own. In the case of the two
hours we spent together in which I gave you my complete and
candid cooperation on 45 years of recollections about Bill Casey,
that recording would have been invaluable. I will not now try
to recapture what I said.
You quote me "correctly" twice. Yet both quotes, as you know,
are fundamentally incorrect because they are extracted from a
context which in one instance alters the meaning and in the other
changes it totally.
I referred to Bill Casey in 1937 as a supporter of Franco.
You specifically asked whether I thought that was a matter of
religious conviction and I said "yes." But this fact was utterly
irrelevant except as a prelude to my lengthy detailing of his
extraordinary service and skill in assisting me in the preparation
of the final industrial mobilization plans which, after all, had
as their object the preparation of the United States for what
Bill Casey and I both anticipated in 1938: war started by Adolf
Hitler in Europe.
The roughly 45 minutes I estimate we spent on his becoming
the nation's outstanding expert on priorities, allocations, other
aspects of industrial mobilization was not reminiscence. Its
purpose was to illustrate several things: (1) His unreserved
antipathy to the Axis powers and their aggression; (2) his extra-
ordinary intelligence ability to piece together the way govern-
ments function or would have to function under certain circum-
stances~ (3) and in the context of your story, most important,
his exceptional capability for the analytic aspect of intelligence.
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Finally, in speculating about the reason for General Donovan
picking this young man out of the heap for the vital role he
played in O.S.S., I said that the knowledge of his work on in-
dustrial mobilization rapidly developed considerable respect in
the Washington community and undoubtedly came to both General
Donovan's and David Bruce's attention.
Instead of this, we are left with the stark and unfriendly
reference to an ultraconservative, Franco-supporting Casey. If
I were he, I'd resent that comment of mine about him and quite
correctly. And the major reason I am writing this letter is for
him: It's to send him a copy so that he at least has a truncated
sense of what I did talk about.
To go further on that "conservative" theme: I understand why
even The New York Times Magazine requires juicy material. I'm
astonished that you did not use one of the juiciest and least
known stories of all, one which bears very directly on his extra-
ordinary capacity for creative intelligence. I told you just one
episode of many during his heavy O.S.S. responsibility in London,
of his lifelong remarkable eagerness to assemble the best brains
possible in order to solve a problem and gave you a list of names
which included Arthur Schlesinger, Jr., Walter Lord, Walt Rostow,
and a small team of economists Rostow was part of. This was in
the context of the urgent need to plan to prevent the bringing up
of Nazi reinforcements immediately after the D-Day landings. The
military, mostly British but also U.S., had their traditional
ideas of what it is that should be bombed in order to impede supply.
Casey conceived of the idea of using economic intelligence for a
more unorthodox and very likely more accurate identification of
those targets which would more effectively impede the movement
of reinforcements. I also added that, to my knowledge, this was
the first professional use of economic intelligence and the
precursor of Casey's lifelong interest in that branch of intelli-
gence. I added that it was'in that field that he made a major
contribution as a member of PFIAB and was quickly prepared for
that aspect of his responsibility as DCI.
Now to the second of the quotations in which, once again,
entirely accurately, you quoted me as saying that this was one job
he would not likely become restless in. But that observation was
immediately followed with a reference (not from me) to the shallow
ego satisfaction he gets from signing his memos as DCI with the
letter "C" in the tradition of the British "M." Gone entirely is
what preceded that comment about his not becoming restless as DCI.
Your notes will reveal that I had observed as a chronic character-
istic of his that when he undertook any responsibility he invariably
went to the heart of understanding what the fundamental challenge
was in that post, and when he felt that he had solved or accomplished
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that challenge, was not content to simply carry a bureaucratic
responsibility no matter how status laden and was eager to move
on to another challenge. As illustrations, I cited his work at
the SEC, at the Export-Import Bank, and I'm quite sure I did
explain that the end of his work as Undersecretary for Economic
Affairs at State did not fit that bill but was the product instead
of a conflict between two strong and creative minds: the Secretary
of State was Henry Kissinger and Casey was Undersecretary. I
then added that the reason he would not be restless with the
intelligence responsibility, in my opinion, was that intelligence
presents challenges and problems that are never solved.
These and other things which I told you were in response to
your conveying to me that you wanted to do a piece on Casey the
man. I won't comment on the article as a whole except to repeat
what I said earlier, that I have always had a particular respect
for any story which carries your byline and, in addition, felt
that we had spent a long and very satisfactory interval together.
I will close, however, by citing one aspect of your story in
which you address yourself to the question of whether or not there
has been an improvement in intelligence during Casey's period as
DCI. You do not quote me in that context, but had you, the answer
would have come out somewhat differently. You do make a reference
to the increased number of estimates and analyses during the Casey
period but add that quantity is no measure of quality. You do,
in fairness, state that two Senators on the Intelligence Committee
acknowledge some improvement but balance that judgment with skepti-
cism voiced by "others with security clearances." I have all those
clearances coupled with a responsibility to evaluate the very issue
under question. You asked whether I could make any comment as a
member of PFIAB on the quality of that work. I said that while I
was extremely reticent to make any observations about the work that
PFIAB does, I nevertheless felt free to say quite emphatically that
in several of the most vital areas of analytic intelligence, there
has been a marked improvement in the acuity of the analytic work.
With my deep regard and disappointment,
Sincerely,
Times decide to print it.
P.S. While this is a personal letter to you, with a copy to Bill
Casey, I-have not the slightest objection should The New York
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