PROFESSIONAL DIRECTOR OF NSA SUDDENLY IN SPOTLIGHT

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00552R000404660005-8
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: July 19, 2010
• Sequence Number: 5
• Publication Date: May 31, 1986
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

STAT
Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010/07/19: CIA-RDP90-00552R000404660005-8
ARTICLE
ON PAM
WASHINGTON POST
31 May 1986
of NSA
Profe real Director ~~
STAT Suddn1y ' In Spotlight
7 By Charles R. Baboock 1977 and drafted Odom as hip, military as- Donald P. Gregg, who worked with Odom
sistant. Under Brzezinski's wing, Odom's in the Carter White House and is now na-
career flourished in a way reminiscent of tional security adviser to Vice President
Alexander M. Haig Jr., whose service as a Bush, said yesterday, "I found Bill Odom a
military assistant to national security affairs very bright, tremendously energetic guy
adviser and then secretary of state Henry .... He comes on strong sometimes. But
A. Kissinger in the Nixon White House led he knows where the Soviets come from his-
to accelerated promotions from colonel to torically. He is steeped in the history of the
four-star general. Bolshevik revolution,. He taught it. He saw
it firsthanct&*.sitattacelln Berlin and Mos-
While working for Brzezinski, Odom had cow .. Reins haroW realist, but not a
a reputation as being a hardhner-"Zbig's
n8 cr* by-my "
superhawk" is how one former colleague Odom shoved' to the Pentagon in early
put it. His only formal assignmed. nit the 1981 as the No. 2 person in Army intelli-
National Serity Council staff was "crisis gence and got thelop job, as assistant chief
ooorddinator" and as such Odom war privy to" of staff for intelligence, that fall. One official
planning responses to the Soviet idvvWm4f" 1 who knew him then described Odom as "a
Afghanistan and the Iranian- capture ,of they brilliant man. He was extremely bright and
U.S. embassy. in Tehran. To repartees,, quite impressive in esoteric discussions.
Odom was known at the time as a conduit' gut he wasn't a
for news leaks authorized by Brzezinski.. good people manager. He
Because of his close working relationship was not a real proponent of human intelli-
with Brzezinski, Odom also worked on nu- genre-collection. He was much More biter-
clear targeting, civil defense, terrorism and ested in technical systems."
plans for a military rapid deployment force. This official recalled hearing that Odom
Brzezinski, a counselor to Georgetown once traveled to.Europe and told members
University's Center for Strategic and inter- of an Army counterintelligence unit that
national Studies, said in an interview it technical collection systems were so sophis-
would be fair to call Odom his "Al Haig.' ticabed that there was little need for human
"Gen. Odom is a top-notch professional. operatives. "That's not a great way to boost
He is the military's top expert on the Soviet the troops' morale," the official said.
Union, and he's also a good tennis player. During Odom's tenure as Army intelli-
He would do well in any administration," gence chief there was a controversy about a
Brzezinski said. secret intelligence unit-the Intelligence
A native of Cookeville, Tenn., Odom was Support Activity-started by his predeces-
graduated from West Point in 1954 and sor. Newspaper reports in 1983 said that
quickly began to specialize in Soviet affairs. congressional oversight committees had
He studied the Russian language and Soviet discovered that ISA had operated without a
area studies and then served as a military charter for more than a year. In one case it
attache in Berlin in the mid-'60s, and in had given financial aid to an unsuccessful
Moscow in the early 1970s. His wife, Anne search for missing U.S. soldiers in Laos
Curtis Odom, is a museum curator. They headed by former Green Beret James (Bo)
have a son in college. Gritz without the knowledge of superiors.
One official from the Carter National Se- But one knowledgable Defense Department
curity Council staff, who asked not to be official said Odom worked quickly to bring
identified, said he believed Odom survived ISA under control.
and was promoted in the Reagan adminis- Early last year, while still head of Army
tration because This superhawk credentials intelligence, Odom told the audience at a
are beyond reproach." This ex-official re- Washington seminar that the Soviet Union
membered Odom as being distrustful of might attempt to ease its disadvantage in
arms control treaties and as champion of a technical competition with the United
plan to spend $1 billion a year on civil de- States by trying to negotiate an arms con-
fense. "He had the the idea that a nuclear trol agreement or Increasing trade in stra-
war with the Soviet Union could be fought tegic materials. President Reagan's Stra-
and won," the ex-official said. tegic Defense Initiative research program
Another colleague agreed that Odom was a challenge of "enormous dimensions"
earned his reputation as a hardliner on the to the Soviets, Odom said.
Soviet Union. "But it isn't a knee-jerk re-
action. He has studied the issues. There is a
depth to his understanding,
Lt Gen. William E. Odom, the professori-
director of the once-secret National Se-
ty Agency, suddenly finds himself and
his agency at the center of national atten-
tion this week, thanks to the trial of a for-
mer NSA technician named Ronald W. Pel-
ton.
Pelton is charged with betraying some of
the NSA's most sensitive secrets to the So-
viet Union for $35,000. According to the
government, he told the Soviets where they
were losing communications to the United
States and-probably more important-
about how effectively the NSA is able to
interpret and decode the Soviet signals it
intercepts.
For the director of the agency-a mas-
sive bureaucracy with a $4 billion annual
? budget-Pelton represents the ultimate
nightmare. Odom has told acquaintances in
recent months that he fears that publicity
.about Pelton's disclosures might persuade
other NSA employes that, since many of the
most important secrets have been revealed,
they are freer than before to discuss what
the agency does.
Odom's concerns about leaks led him to
take the initiative this week in the Reagan
administration's effort to tell the news me-
dia how to cover Pelton's trial. After press
accounts of the trial's opening day Tuesday
alarmed Odom, he proposed a public warn-
ing to the media not to speculate or report
additional details about the case. CIA Direc-
tor William J. Casey also signed the warn-
ing, which caused a furor among news ex-
ecutives. But the furor would have been
greater if Odom's original draft had sur-
vived; he proposed concluding the warning
with a threat to prosecute reporters who
ignored it.
That Odom finds himself a lieutenant
general running an intelligence agency with
50,000 employes is a surprise even to him,
according to old friends. Ten years ago he
was a lieutenant colonel who doubted that
he would ever make full colonel, and was
teaching courses on Soviet government and
comparative politics at West Point.
Odom's meteoric rise since then was
made possible by a professor he knew at
Columbia University named Zbigniew Brze-
zinski, who became President Jimmy Car-
ter's national security affairs adviser in
Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010/07/19: CIA-RDP90-00552R000404660005-8