VANISHING ACT BY A POPULAR SPOOK

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00552R000100130006-2
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: June 22, 2010
• Sequence Number: 6
• Publication Date: May 3, 1982
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

STAT Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010/06/22 : CIA-RDP90-00552R000100130006-2
ARTICLE Ap*.pjj ED
ON
TIME
3 May 1982
Vanishing Act by a Pop ar Spook
Bobby Inman leaves the CIA, claiming the reasons are personal
embers of Congress serving on com-
~mittees that keep an eye on the CIA
have long faced a tricky challenge. Short
of employing truth serum or lie detectors,
how can they know when officials of an
agency trained in the art of deception are
dissembling? One such CIA watcher on
the House Intelligence Committee swears
he discovered an infallible method.
Whenever CIA Director William Casey
was testifying in secret meetings, the Con-
gressman watched the feet of Casey's dep-
uty, Admiral Bobby Inman. If the admi-
ral shuffled his feet or reached down to
pull up his socks, the Congressman con-
cluded that Inman knew that his boss was
shading the facts. Sure enough, when
questioned, the admiral would delicately
correct the director.
If Inman's telltale fidgeting was sub-
conscious rather than intentional, it was
one of his few professional imperfections.
In Washington's atmosphere of political
intrigue, most high CIA officials develop
more enemies than friends. But when the
White House last week announced In-
-.man's impending retirement from both
the CIA and the Navy, the praise for the
four-star admiral was downright gushy.
Democratic Congressman Edward P. Bo-
land, chairman of the House Intelligence
Committee, called Inman "the nation's
finest professional intelligence officer."
Democratic Senator Joseph Biden even
called Inman "the single most competent
man in the Federal Government."
Inman's bipartisan popularity stems
largely from his straight talk and incisive
mind. His virtually photographic memory
and workaholic habits pushed him to the
gence Agency, 1976 to 1977; director of
the National Security Agency, 1977 to
1981.
As head of the NSA, a supersecret
agency that uses satellites, sophisticated
monitoring techniques and more employ-
ees (more than 20,000) than the CIA (some
16,000) to gather intelligence informa-
tion, Inman developed considerable rap-
port with congressional committees.
When President Reagan was looking for a
CIA chief in late 1980, Inman
was pushed hard by diverse
Capitol Hill backers, most
notably Republican Senator
Barry Goldwater. Instead,
Reagan picked Casey, who
had,been his campaign direc-
tor.?A bit reluctantly, Inman
left NSA to become Casey's
deputy. Reagan talked him
into it,. he said, with "the
smoothest job of arm twisting
methods.
At the White House,
some presidential aides sus-
pect that Inman's friction
with Allen, who quit in Janu-
ary after disclosure that he
had accepted gifts from a
Japanese magazine, spilled
over into hostility between
Inman and Casey, since Ca-
sey and Allen had long been
allies. Inman concedes that
I've ever encountered" CIA Director Casey the "air might have had a lit-
Why was Inman, 51, now tie strain in it" when Casey
leaving the CIA? The admiral told TIME was being investigated and Inman was
that he felt he had accomplished what he seen as a successor, but he insisted, "The%
had set out to do at the agency: "Get a personal working relationship has been
road map created for a long-range re- very easy from the start."
building program all across the whole in- Beyond that, said the admiral, "all the
telligence community." Having-done that, stories that are running around about ma-
he insisted, he was stepping down to build jor policy differences and personality dis-
a second career in private business, earn putes are just plain false." He contended,
enough money (he now gets $59,500) to that he was involved only in the routine
put two teen-age sons through college, kind of conflicts that always goon in Gov-
and spend more time with his family. Ad- ernment and that they had nothing to do
mitting that his career had involved with his resignation. Unfortunately, Bob
"wretched work habits and hours," In- by Inman made that point in a telephone
man said his eldest son had asked last conversationrThere was no way to deter-
Christmas: "Where's the quality of life in mine whether he was hitching up his
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ing periods of my entire life. I found the
invidious comparisons both unfair to Bill
and embarrassing to me."
Inman often clashed with the staff of
Reagan's National Security Council, par-
ticularly with former National Security
Adviser Richard Allen. One quarrel was
over an Executive order supported by the
NSC that would have given the CIA broad
authority to spy on U.S. citizens at home
when they were linked to "significant for-
eign intelligence" operations. Inman did
not publicly object to this domestic CIA
role, but he did oppose giving the CIA a
free hand in the types of activities it could
probe and the methods it could use.
Largely because of his efforts, the order
was tightened to put clearer limits on
what the Cu could do at home.
More recently, Inman was said to
have been upset by White House leaks
that sought to buttress Administration
policies in Central America and especial-
ly by the contention that the Soviet Union
and Cuba were behind the trouble in
Nicaragua and El Salvador. Although
Inman generally shared the Adminis-
tration's thesis, he felt that its disclosures
about U.S. surveillance of the region
compromised CIA intelligence-gathering