WILLIAM COLBY BRINGS FORTH A MOUSE

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP91-00901R000500050033-5
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 6
• Document Creation Date: December 16, 2016
• Document Release Date: November 2, 2004
• Sequence Number: 33
• Publication Date: July 25, 1986
• Content Type: NSPR

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JOHN LOFTON
WASHINGTON TIMES
25 July 1986
William Colby brings forth
a mouse
Better late than never, even
The New York Times is now
excited about what's hap-
pening in Nicaragua, la-
menting the fact - in an editorial
headlined "The Sandinista Road to
Stalinism" - that the Sandinistas'
"pluralist revolution seems hope-
lessly betrayed" and they "are well
down the totalitarian road traveled
by Fidel Castro."
But former Central Intelligence
Agency Director William Colby is
still keeping his cool, at least as far
as Soviet involvement in Nicaragua
is concerned. In a debate on the CBS
late-night Nightwatch program in
which he basically defended U.S. aid
to the Nicaraguan freedom fighters
- the "contras" - Mr. Colby de-
clared: "I don't get too excited about
the Soviet support. It's there. But it's
not going to get out of hand."
Well, now. By almost any defini-
tion it would seem that, if nothing
else, the Soviets' intervention in
Nicaragua is certainly exciting. In
fact, very exciting, particularly if
you live in a country near Nicaragua,
and even if you live farther away as
those of us who live in the United
States do.
According to a June 1986 report
co-authored by the State Depart-
ment and the Defense Department,
and titled The Challenge to Democ-
racy in Central America, Soviet eco-
nomic and military aid to Cuba and
Nicaragua has been five times
greater than all U.S. aid to all of Cen-
tral America. And The Washington
Times's own Roger Fontaine, citing
U.S. intelligence sources, has re-
ported that since 1979, the Soviets,
have spent more than $1.5 billion in
Nicaragua doing things like improv-
ing port facilities and airfields and
building intelligence monitoring sta-
tions. American intelligence ana-
lysts say that Soviet technicians op-
erate at least four of these posts
which monitor this intelligence data.
Furthermore, just this month,
there have been press reports that
the Sandinista air force has tripled
Approved
copters to 15. This is in addition to
the six to 12 Soviet-made MI-24 as-
sault helicopters the Sandinistas
have - very sophisticated killing
machines also known as "flying
tanks." And in early May of this year
it was reported that the Sandinistas
now have a Soviet AN-30 reconnais-
sance plane which U.S. officials say
is helping the San-
dinista army to lo-
cate the "contras."
So, why don't
these things ex-
cite William Col-
by?
Well, in an in-
terview, Mr. Colby
- who to his cred-
it takes phone
calls to defend his
position - says
that what would
excite him would
be "a Soviet mili-
tary presence."
Me: You mean
actual Soviet troops?
Mr. Colby: "Well, or capabilities
or that sort of thing. And I don't
think this [what the Soviets have
done already] really counts as that.
This is obviously related to the Nica-
raguan problem of dealing with the
'contras.' It doesn't look like a Soviet
initiative of its own."
Mr. Colby says that he's not saying
we shouldn't pay attention to what
the Soviets have already done and
are doing in Nicaragua, it's just that,
"I don't get excited about it." He says
he sees the Nicaragua problem as
"primarily a local problem," not just
an East-West problem. The basic
question, he says, is "whether you
have a Cuban missile crisis kind of a
problem "
Me: But why don't you consider all
the Soviets have done and are doing
in Nicaragua to be a Soviet pres-
ence?
Mr. Colby: "Well, it's not related to
trying to establish a base for Soviet
activity in the region."
Me: Really? Then what are the
Soviets doing down there?
Mr. Colby: "It's related more to
supporting their allies."
Me: But to what end?
STATINTL
them [the Sandinistas] there."
Me: You don't think the Soviets
would like another base in this hemi-
sphere?
Mr. Colby: "I think they'd be quite
cautious about that"
Me: OK, so what would it take to
excite you?
Mr. Colby: "The placing of a So-
viet air force basing system in there
with reconnaissance flights, fighter
and bomber flights."
Me: But wasn't it reported re-
cently that the Soviets have an
AN-30 reconnaissance plane down
there now?
Mr. Colby: "That plane is obvi-
ously equipped for reconnaissance,
but it is a short-range plane."
Me: So, did this plane excite you a
little bit? Did it give you at least one
little goose pimple?
Mr. Colby: "Well, I don't want to -
the distinction I was trying to make
was whether we should view what's
going on down there as a Soviet
manifestation or a Nicaraguan prob-
lem. And I view it as a Nicaraguan
problem, with the Soviets assisting
them for their own purposes."
Mr. Colby, who "thoroughly
agrees" that the Sandinistas should
be overthrown and that they might
not be in power today if the Soviets
weren't supporting them, denies that
he is too laid back about this Soviet
support. Noting, again, that he's
"trying to define the distinctions be-
tween the levels of threat," he says:
"If we go around screaming at every
little mouse in the world, nobody's
going to pay attention to us"
Me: But, of course, the mouse, in
this case the Soviets' support for the
Sandinistas, could be an offspring of
the Giant Rat of Sumatra, right?
Mr. Colby: "Sure, it could be.
That's exactly what happened in
Cuba - that it grew to the threat of
a nuclear attack on the United States
and that danger has to be watched in
all cases."
Like I say, it's to William Colby's
credit that he takes calls to defend
his views. And he defends his views
vigorously. But I think he's flat
wrong: the Soviet intervention in
Nicaragua is no "little mouse" The
Soviets most certainly do want an-
other military base in this hemi-
sphere
And this whole thin
is defi-
.
g
fton is a staff columnistfor nitely something to get excited
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 STATINTL
Appro%WdC
2TJ/I ffi?I1CIJ_UU1{ Tfl)090
12 July 1986
Muzzling the Media
The Administration's attempts to reduce the flow of information in the name of
national security raises fundamental questions about the role of a free press.
BY DOM BONAFEDE game and indicated a shift by the Admin- ... We're just now trying to do it in a
istration" in the zealousness with which it more systematic and aggressive way."
ne of the singular anomalies of the pursues government employees and jour- Casey's critics, however, argue that he
Ocontemporary political scene is that nalists who disclose unauthorized con- seems more interested in systematically
Ronald Reagan, universally hailed as the fidential material. and aggressively imposing control over the
"Great Communicator." presides over an "This Administration is possibly the press than in striking a mutually accept-
Administration that from all appearances most restrictive in recent memory in able balance between press and govern-
is intent on stemming the free flow of terms of the free dissemination of in. ment. They have a sense that he misunder-
information and muzzling the national formation," said Jane E. Kirtley, execu- stands their conflicting roles, with the
news media. tive director of the Reporters Committee press conditioned to challenge authority
Interested observers, including con- for Freedom of the Press. and act as a buffer to extraconstitutional
stitutional lawyers, scholars, prominent She said the committee has compiled a orquestionable activitieson the part of the
journalists and public-interest advocates, list of 75 actions the Administration has government, whose ambition is to get its
widely agree that the Reagan Adminis- taken that have had a "serious impact" message out and put its best face forward
tration, generally under the cloak of na- on freedom of the press, "ranging from publicly. Inevitably, the two institutions
tional security, has taken an unprecedent- efforts to eviscerate the Freedom of In- often clash in pursuit of their goals
edly narrow view of I st Amendment formation Act to Casey's threat} to prose- While Casey has thrust himself into
rights involving free speech and an unfet- cute news organizations-and that's only the forefront of the controversy, he is, in
tered press. the stuff we know about, contrasted to effect, a creature of the President and is
Floyd Abrams, a noted 1st Amendment what we don't know." presumably acting if not with the Admin-
expert and a partner in the New York law Others, however, take a more tem- istration's endorsement, then at least with
firm of Cahill Gordon & Reindel, main- pored view. Former CIA director WjL- its acquiescence. In large measure, he has
tamed that during the past three years, the y~( liam E. Colby said: "All Administrations become a personal symbol of an Adminis-
Administration has ''f( go t roug t e agony of this problem; tration that either out of distrust or insti-
taken "a more di- President Kennedy did, and I imagine tutional caution, has cultivated an arm's-
rect, vocal and far George Washington did.... Casey is sim- length relationship with the news media
more visible public ply trying to get people to pull up their and has artfully sought to impose tighter
position in the ex- socks by pointing out there are laws in managerial control over government in-
treme overbreadth this area and that these laws are very formation, or, when conditions are favor.
of its definition of clear. He has a legal obligation to call able, to circumvent the press entirely.
national security attention to possible violations." Thus, a confluence of issues is brought
and its under- Casey, who enjoys a comfortable per. into play, including free speech guaran-
evaluation of con- sonal relationship with Reagan and is tees under the 1st Amendment, the
stitutional values." generally recognized to be the most politi- press's role and responsibility, the need to
Allan Adler, cally oriented of assure the nation's security the occa-
counsel for the recent CIA direc- sional conflict between civil liberties and
American Civil tors, has publicly ideology, the adversary relationship be-
Liberties Union asserted that the tween press and government and, perhaps
(ACLU), con- American press most important, the people's right to
tended that "this fails to fully com- know as a basic element in the shaping of
Administration prehend and ap- official policy in a democratic society.
has far surpassed preciate the need
any previous Ad- to protect U.S. GOVERNMENT CRACKDOWN
ministration in i n t e I l i g e n c e From the beginning, the Administra-
demonstrating its sources, capabili- tion has consistently taken measures to
disdain for the ties and methods. regulate the flow of government informa-
public's right to (See box, p. 1718.) tion. These included steps to:
know what it is doing." Adler added: "I am trying to ? prohibit an unspecified number of writ-
"Three decades ago, the Communist correct that situa- ers, artists and political figures, including
threat was the avenue to restrict the 1st tion," he declared prominent Canadian nature writer Farley
Amendment and freedom of speech. in an interview in Mowat and the widow of former Chilean
Now. we're seeing that t6uorism and the July Washing- president Salvador Allende, from enter-
national security are being used the same ton Journalism ing the United States under the 1952
way. 11 Review. "All of us McCarran-Walter Act because of their
Adler said that the "public threat" by in the intelligence views and associations.
CIA director William J. Casey to bring community have ? require all government employees and
criminal charges against news organiza- an obligation to contractors who have or seek high-level
tions that purportedly violate certain na- sensitize the peo-
tional security laws "clearly changed the ple in the media to this problem. eft1taw
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 security clearance, including political ap-
pointees but not elected officials, to sub-
mit to lie detector tests. The apparent
purpose of the polygraphs is to trace leaks
of information to the press and guard
against infiltration by spies.
? expand, as the result of an executive
order that Reagan signed, the discretion
of federal agencies to classify information
for an indefinite period. The order further
allows the withholding of information
that merely relates to national security or
foreign affairs and provides au-
thority to reclassify information
already in the public domain.
? mandate that all government
officials with access to high-
level classified information sign
statements that require them for
the rest of their lives to submit
for official, pre-publication re-
view all articles and books they
write for public consumption. A
book by former CIA director
Stansfield Turner, Secrecy and
Democracy, the CIA in Transi-
tion, was delayed 18 months
before being cleared by censors
who insisted on almost 100 dele-
tions on security grounds.
? impose a news blackout dur-
ing the October 1983 invasion
of Grenada and threaten to
shoot any U.S. reporters who
tried to reach the island on their own.
Coverage of the initial stages of the as-
sault was selectively provided by the De-
fense Department's own news service.
Later, Defense Secretary Caspar W.
Weinberger and then-White House chief
of staff James A. Baker III announced
that the Administration had the right to
exclude the news media from future mili-
tary operations if it wished to do so.
? seek to broaden existing exemptions in
the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA)
to include the CIA's "operational files."
U.S. Secret Service records and the in-
vestigatory files of the Securities and
Exchange Commission. The CIA ac-
knowledges that it takes an average of
14.5 months for the agency to respond to
an FOIA request.
In other actions, the CIA took the
unprecedented step of filing a complaint
with the Federal Communications Com-
mission charging that ABC News had
"engaged in deliberate news distortion"
in broadcasts about the alleged connec-
tion between the agency and an Hawaii
investment banker then under indictment
for fraud. And in recent months, two
high-level government employees, one
from State and the other from Defense,
were fired on suspicion of leaking in-
formation to the press.
While previous Administrations en-
gaged in some similar actions, none was
as blatant and intimidating in its efforts
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to manage, if not control, the news-with
the notable exception of the Nixon Ad-
ministration in the Watergate cover-up,
the secret bombing of Cambodia and the
attempts to block release of the Pentagon
Papers that detailed the genesis of the
Vietnam war.
SETTING THE PATTERN
The most highly publicized and con-
tentious incident involving the press and
government centered on Casey's disclo-
sure in May that he and other Adminis-
tration officials had discussed the pos-
sibility of prosecuting five news
organizations for publishing information
about U.S. intelligence-gathering opera-
tions, particularly the ability of the Na-
tional Security Agency (NSA) to inter-
cept and decode messages of other
nations. The CIA director indicated that
the news organizations had violated a
section of the Espionage Act that was
enacted in 1950 but has never been ap-
plied. Casey, in his warning, identified
The Washington Post, The New York
Times, The Washington Times,
Newsweek and Time magazine.
Shortly afterward, Casey and Lt. Gen.
William E. Odom, the NSA director,
"cautioned" reporters "against specula-
tion and reporting details beyond the in-
formation actually released" at the espio-
nage trial of accused Soviet spy Ronald
W. Pelton in Baltimore.
Although Casey soon moderated his
firm warning, he had made his point.
Then. in late June, he warned two jour-
nalist-authors, Bob Woodward of The
Washington Post and Seymour M. Hersh
of The New York Times, as well as their
publishers, that they could be violating
the law if books each is writing contained
secret "communications intelligence."
Woodward is writing a book on Casey
and the CIA and Hersh is working on a
book due to be released in late summer or
early fall on the downing of the South
Korean passenger jet by the Soviets in
1983.
Clearly, a pattern had been set, with
Casey the chief antagonist.
"This Administration has gone top-se-
cret crazy," said Kirtley of the reporters'
committee. "The longer an Administra-
tion is in office, they have a tendency to
take a proprietary interest in information;
they shall decide what the public should
know."
Attorney Abrams said that "Casey's
threats at the very least are an attempt to
pressure if not muscle the press into silence
in areas he believes should not be dis-
cussed. He wants to let them know if they
publish or broadcast things he does not
believe should be, they'll be in trouble."
Syndicated columnist Jack Anderson,
famous for his investigative exposes, con-
ceded that the Administration's series of
actions "affect me a little. It scares me.
also, to have an Administration conduct-
ing wholesale lie detector tests and eaves-
dropping on their own people. It occurs at
the highest level because they're frus-
trated."
Anderson suggested that Casey's
"threats" have already had a "chilling
effect" on the news media He specifi-
cally referred to a June 8 article to The
Washington Post in which Benjamin C.
Bradlee. the newspaper's executive edi-
tor, emphasized that neither the govern-
ment nor anyone else is allowed "to de-
cide what we should print" while
acknowledging that his newspaper regu-
larly consulted with the government
"about sensitive stories, and we do with-
hold stories for national security reasons,
far more than the public might think. The
Post has withheld information from more
than a dozen stories so far this year for
these reasons."
Anderson's view of Bradlee's article
suggested to him that the newspaper "has
been chilled a little. I don't mean they are
not doing their job: they are. But they are
examining procedures much more closely
and being more cautious than before
Casey's threat."
Los .-Angeles Tinies Washington bu-
reau chief Jack Nelson said that the news
media have generally been passive in re-
butting Administration efforts to con-
strict the free now of information. "Cer-
tainly, there has not been any strong
editorial outcry, maybe with some papers
but not many." he said. "Why? For the
same reason that people like the Presi-
dent but oppose his policies The econ-
omy is not bad, there is little inflation,
people are fairly happy. That feeling per-
meates the news media."
On the perennial question of govern-
ment over-classification, Richard K.
Betts, a Brookings Institution
intelligence specialist and former
staff member of the National Se-
curity Council and Senate Select
Committee on Intelligence, con-
tended that it is not done "out of
malevolence or to hide things
from people because it would be
embarrassing"-an impression
widely held among critics. In-
stead, he said. "there is a ten-
dency when in doubt to err on the
side of caution. Sometimes the
classification is handled by low-
level people who don't know any
better. Also, it is being done at so
many different places."
Betts suggested that perhaps a
"special court" working with
Congress might be established to
deal with governmentc~la/ssitica-
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tion. "I don't know how it Aould
work; it would probably be
swamped," he said. "But it might
reduce some of the abuses and
take the burden off the press."
Meanwhile, Weinberger, writ-
ing last October in Defense/85, a
Pentagon publication, stated that
the role of the news media in U.S.
society had to be weighed against
competing national security re-
quirements-that depending on
national priorities, one constitutional
right sometimes superseded another con-
stitutional right. "Freedom of the press
has never been universally defined," he
said. "We are still debating those 13
simple words written two centuries ago-
'Congress shall make no law .. , abridg.
ing freedom of speech or of the press'-
with regard to what the founding fathers
meant by them and how they apply to-
day."
Weinberger argued that while the
press is protected by the 1st Amendment,
"such protection cannot diminish the
other legitimate functions of good govern.
ment," including "the equally legitimate
tradition of the government's need for
secrecy, especially in national defense.-
But. But, he added, "unfortunately, some
reporters and their editors do not agree.
Some act as if they are in an appropriate
position to decide for themselves whether
information that we have classified
should actually be protected."
In so saying, Weinberger articulated
the Administration's position, while
pointing up the uneasy balance between
two legitimate and vital interests.
THE MORISON AFFAIR
the British magazine Jane's Defence
Weekly, for whom he moonlighted, a fact
known to his Navy superiors.
For leaking the classified photos to the
press, Morison was charged with theft of
government property and espionage. It
marked only the second time since the
Espionage Act was enacted in 1917 that
the law was used to prosecute someone
for leaking classified information to the
press rather than to foreign agents. The
earlier case, dismissed by the Supreme
Court, involved the prosecution of Daniel
Ellsberg and Anthony Russo for
releasing the Pentagon Papers.
In effect, said David Wise,
) who frequently writes on espio-
nage and CIA matters, "the Ad-
ministration has sought to marry
the classification system to the
espionage laws."
The ACLU's Adler said that
the Administration's efforts
come into sharp focus with the
Morison case; they do not distin-
guish between government em-
ployees who leak information to
the press and those who engage in
espionage. They equate leaking
with espionage."
Last October, Morison was
convicted and is currently free on
bond pending appeal.
The Morison affair, Adler said,
"represented a clear turning
point for the Administration.
veteran who formerly directed the agen-
cy's operations dealing with photographic
satellite reconnaissance.
In his testimony, Inlow said that based
on his professional and technical experi-
ence, the disclosure of the three satellite
photographs in Jane's would not cause
damage or injury to the security of the
United States.
In a lengthy account featured in "First
Principles," published by the ACLU's
Center for National Security Studies,
Inlow wrote, "Morison clearly had com-
mitted a misdeed; but what he did was
not 'espionage.' "
lnlow testified during the Morison trial
that the Soviets had earlier acquired a
KH-I I technical manual and that "the
photographs, as printed in Jane's, would
have revealed no technical characteristics
about the imaging satellite that the So-
viet Union did not already know about in
detail.... The potential for damage from
the disclosure of these three photographs
was zero."
He suggested in his written account
that the government had decided to
"make an example" of Morison. He
added that "the guilty verdict in the
Morison trial, if upheld on appeal, would
establish precedents in more than one
direction. It clearly offers a-precedent for
indicting persons who leak information
under many types of circumstances,"
SECRETS AND RIGHTS
They decided to go ahead and try Spelling out the differences between
their luck in court. It was a calcu- the press and government, a Washington
lated gamble. Their first step was Post reader wrote in a July I letter to the
to secure a conviction. When that editor: "The intelligence community
proved successful, an embold- serves the governmental consumer, em-
ened Casey went one step further ploys mostl
l
d
i
y c
an
est
ne sources and pro-
For the past year or so, a rash of and applied more pressure on the tects those sources by means of a legally
espionage cases has become a steady press itself." sanctioned classification system. The in-
news diet, including those involving re- Wise similarly saw the Admin- formation itself is protected largely be-
tired Navy communications specialist istration's strategy behind the cause it can reveal sources.
Jerry Alfred Whitworth, former CIA Morison case as a two-part process-"to "The press, on the other hand, serves
agent Edward Lee Howard, former NSA intimidate officials for unauthorized the public at large (including those same
intelligence official Pelton and ex-Navy leaks at one end and intimidate reporters governmental consumers), employs
chief warrant officer John A. Walker. All at the other end." mostly open sources and, while it protects
involved government employees who had Adler said he was convinced that the the sources, serves the wider audience by
access to top-secret intelligence and who Administration went beyond the intent of printing the information."
were charged with selling out to the Sovi- the Espionage Act in prosecuting Mon- In essence, the press-government issue
ets. Although spiced with drama and son for leaking information to the press. revolves around the demand to reconcile
intrique, each of the cases from a con- "Casey," he said, "did a magnificent job national security requirements with Con-
stitutional standpoint were mostly cut of salesmanship." stitutional rights.
and dried. During the Morison trial, government Casey has asserted that the way to
Ironically, the most significant and prosecutors stressed the undeniable, that accomplish this is "to tighten up within
complicated case was the least publi- he had willfully transmitted photographs the government."
cized-that of Navy intelligence analyst and documents related to national de- Wise interprets that as a move toward
Samuel Loring Morison. A Vietnam vet- l'ense to someone not entitled to receive the British Official Secrets Act, which
e
Eliot and ran, Mgra onidson of a nav al historian Samuel them. The critical question of whether imposes strict limitations on the ability of
10-year employee the transmitted material could cause the press to divulge national intelligence
the Naval Intelligence Support Service, damage or injury to the United States or information.
he was accused of taking three KH-I I be of potential advantage to a foreign The Brookings Institution's Betts ques-
satellite photographs labeled "secret" of power-a central issue in espionage tions the absoluteness of the media's Ion-
a Black Sea shipyard where a new, nu- cases-was never passed upon. stitutional rights. "I'm not sure the press
clear-powered Soviet aircraft carrier was A key witness for the defense was Ro-
under construction and mailing them to land S. Inlow, a retired, 28-year CIA
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should be exempt from these questions
any more than other institutions." he
said. While acknowledging the difficulty
involved, he suggested that "there ought
to be some other check on the discretion
of the press other than the press itself"
Contributing to the dilemma is the
climatic condition that prevails between
the press and this Administration, under-
scored in Secretary of State George P.
Shultz's comment following the media
criticism of the Grenada invasion: "It
seems as though the reporters are always
against us, ... always seeking to report
something that's going to screw these
things up."
Central to the Administration's cam-
paign to contain national intelligence in-
formation are its efforts to plug leaks by
reducing the number of officials with
access to classified documents and impos-
ing stricter security curbs on military and
civilian employees who handle secret
codes and cryptographic devices.
In former CIA director Colby's view,
"the leakage problem has gotten more
serious. The general problem is the lack
of standards and discipline in society.
There are whistle-blowers and inquiring
reporters.... There is a contempt for se-
curity."
Albert R. Hunt. Washington bureau
chief of The Wall Street Journal, how-
ever, offered a different view, Adminis-
tration officials, he said, typically will
"draw a distinction between good and
bad leaks. Good leaks are those which
help and support their policies; bad leaks
are those which don't put them in a good
light."
Joseph F. Laitin, a former assistant
public affairs secretary at Defense and
Treasury and now the ombudsman at The
Washington Post, said, "While Casey
threatens The Post and other newspa-
pers, he should look within the Adminis-
tration for leaks."
James R. Schlesinger, the former De-
fense Secretary who briefly served as
CIA director in 1973, said: "The problem
of leakage is generally a problem of the
executive branch. I think the press is
generally responsible."
Casey, nonetheless, insists he will not
retreat from his hard-line position and
will seek to prosecute anyone, including
members of the press, whom he believes
has violated laws covering secret commu-
nications intelligence.
Adler, meanwhile, expressed doubt
that Reagan would want to go down in
history "as the first President since the
Alien and Sedition Act to try to prosecute
a news organization.... The decision to
prosecute The Post or any of the other
newspapers will have to come from the
top."
The anomaly, Abrams said, "is not so
much Reagan as the 'Great Communi-
cator' but that of an Administration that
wants to get government off the backs of
people in the economic sphere but is
unwilling to take a position like that in the
area of 1st Amendment rights." ='
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 Approved For Release 2004/11/29 : CIA-RDP91-00901 R000500050033-5
When Casey's at the Bat
Despite a lifetime on the cut-
ting edge-as a World War II
agent in the Office of Strategic
Services, as a Wall Street ven-
ture capitalist who became a
multimillionaire, as chairman
of the Securities and Exchange
Commission (SEC), as Ronald
Reagan's 1980 campaign chair-
man and finally as CIA direc-
tor-William J. Casey has re-
mained an enigma.
An unimposing, slightly rum-
pled man, he does not carry his
73 years lightly. His glowering
gaze through thick glasses and
his tendency to mumble as he
speaks, as though he is conspir-
ing aloud to himself, serve to
obscure rather than reveal. Im-
patient and intimidating, Casey
could easily be cast as a
worldly, autocratic bishop addressing one of his rustic parishioners.
While he can be courtly among his peers, he is not one to stand on
ceremony at other times. Albert R. Hunt, Washington bureau chief of The
Wall Street Journal, recalled: "I met him at a party one time; he came over
and in dark tones asked me if we had ever violated the Agents Identity Act. I
told him no."
The puzzling question within the Washington press corps these days is
whether Casey is sincere in his threat to prosecute the news media should
they disclose classified information that bears on national security or is
simply trying to chill the media into paralysis.
"Whether he is bluffing or not, I'm not sure," Hunt said. "But you have to
take Casey seriously."
According to syndicated columnist Jack Anderson, "Casey sincerely
believes the public and press ought not be shown the secrets of government
and that the government ought to operate in the dark. Obviously, you can be
more effective operating in the dark-but the cust is too high in terms of
freedom and the people's right to know.... I think it is his nature. He
behaved the same way during the Nixon Administration when he was SEC
chairman. He went to elaborate lengths to put documents into safe keeping
so they couldn't be subpoenaed.... He's a security nut; he believes only
those in power should know what's going on.... But I don't think they are
going to prosecute any newspaper."
Joseph F. Laitin, a former assistant public affairs secretary at the Defense
and Treasury Departments and now the ombudsman at The Washington
Post, said: "Casey's threat was part bombast and part showboat, with a
menacing backdrop to it. He was testing the waters. If it had caught on
publicly, the way [former Vice President] Spiro Agnew's attack on the press
did (in 1969], there would have been real trouble. But the American public
was too smart to buy it."
It is unclear whether Casey is a maverick motivated by personal convic-
tions and prejudices or is acting as a stalking horse for an Administration that
wants to see how far it can go in challenging the news media.
"Part of it is ideology," said 1st Amendment legal expert Floyd Abrams of
Casey's duel with the press. "He genuinely believes it is wrong and dangerous
for the press to say these things (about classified intelligence) and displays a
marked insensitivity to 1st Amendment rights. It is still too early to say if the
Justice Department and the White House fully support him. To the degree
that he is the point man for the attack on the press, or is doing it on his own,
the Administration is content to let him take the lead."
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Approved For Release 2004/11/29 : CIA-RDP91-00901 R000500050033-5