NEW MAN AT THE CIA

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP99-01448R000301260055-7
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: August 15, 2012
• Sequence Number: 55
• Publication Date: February 3, 1987
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

STAT
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/08/15: CIA-RDP99-01448R000301260055-7
(A.
BALTIMORE SUN
3 February 1987
New Man at the CIA
In appointing Robert Gates to succeed William
J. Casey as director of central intelligence, Presi-
dent Reagan is obviously trying to protect the CIA,
as an institution, from some of the most damaging
revelations of the Iran-contra scandal. As a hand-
picked Casey associate and a CIA careerist ?
indeed, the first professional intelligence analyst
ever to head the agency ? Mr. Gates carries con-
siderable baggage. But his professimalism is high-
ly regarded on Capitol Hill, even by some liberal
?
Democratic critics.
When the Gates appointment is stacked side by
side with the installation of Frank C. Carlucci as
director of the National Security Council, a pattern
starts to take shape. An administration top-heavy
in political appointees is putting its two most sen-
sitive and implicated agencies in the protective
arms of proven government servants. Messrs. Car-
lucci and Gates have both been deputy directors of
the Central Intelligence Agency. The new CIA
chief served six years at the NSC before his trans-
fer back to Langley. So each knows intimately
what the other is all about and may be disinclined
to exacerbate longstanding turf rivalries.
- If Mr. Gates encounters some early difficulties,
if is because he is inevitably linked with controver-
sl?operations. How much he personally
approved of such hijinks as the mining of Nicara-
guan harbors or the diversion of Iran arms sale
profits to the anti-Sandinista rebels has yet to be
revealed. It is reassuring that he objected to the
sale of weaponry to Iran, warning it could tip the
balance in the Iran-Iraq war and would damage
U.S. interests.
As Mr. Casey bows out, a victim of brain can-
cer, he deserves credit for restoring some of the
CIA's effectiveness after the devastations of Viet-
nam and Watergate and the neglect of the Carter
administration. Particularly in Mr. Gates' special-
ty, intelligence analysis, progress was marked.
One of the ironies of the past six years, however,
was the bad luck encountered in covert operations
by Bill Casey, a hero of the wartime OSS. A series
of spy scandals seriously compromised U.S. intelli-
gence operations in the Soviet Union; a lack of
sources led to what may have been an over-reli-
ance on Israeli intelligence in Iran. But Mr. Casey's
passionate adherence to the Reagan Doctrine,
which sanctions interventionism worldwide, con-
tributed to an Iran-contra debacle that has the CIA
again in retreat.
It will be Mr. Gates' job to safeguard his agency
by insisting on prudence and due respect for the
limits a squeamish democracy places on intelli-
gence operations. These limits may, at times, be
unwise or naive, when one considers the nature of
our adversaries. But we hope Mr. Gates realizes
that U.S. security is not well served by activities
that can backfire, causing serious foreign policy
setbacks or a loss of domestic support.
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/08/15: CIA-RDP99-01448R000301260055-7