CIA PROBE PROMISED BY WEBSTER

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00965R000301850001-7
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: September 25, 2012
• Sequence Number: 1
• Publication Date: April 10, 1987
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

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Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/09/25: CIA-RDP90-00965R000301850001-7
PHILADELPHIA INQUIRER
10 April 1987
CIA probe
promised
by Webster
By Aaron Epstein,
Inquirer Washington Bureati
WASHINGTON ? FBI Director Wil-
liam H. Webster, on his way to virtu-
ally certain Senate confirmation as
head of the CIA, pledged yesterday to
investigate whether CIA Deputy Di- -
A rector Robert M. Gates helped de-
ceive (3511-gre-SS-a6out the Iran-contra
affair.
Webster reluctantly made the
promise to the Senate Intelligence
Committee at the insistence of Sen.
Arlen Specter (R., Pa.), who asserted
that Gates might have helped former
CIA Director William J. Casey con-
ceal vital facts from the committee
in. Casey's testimony in November
about the Iran-contra scandal. ?
Specter said Casey had failed to
disclose his knowledge that proceeds
from U.S. arms sales to Iran might
have been diverted to the Nicara???
guan rebels, that the United Stites
had dealt with an Iranian arms deal-
er who had flunked two lie detector
tests, that the CIA had participated in
a shipment of arms to Iran without
presidential approval and that the
agency sought to get a retroactive
authorization for the shipment from
President Reagan.
Specter, a former district attorney
in Philadelphia, said also that Gates
helped prepare Casey's testimony
and had a duty to "inform this com-
mittee of material facts which were
not disclosed by the director."
An inquiry into Gates' role "is very
important. ... It goes to the crux of
the lissue ofl disclosure of informa-
tion by the CIA," Specter said.
? Webster, however, warned against
"a hasty rush to judgment on a very _
senior official."
Committee chairman David L. Bo-
ren (D., Okla.) and vice chairman
William S. Cohen (R., Maine) vigor-
ously defended Gates' honesty and
frankness.
Gates has been "extremely forth-
coming ... totally candid" and has
"aggressively pursued any abuse in
that agency," Boren said shortly be-
fore the committee ended a public
hearing and went into a secret ses-
sion.
"Just because Mr. Casey knew
something does not mean that Mr.
Gates knew it," he said.
Gates has denied that either he or
the CIA tried to cover up the agen-
cy's participation in the Iran arms
deal.
Doubts about Casey's testimony in
late November led Reagan to call for
a fact-finding inquiry by Attorney
General Edwin Meese 3d, who four
days after Casey's testimony dis-
closed that money from the sale of
arms to Iran may have been funneled
to the insurgents in Nicaragua.
After Casey resigned following sur-
gery on a brain tumor, Reagan nomi-
nated Gates as CIA director. But the
President withdrew the nomination
last month after Senate leaders
warned that the CIA's role in the sale
of arms to Iran made Gates' confir-
mation doubtful.
Boren and Cohen said that there
were no such doubts about the con-
firmation of Webster. Webster, FBI
chief for more than nine years, has
been widely praised in Congress as a
man of high ability and integrity
who, as Cohen said, "had done an
outstanding job as director of the
FBI."
Webster pleased committee mem-
bers yesterday by making a "solemn
pledge that I will not be devious or
cute with the committee." In ex-
change for Webster's promise to tell
the committee what the CIA was do-
ing, Boren promised to seek the re-
moval of any committee member ?
and the resignation of any staff mem-
ber ? who leaked classified informa-
tion.
In other parts of his testimony,
Webster said:
? He was promised frequent access
to Reagan to present "my own unvar-
nished views." Webster Said: "I
would want to exercise that privilege
because unexercised privileges dis-
appear."
? An internal .FBI investigation
had turned Up "no evidence" of ille-
gal FBI break-ins of offices of groups
opposed to Reagan's policy in Central
America. But Webster said that the
FBI was unable to interview. Frank
Varelli, a former RH informant who
has alleged that, for political rea-
sons, he was instructed by the FBI to
look for evidence of terrorist activi-
ties by the groups.
? Excused his membership in the
all-male Alibi Club here, explaining
William H. Webster
Will study possible deception
that it is a weekly luncheon group
with a "prestigious membership" of
only 50. It was "so small that I do not
consider it significant that it has no
female, members," he said.
. _Then, as Webster was explaining
his membership in the all-male Al-
falfa Club, Cohen cut him off, saying:
"You can stop. I'm told that the
chairman [Boren] is a member of
. that group."
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/09/25: CIA-RDP90-00965R000301850001-7