WHO RUNS THE CIA?

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00965R000100440056-5
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 2
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: March 8, 2012
• Sequence Number: 56
• Publication Date: October 11, 1984
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

Declassified in Part -Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/03/08 :CIA-RDP90-009658000100440056-5
rr~~~~~.~ ~EIC~MAN
S
he magnification of power
and influence of the CIA
career bureaucracy, repre-
sented by John J.
McMahon, the CIA deputy director,
over President Reagan's personal
appointee, CIA Director William J.
Case}, is the untold story of the Rea-
gan administration. It is today a
matter of legitimate doubt among
highly informed observers that
even Fresident Reagan's orders to
the CIA to undertake covert oper-
ations could prevail over a
McMahon veto.
To obtain confirmation or denial
of the foregoing statements is
impossible: understandably,
because the CIA rarely discusses
for publication the organization's
inner workings. However, persons
in a position to know and observe
the CIA and ~vho are free of organ-
izational inhibitions clearly believe
that the CIA career service has
achieved a degree of power unpar-
alleled in the intelligence agency's
37-year existence.
The reason for the disagreement ~
between Mr. Casey and the
McMahon career bureaucracy is ''
nut that the Reagan-Casey ideas are
so off the wall that Mr. RlcMahon
and his aides must rescue CIA pro-
fessionalism from the antics of
political appointees. CIA profes-
sional judgments have in the past
proven to be misjudgments. CIA
analysts, it is now known, have over
the ye4rs boon spectacularly wrong
in their underestimates of Soviet
WASHINGTON TIMES
11 October 1984
armaments expenatiures, while
outside experts have been correct.
The CIA permanent staff has never
had a monopoly on wisdom.
The continuing Casey-McMahon
disagreement is based on how best
to implement Reagan policies via
the CIA. The White House endeavor
to push the CIA into a more activist
role via covert-action programs
seems thus far to have been frus-
trated.
For example, following Soviet
destruction of the Korean Air Lines
passenger plane in September
.1983. President Reagan is said to
have ordered Mr. Casey to retaliate
against the U.S.S.R. by shipping a
quantity of surface-to-air missiles
to the embattled .Afghan
mujahideen ba~irling the then four-
year-old Soviet invasion: Mr.
McMahon succeeded in preventing
execution of the proposal, arguing
that it would be too difficult to
accomplish. He may have been
right or wrong; whichever it was,
Mr. RlcMahon's view prevailed.
Another example: Some 200
Soviet soldiers are known to be
either prisoners or deserters in the
hands of Afghan resistance
fighters. Mr. Casey proposed, with
President Reagan's support,
bringing to the United States about
65 Soviet POWs for a mass press
conference. Such a move would
have served two purposes:
First, it would have relieved the
Afghans of a burden. POWs are
generally aproblem - what do you
do with them? - in a guerrilla war
characterized by hit-and-run tac-
Second, such a prisoner show
with Red Army soldiers telling
their story to the world media ',
might have been a stunning blow
against Soviet imperial interests in
Central Asia: Mr. McMahon vetoed
the idea and his veto stuck. Again,
14r. McMahon. might have been ,
right or wrong; whichever it was,
his view prevailed.
The CIA career bureaucracy ~
opposed from the outset the mining
of Nicaragua waters. Whatever I
plan the McMahon forces finally
offered for interdicting military '~,
supplies to Nicaragua failed to do
the job, so,, as the saying goes in ',
Washington, it was "all onus and no
bonus:' The congressional uproar
as a result of the minine is said to
lave s rengt ene r. c a on s
position vis-a-vis Mr Case}~.
These are some of the passages
in the continuing battle between the
Casey CIA and the McMahon CIA,
with permanent possession of the
trophy seemingly in the hands of
the CIA professionals, who have
also managed to prevent any sig-
nificant number of new Casey
appointees from entering CIA
ranks. In fact, of five Casey execu-
tive appointees, only two remain
and it is not certain how much influ-
: ence they have in the organization
'today.
Whether this situation would
change in the event of Director
Casey's promised reappointment
during a possible second Reagan
term remains to be seen.
One of the major reasons for this
power accretion to the CIA old-boy
network is the formalization of con-
gressional oversight of the intelli-
gence agency in .two select
permanent committees of the Con-
gress. Dissenters within the CIA
from Reagan-Casey covert action
proposals now have a forum where
their dissent can be heard and
debated inside the committees.
Instead of the usual hierarchical
arrangements within a government
department, there are now lateral
CIA staff connections with Con-
gress which has institutionalized
its constitutional power to oversee
the executive branch. Until the i
mid-1970s, congressional oversight ~
of the CIA, was informal. This func-
tion was pretty ntuch left in the
hands of ranking members of
senior congressional committees
who, themselves, in the good old ,
Allen Dulles days, preferred not to
probe too deeply into what the CIA
was doing. As a result of House and
Senate investigations in the
aftermath of Watergate, Congress
successfully asserted its power
over the intelligence agency.
There are those, however, who
disagree with this analysis.
They counter-argue that the
problem lies not with the congres-
sional committees but with Direc-
tor Casey himself. The incumbent:
has not exercised his own power to
the same degree as did Adm. Stan-
sfield 'ILrner, President Carter's
CIA director, who, as one observer
said, "whether you agreed with him
or not, ran the CIA:'
Watergate, the Nixon resignation
and the short-lived Ford adminis-
~;antinu~~
Declassified in Part -Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/03/08 :CIA-RDP90-009658000100440056-5
 Declassified in Part -Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/03/08 :CIA-RDP90-009658000100440056-5
. t:?iue leg to a revolving door suc-
cessinn of six CIA directors -
~~[csrs. Helms, Schlesinger, Colby,
:gush, ":ur.~,er, and now 1I r. Casey -
ii in the sho:?t space of IO years.
;~icamti~hile the career service, at
leas;i t!tose ~+~ho remained after the
mass firings undertaken by James
Schlesinger and Adm. Turner,
rem