WHAT FORMED BILL CASEY

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP99-00418R000100050041-2
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 4
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: May 11, 2012
• Sequence Number: 41
• Publication Date: May 1, 1988
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

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STAT
What Formed Bill Casey
by Ray S. Cline
Casey, William. The Secret War
Against Hitler. Washington, D.C.:
Regnery Gateway, 1988. 304pp.
$19.95.
Bill Casey, who died in 1987 after a
spectacular and controversial six-year
stint as Director of Central Intelligence
(DCI), has left us a literary legacy. It is
a historical account of the work of OSS
(Office of Strategic Services, precursor
of CIA) in the European Theater.
during the assault on France and Ger-
many at the end of World War II. The
fascinating narrative is worth reading
in its own right. But it is especially
valuable because it illuminates the
moral and intellectual qualities that
shaped Bill Casey's thinking during
his whole life.
Without any element of pretentious-
ness or forecasting, Casey's book, The
Secret War Against Hitler, illuminates
the issues that complicate the work of
a secret intelligence agency in an open
and, on the whole, innocent,
democratic society. It is a guide to the
multiple dilemmas of those who con-
duct clandestine intelligence opera-
tions to protect national security.
Coming of age during World War 11
Casey came to work at OSS in the sum-
mer of 1943, a successful young lawyer
and economic research analyst who
had gotten himself commissioned in
the Navy. He was highly motivated to
do something to win the war America
had so belatedly been forced into by
the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor.
His book makes evident the quasi-
philosophic bent of mind of the well-
educated, upwardly mobile young
men of his generation. He does not
talk about his generation explicitly, but
he demonstrates the outlook by
describing what he did for OSS as a
natural consequence of his views.
This is also my generation - and that
of John F. Kennedy and George Bush.
These two were a few years younger
than Casey and went directly into com-
bat, becoming military heroes at a
tender age. They felt, like Casey and
nearly all of ug in that generation, that
our elders had failed in not seeing early
on that Hitler and his allies meant to
destroy our way of life. Many in our
generation believed that Americans
could somehow have accumulated the
necessary intelligence data and acted
on it to prevent the rise to power of the
Axis dictatorships.
Kennedy, forthrightly, albeit some-
what flamboyantly, was representing
the fighting spirit of this generation
when he said in his inaugural address:
"Let the word go forth from this time
and place, to friend and foe alike, that
the torch has been passed to a new
generation of Americans, born in this
century, tempered by war, disciplined
by a hard and bitter peace, proud of our
ancient heritage, and unwilling to wit-
ness or permit the slow undoing of
those human rights to which this na-
tion has always been committed, and
to which we are committed today at
home and around the world."1
This credo was certainly congenial for
Casey and stemmed from his own war-
time and postwar experience.
Pioneering
Like Casey, I moved to Washington
shortly after Pearl Harbor, feeling in-
tuitively that we had to learn more
about how to cope with the world's
dangers. Largely by chance, I went
into U.S. Navy codebreaking, an il-
luminating brush with the interplay of
intelligence and military power, before
I moved to the pioneering, exciting
OSS at about the same time Casey did.
While Casey spent most of his time in
Europe, I stayed in Washington work-
ing for the head of OSS, Major General
William 'Wild Bill" Donovan and for
William L. Langer, one of my Harvard
history professors who was Chief of
Research and Analysis.
The Washington Post
The New York Times
The Washington Times
The Wall Street Journal
The Christian Science Monitor
New York Daily News
USA Today
The Chicago Tribune
Date MAY SUNE /4
FOREIGN INTELLI GENCE
0rERAet4 SCENE P? [o
Thus Casey and I shared in different
arenas the stressful experience of
trying to invent a new and obviously
vital component of national strategic
decision-making in the face of uncer-
tainties, pressures, and hardships. It
was a searing experience because so
few knew how to do what was needed.
And so few outside the OSS under-
stood how helpful good information
could be for top officials. Many chiefs
of bureaucratic empires resented any
invasion of their turf by a new and
hard-charging intelligence organiza-
tion.
Casey says flatly in his book:
"You only had to be around the OSS a
few days in the summer of 1943 to real-
ize how embattled an organization it
was....It is no exaggeration to say that
Donovan created the OSS against the
fiercest kind of opposition from
everybody - the Army, the Navy, and
State Departments, the FBI, the Joint
Chiefs of Staff, regular army brass, the
whole Pentagon bureaucracy, and, per-
haps more devastatingly, the White
House staff." (p. 5)
Throughout his book, he tells stories of
the few more far-sighted men who
developed good ideas for getting infor-
mation or formulating concepts about
CONTINUED
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how to shorten the war or prepare a
better political outcome at its end.
These men seemed nearly always to
meet opposition in the military and
political bureaucracies, to get their
ideas shot down, or be forced to
proceed with grave handicaps unless
they could sell their thinking at the top.
They had to have a good case, but they
also had to bring their wisdom to the
attention of men with power.
Donovan's Role in OSS
There is an adumbration of Casey's
relationship to Reagan when Casey
writes of Donovan:
"Yes, he had access to the President and
could preach to him about the impor-
tance of clandestine operations.... But
he had few other sympathetic ears." (p.
9)
This meant that Donovan was severe-
ly restricted in what he could do:
"Donovan operated under the restric-
tions as best he could. At the same
time, however, he kept fighting for a
broader charter and wider respon-
sibilities. Progress was measured
more in inches than in yards, and the
OSS was often thrown for a loss." (p.
11)
Plainly to Casey, Donovan was a hero,
an often maligned and mostly unsung
hero, because he did not give up his
sense of mission and national strategic
interest in the face of the unseemly
political struggles that appear to be an
unavoidable part of the democratic
process, particularly in a government
of divided powers. Donovan simply
forged on in the face of hostility and
restrictions. Casey's thumbnail of
Donovan as a director, accurate in my
experience (and not too different from
Casey's own style) is succinct.
"Donovan was curious about every-
thing and everyone. And he backed up
his curiosity with a sharply-honed
lawyer's mind that realized, earlier
and better than most, that 'stranded'
information was not much good. It
had to be analyzed, dissected, and
fitted into the larger whole that
modern warfare required.
"He was one of those men who seems
larger than life. He was in perpetual
motion and engaged in constant ac-
tivity and struggle. Yet for all his devo-
tion to the big picture, he always made
time for the small one, for lucid and
concise analysis of his own views and
the views of others." (p. 14)
Here is a useful recipe for Directors of
Central Intelligence. Donovan was
one of those, although, as the early ar-
chitect of a centralized American intel-
ligence service, he was able to build
only the prototype of a modern intel-
ligence system. The OSS was
abolished immediately at the end of
World War II, and the logic of its
achievements was forced upon the
Washington bureaucracy only in 1947
when CIA was established. The cold
war between the United States and
Stalin's aggressive dictatorship, not
dissimilar to that of Hitler, was already
being lost in 1947 for want of reliable
information. Even after its estab-
lishment, CIA did not become the full-
fledged central coordinating
intelligence agency until the outbreak
of the Korean War in 1950. The crisis
then made the urgent need crystal
clear. General Walter Bedell Smith
took charge in October 1950 and made
CIA the institution it is today, building
according to the blueprint proffered
earlier by Donovan.
On to London
This history is discussed in the begin-
ning of the book, which moves by
Chapter 2, to "London," (pp. 21-33)
where Casey was given a high-level job
supervising the collection of secret in-
telligence in Europe by OSS. Begin-
ning in 1943, he worked side by side
with British intelligence agencies, in-
cluding not only MI-6 but also the
covert behind-the-lines warfare agen-
cy called SOE (Special Operations Ex-
ecutive).
It was necessary for the ill-prepared
American officers to learn their trade
from the British, even while struggling
for and eventually achieving an inde-
pendent American capability to collect
information about the German war
machine all over Europe. Casey rue-
fully describes how necessary it was to
provide high-quality information and
strategic analysis as a service to the
U.S. military commands so as to be
able to siphon the pitifully scant logis-
tic resources needed to support agents
and anti-German resistance networks
behind German lines.
By winning sympathetic allies in the
American upper command ranks, in-
cluding on occasion a favorable
decision from Supreme Commander
Dwight D. Eisenhower, OSS made a
mark for itself. OSS ended up with a
generally favorable reputation for an
unusually heroic contribution to
defeating Germany, although few
knew much about exactly what OSS
had done, and it had more critics than
friends.
Operations Against Europe
The main narrative of this book is a
balanced, detailed story of the opera-
tions OSS mounted from the Mediter-
ranean and from London to infiltrate
Europe. OSS tried to shorten the war
by sending out accurate information
that enabled coherent reports to be
made on German vulnerabilities, and
by linking the American armies with
the enormous energies of the under-
ground resistance forces in France and
Italy.
This history has been put on the public
record before, but Casey's treatment is
unusually realistic in its recognition of
limitations and failures as well as suc-
cesses. He shows again and again by
example that brains, ingenuity, hard
work, and courage are essential to
make secret operations feasible. Get-
ting information clandestinely and
working with guerrilla forces covertly
require unique procedures and precau-
tions that demand superhuman
vigilance and can only succeed by
doing nearly everything the hard way.
Casey quickly learned and his book
demonstrates conclusively that
routine attention to intelligence opera-
tions will produce only routine, com-
paratively inconsequential results. To
win, it is necessary to think imagina-
tively, dare boldly, and take grave risks
for victories - being aware that failures
will exact a high price to agents, their
supervisors, and the institutions that
dispatch them.
23.
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Casey describes what OSS officers
were able to do to help with the big vic-
tories of World War II. The contribu-
tions were not always impressive, but
some were.
Operations
When six U.S. Army assault divisions
landed on the southern coast of France
in August 1944, they had been briefed
on the location of every defensive
pillbox fortification on the landing
beach, and more than half of these
details had been collected secretly by
OSS agents in the preceding months.
Later, OSS selected and trained agent
teams to parachute into Germany.
They relayed information on power
plants in key cities like Berlin, on con-
centrations of German Army tanks,
and on congested points at rail junc-
tions that could be attacked by air. OSS
agents dispatched wireless messages
to special OSS light aircraft circling
overhead.
It was all risky, often innovative, and
very helpful in pinpointing U.S. and
British bombing targets. Often, the tar-
gets were hit within a day or two after
receipt of the information. The narra-
tive includes the painstaking collection
of evidence about German atomic
weapons, missiles, and rockets, which
were subjected to bombardment as a
result. The enormous energy
generated by the dynamic people in-
volved is impossible to note with any-
thing but simple admiration of their
ingenuity and bravery.
Analysis
The contribution of OSS analysts,
working with British and American
military establishments, to refine the
process of air targeting and interdic-
tion of German military movements by
rail, especially in the crucial battles for
the liberation of France in 1944, is
described in some detail in Chapter 8,
"Air, Targeting, Sabotage, and Interdic-
tion." (pp. 76-91) This account shows
how many new ideas were inserted
into strategic decision-making by the
kind of "irrelevant" academics
Donovan had recruited for OSS and
put to work on economic analysis and
target selection with talent the military
bureaucracies were unable to match.
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This particular OSS contribution to tar-
geting had nothing to do with
espionage or paramilitary operations,
although it often drew useful evidence
from both. It was using brain-power to
line up all kinds of evidence in objec-
tive study of probabilities in the world
of conflict. This was Donovan's
gospel, and it was plainly Casey's
gospel too. ,
The history of the liberation of France
is set forth with due attention to the ex-
traordinary inputs by OSS in Southern
France in support of Seventh Army
Operations. Here, credit is due in part
to the Seventh Army Intelligence (G-2),
Bill Quinn, who realized what a
mother lode of information OSS was
able to provide on tactical military af-
fairs from its basic library research and
its net of at least 1,400 agents reporting
as of May 1944 - sometimes on short
call - from France.
Gradually, most military chieftains in
Europe came to exploit OSS assistance,
as well as that of British MI-6 and SOE
and, of course, the Free French forces.
The result in speed of advance and
lives saved was too obvious to ignore.
Casey points out: "At most army head-
quarters, OSS units were either liked or
tolerated." (p. 173) And he states with
relish, as well as regret, that the First
Army G-2 who rejected OSS help on
his front was the one who made the
"colossal intelligence failure" that per-
mitted Hitler to stalemate the war by
his secret assault on the Ardennes in
December 1944. (pp. 184-185) Oc-
casionally, Casey was able to report,
the good guys get the credit and the
dumbbells get their comeuppance.
Penetration of Germany
Chapter 18, "The Penetration of Ger-
many," (pp. 194-216) is a little classic of
intelligence history, reflecting Casey's
unique knowledge of the subject. (It
would undoubtedly be fuller and bet-
ter had Casey lived longer to polish
and embellish it.) In some ways,
Joseph E. Persico's fairly recent Piers`
ing the Reich is a more comprehensive
treatment of the same operations. But
the personal feeling of Casey, whom
Donovan named Chief of Secret Intel-
ligence for the European Theater at the
end of 1944, illuminates this account.
It is not boastful. It suggests much
more could have been done and many
lives saved if an earlier start had been
made, and OSS had found it easier to
establish itself in the kaleidoscopic
world of foreign intelligence agencies
and military commands.
The stories of night parachute drops
and wireless communications to over-
head aircraft from lightweight trans-
mitters invented by OSS are the stuff
spy fiction is made of. But these stories
are not fiction, and Casey records them
in a matter of fact way. These
espionage missions - mostly by care-
fully selected and trained foreign na-
tionals - are the bread-and-butter of
government agencies like CIA, tasks
that will be on the intelligence agenda
as long as it is necessary to find out
things that are being deliberately hid-
den in areas into which it is dangerous
to go.
Casey gives due credit to the extraor-
dinary exploits in Germany of agents
handled by the legendary Allen Dulles,
who followed Bedell Smith as DCI in
1953 and served longer than any other
director. There is much food for
thought in this book about the reasons
OSS succeeded when it did, and why it
often could not persuade high officials
to use its extraordinary but somewhat
arcane skills. Nobody knew these
problems better than Allen Dulles and
Bill Casey. Both of them took their
political lumps at the end of illustrious
careers, Dulles as a result of the 1961
Bay of Pigs disaster, and Casey in the
fallout from the 1986 Iran-Contra con-
troversy.
Errors of Judgment
Intelligence agencies seem to get the
blame for foreign policy disasters
whether or not they really were
responsible for the mistakes that were
made. The record is clear that Jack
Kennedy himself made the fatal
decision to withhold crucial air sup-
port of the anti-Castro Cuban resis-
tance army that attempted the landing
at the Bay of Pigs. But it was CIA's
plan, and many errors of judgment
were made. In a parliamentary
government, Kennedy would have
resigned. In a presidential system, the
2-
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blame is shouldered by the senior as-
sistant to the President, and Allen Dul-
les gave up his post.
It may never be known exactly what
Casey's role was in the scandal about
selling arms secretly to Iran in hopes of
releasing hostages and also using some
of the money to finance resistance
fighters in Nicaragua. Casey was
stricken by a brain tumor just as the
controversy was heating up. Certainly
the responsibility in this case lay in the
White House, mainly in the National
Security Council staff. Congress had
legislatively prohibited the CIA from
doing what President Reagan felt the
national security required. Casey may
have acquiesced in letting the Nation-
al Security Council staff do the things
CIA should have done and would have
handled more skillfully because he
thought the legal prerogative of the
Presidency was unassailable. In
Washington, nothing is sacrosanct.
The President was criticized bitterly
and so was Casey, with the latter un-
able to defend himself.
You will not read a word in The S t
War Againc t Hitlar about Iran or
Nicaragua, in fact, not a word about
the 1980s. Nonetheless, if you are con-
cerned about the role of intelligence
and decision-making in Washington,
you can learn a lot from this book about
the worldview and the political in-
stincts of the Kennedy generation.
They believed in bearing "the burden
of a long twilight struggle 2 against
militant dictatorships and accepting
responsibility for defending freedom.
These issues related to accepting bur-
dens and taking personal risks for na-
tional security and freedom are still
very much alive in the current political
context. This book, on OSS makes it
very clear where Bill Casey stood.
1. John F. Kennedy, quoted in full in Theodore
C. Sorenson, Kennedy, New York: Harper &
Row, 1965, p. 245.
2. Ibid., p. 248.
This review will be published in the September
issue of The World and
Ray , 1,11 11 1! spent 31 year, as a career
intelligence officer in U.S. Government
service, with the U.S. Navy OSS, the
CIA. and the Department of State.
2,507
At.
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