WHITE HOUSE SEEKS NOMINEE TO HEAD CIA

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP99-01448R000301290042-8
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 23, 2016
• Document Release Date: May 21, 2013
• Sequence Number: 42
• Publication Date: March 3, 1987
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

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Declassified and Approved For Release 2013/05/21 : CIA-RDP99-01448R000301290042-8
3 Mar ch 1987
ARTICLE APPEARED
ON PAGE %.3 4Na
White House
Seeks Nominee
To Head CIA
Gates's Withdrawal, Rebuff
By Tower Trigger Rush
To Find New Candidate
By JANE MAYER
And JOHN WAIXOTT
Staff Reporters Of i'RE WALL STREET JOURNAL
WASHINGTON?White House officials
were left scrambling last night to find a
prestigious nominee to head the Central In-
telligence Agency after former Texas Sen.
John Tower turned down the job following
Deputy CIA Director Robert Gates's with-
drawal.
White House sources said Mr. Tower. a
lawyer, turned down the job, citing finan-
cial considerations. But some congres-
sional sources speculated that Mr. Tower.
former chairman of the Senate Armed
Services Committee. doesn't want the post
because, in some cases, he would report to
Defense Secretary Caspar Weinberger.
Last night. some White House officials still
were trying to persuade Mr.Tower to ac-
cept the post.
White House officials said they expected
to have a new nominee by today or tomor-
row. Sources said that among those still
under consideration are former National
Security Adviser Brent Scowcroft, U.S.
Ambassador to the United Nations Vernon
Walters, and also some Democrats, princi-
pally former National Security Adviser
Zbigniew Brzezinski. Like Mr. Tower, re-
tired Lt. Gen. Scowcroft was a member
of the highly praised commission that
President Reagan designated to investi-
gate the Iran-Contra scandal. Gen. Scow-
croft's office said he was out of the country
and unavailable for comment.
Another possible candidate, retired
Adm. Bobby Ray Inman, who headed the
National Security Agency, was deputy di-
rector of the CIA and now heads his own
high technology consulting firm in Austin. .
Texas. He reiterated that he doesn't want
to return to government servic'e. In an in-
terview last night, he said: "I haven't been
approached, and if I were I would say
no.''
Originally, according to new White
House Chief of Staff Howard Baker, the
president had hoped to announce a re-
placement for Mr. Gates yesterday.
Mr. Gates. who has been acting director
of the agency since William Casey under-
went surgery for brain cancer last Decem-
ber, feared that his confirmation would be
delayed by the Senate's investigations into
the Iran-Contra scandal, plunging the CIA
into debilitating uncertainty. His decision
to withdraw had been expected for several
days.
Mr. Tower's reaction when he was of-
fered the job fueled speculation that the
Reagan administration, with only two
years left and facing growing political
woes, is finding it difficult to attract top
candidates for senior posts. Last week, be-
fore the White House announced the selec-
tion of former Sen. Baker as chief of staff,
two of the. president's choices rejected of-
fers to succeed departing Chief of Staff
Donald Regan. Earlier, Mr. Baker himself
had withdrawn from consideration for the
CIA post.
Meanwhile, President Reagan will de-
liver a televisted address to the nation to-
morrow at 9 p.m. EST. Mr. Baker said at a
brief news conference yesterday. The pres-
ident is expected to respond to the Tower
Commission report, and presidential ad-
visers say the speech is a crucial chance
for him to restore his own credibility and
set the administration on a new course.
Some administration officials suggested
that Gen. Scowcroft's role on the Tower
Commission, whose report issued last
Thursday boldly criticized the president's
management style, actually might help his
chances. In the current climate, where the
president's credibility is in strong need of
bolstering, "if anything it would help,"
said one White House official.
Mr. Gates's withdrawal, announced by
Mr. Baker on his first day on the job, adds
to the number of senior administration offi-
cials whose careers have been jeopardized
by the Iran-Contra affair. Last Friday. Mr.
Regan resigned as chief of staff. And ear-
lier, former National Security Adviser
John Poindexter stepped down and former
National Security Council aide Lt. Col. Oli-
ver North was fired for his part in the
scandal.
In a letter to President Reagan. Mr.
Gates said the Senate wants to complete
its investigation of the Iran-Contra scandal
before acting on his nomination. "A pro-
longed period of uncertainty would be
harmful to the CIA, the intelligence com-
munity and potentially our national secu-
rity," he wrote.
In his written reply to Mr. Gates, the
president described the 20-year CIA ana-
lyst as "a remarkably talented and dedi-
cated man" and asked that he continue to
serve as deputy director of the agency.
"I have been impressed with the class
he has shown under the enormous pres-
sures of recent weeks," the president
wrote. "At any other time, I am certain
that he would easily have been confirmed
without delay."
Mr. Gates also took the opportunity yes-
terday to answer a number of allegations
about his performance at the agency. The
CIA yesterday released a four-page letter
from Mr. Gates to Sen. David Boren (D.,
Okla.), chairman of the Intelligence Com-
mittee, in which Mr. Gates conceded that
he should have pressed harder last October
to investigate the Iran-Contra affair.
But in the letter, Mr. Gates called the
allegation that the CIA participated in a
cover-up "particularly outrageous." He
conceded, however, that former CIA Direc-
tor William Casey "changed a good deal
(of1iTtffrnony to the Senate intelligence
panel) himself in the last 24 hours" before
he testified. The committee has reported
that much of Mr. Casey's testimony was
incomplete or misleading.
Mr. Gates also said that during the
same period last October and November,
he wasn't given pertinent information by
other CIA officers "and was misled by the
NSC." He said that last summer he
warned Mr. Casey about the secret Iran
policy and the possible effects of failing to
notify Congress about it. But Mr. Gates
didn't believe that he should have quit over
the issue.
In his letter to Sen. Boren, Mr. Gates
also rejected allegations that he slanted
the CIA's analysis of Iran and other issues
to suit the White House, and said that "CIA
analysis prepared at my direction" was
the basis for rejecting an NSC proposal for
a joint U.S.-Egyptian invasion of Libya.
The Washington Post had reported that
Mr. Gates wrote a memo supportive of the
invasion proposal.
Mr. Gates wrote that a memo he sent to
Mr. Casey "was downbeat on the chances
of success and raised alternative policy op-
tions for examination." Intelligence
sources said Mr, Gates wrote the memo in
mid-July 1985.
Officials at the White House, the Penta-
gon and the State Department indepen-
dently confirmed that Mr. Gates opposed
the notion of invading Libya. They said
that beginning in 1979, when the late Egyp-
tian President Anwar Sadat first suggested
an attack on Libya, officials of the CIA.
State Department, and Pentagon all
warned repeatedly that the Egyptians
could get bogged down, drawing U.S.
troops into the conflict; the Soviet Union
then could raise the stakes by launching a
major effort to resupply the Libyans.
After the notion was revived and
scotched in 1985, intelligence sources said.
the Reagan administration secretly
adopted a plan for a multipronged pro-
gram of economic and military pressure,
psychological warfare and covert action to
destabilize Libya's Col, Moammar Gad-
hafi, encourage opponents of his regime,
and combat Libyan-backed terrorism.
Declassified and Approved For Release 2013/05/21 : CIA-RDP99-01448R000301290042-8