ANALYSES' REJECTION CALLED POLITICAL

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP91-00587R000100590028-9
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: March 15, 2011
• Sequence Number: 28
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

Approved For Release 2011/03/15: CIA-RDP91-00587R000100590028-9
:IT;rLE APP EARS
ON PAGE 4/?
WASHINGTON POST
45 February
Analyses' Rejection Called POlitical
Knight-Ridder
A top intelligence analyst who
quit the Central Intelligence Agen-
cy after Director William J. Casey
altered one of his secret reports on
Mexico contends that Casey and
Pentagon officials consistently re-
ject analyses for political reasons.
In a magazine article, John Hor-
ton said Casey dismissed his esti-
mate of the number of Cuban sol-
diers on Grenada-later verified by
the U.S. forces that invaded the is-
land in October 1983-because it
did not support the administration's
hard-line views on the Cubans.
Horton also accused a senior
Pentagon official of rewriting a mil-
itary analyst's report on weak-
nesses in the Salvadoran armed
forces and charged the administra-
tion with a string of intelligence fail-
ures, including the Grenada inva-
sion and the mining .of Nicaraguan
harbors, which he said the intelli-'
gence community would have ad-
vised against had it been asked.
Horton, a top CIA operations of-
ficer from 1948 to 1975 who was
chief Latin America officer in 1983
and 1984 for the National Intelli-
gence Council, which prepares for-
eign intelligence estimates, made
his accusations in this month's For-
eign Service journal.
The article accuses Casey of dis-
approving the Grenada estimate be-
cause it minimized the number of
Cuban forces on the island and did
not support administration claims
that the Cuban-built airport there
would be used for military pur-
poses.
Horton also wrote that a confi-
dential study prepared by a military
analyst in 1984 was rewritten by.:a
Pentagon official because- it, "con-
tained a discussion of the Salvador-
an armed forces' weaknesses." Hor-
ton said the official was "heavily in-
volved in. supporting : the, armed
forces of El Salvador."- ,71
The revision, Horton charged,
was.typical of the practice of some
administration officials to suppress
internal discussion of tough, issues. .
Approved For Release 2011/03/15: CIA-RDP91-00587R000100590028-9