THE DIRECTOR: RUNNING THE C.I.A.

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP88B00443R000301290007-3
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: U
• Document Page Count: 11
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: December 2, 2009
• Sequence Number: 7
• Publication Date: January 20, 1985
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

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Office of Current Production and Analytic Support
The Operations Center
News Bulletin
TI-E NEW YORK TIHES MAGAZINE
PAGE 16
The
Directar:
Running
The
20 JaNUaRY 1985
I~ No, 1
By Joseph ~elyveld
OR THE CENTRAL
Intelligence Agency
and its frequently
embattled leader,
William J. Casey,
the start of the sec-
ond Reagan Admin.
lstration la more
than just the halfway mark in a mara-
thon. Ronald Reagan is the brat
President in 12 years to take the oath
of office for a second time, but it has
been 16 Yeas since a head of the
American ~teliigence community
last managed ~ continue ~ office
from one presidential term to the
~t? On the previous occasion, to
1~, Richard M. Nixes reluctantly
~~ ~ to +~ u'gument Wat he should
retain Richard M. Helms as Director
of Central Intelligence In order to
safeguard the nonp~i~ ~aracter
of the of'Hce. Theme have been five di-
rectors since, and Casey -whom no
one has ever called nonpartisan _
~ now survived longest of them ail.
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This can be regarded as a footnote,
a fluke, or an indicatlan that the
C.I.A. has essentially weathered the
investigatiaas and strictures of the
1i170's, that it has ret~vered much of
Iv old effsctivenesa and mystique.
The present director, whowould aatu-
rally hvor tM latter Interpretation,
has tried to function as if It were so,
casting himself in the mold of Allen
W. Dulles and John A. McCone, who
flourished in the 1M0's and early d0':,
before serious questions had been
raised, on either moral or pragmatic
grounds, about covert acdon on a
global scale. Like them, rather than
like his immediate predecessors, he
has been recognized m Washington
and beyond for having ready acareas
to the President. Like them, he has
not hesitated to make his voice heard
at the White House on policy matters
a distinct from 1ateWgeaoe evalua-
tions. (Indeed, he might even be said
to have surpassed them in this re-
spect, Mr, serving a President who
values the Cabinet u a lbnun, he has
managed to become the first Director
On Capitol Hill, he becomes the ob-
ject of another kind of caricature.
Liberal members of the two Congres.
sional intelligence committees
~'ged with oversight of his shad-
owy domain tend to isolate tyro items
ot- his lengthy and diverse curriculum
vitae-his role more than half a life.
time ago in World War II spy
rims from London for the Office of
Strategic Services and his later ca-
reer in New York as a tax lawyer; in
their view, he is a cagey old man with
as eye for legal loopholes who b ro.
mantically and recklessly bent on
rellvtng his youth.
Conservative members, who can be
nearly as harsh. tend to portray him
as the opposite of an activist director:
that is, as a captive of a Langley bu-
reaucracy whose major objective, it
is alleged, is to shield itself from con-
troversy. The two images overlap, in
that neither takes him very seriously
as an effective Director of Central In-
telligence or an influence on policy,
either broadly on matters of national
security or narrowly on matters spe-
dflc tothe intelligence cotn
i
mua
ty.
Joseph Lelyvsld is a starj writer jROr What is involved here is more than
of Central Intelligence eve ~ sit at
the table as a Parclcipating Cabinet
member.) ,~ hke ~~ in Pm'ticu.
lar .fondly known to his subordi.
Hates u "the get white case offi-
cer" because of his g p~
sign for espionage and related games
- Mr. Casey is believed to have im-
me~ed himself deeply in the day-to-
~Y management of clandestine
operations.
Yet for an assortment of mesons _
some personal, others havhsg to do
with changing times and ~~ ~-
Psctations of a director _ ~ one
would suggest that official Washing.
ton has learned to view Wuliam Casey
as a permanent fixture or regard him
~ ~Y ~~~ing the awe
son inspired. Ins~tea~d a A
tration'a ascaad- '
Harlan . he wW ~ ~ ~
- seems to attract cari~t~~
starting wiW Herblock, whose car
toona ~~Y show the man who is
~PPosed to be the Pnsldent's eyes
~ over hi~hs~d ~ttnd with a paper
a clash of perceptions about Casey. It
is also a clash of Perceptions about
what a Director of Central Inteili-
gence should be and, beyond that,
about how ready the United States
should be to intervene .eC~y _,
politically and. ~peciaily, mil-tarily
- to the affairs of other countries. On
both sides -those who think this di-
rector is too active and those who
thiWt he is not nearly activeenough -
there is a tendency to forget the fun-
damental insight that emerged from
the iawatigationa of the 3070's: flat
~ director:, ihully, ors creatures of
the Pt~esideats they serve. If Ptwi-
?w~orld that confll~ ~ t ~,
n
wa
d rather belien-e, they have the
opdan of setting it aside. But ao direc-
~' can amore the President's goals.
The dllfereat ways directors inter-
P~ their jobs reflect differences
a~mamng the Presidents who picked
Z he point needs to be ~
again today because the deepening
debate over the proper role o! a Dtrsc.
for of Central iatslligeaoe, provoked
by Casey's active involvement is the
policy making of the Reagan Admin-
istration, merges Inevitably w/th the
dWsta rebels for the and-San.
q~ck1Y merges into
ical debate. familiar from Vietrum
days, as to whether the United States
can afford-to "abandon.' the side it
has chosen is a reglotial oonilict.
wSErr C.I.A. VETERANS RATE
Past directors, they sometimes dwell
as the way they balanced theh; ssv.
oral functions. For instane~_ n.n.. ~.
said to have neglected his respotuibil
ity to coordinate the intelligence con
munity; McCone is supposed to have
managed it brilliantly, Helms is creel
ited with keeping the agency's aealy
sls straight and well focused, asps.
dally with regard to Vietnam.
George Buah soothed Congress anC
restored morale, without ever delvla~
~rY deeply into the details of clan.
destine operations, which appear to
love reached their lowest ebb during
his year at Langley. Adm. Staasfleld
Turner, like the former naval engi-
neer he served, was fascinated by the
advances is technological means of
Intelligence gathering.
But what the veterans seem to look
for first when they are measuriaa
their directors is the degree of access
to the Presidents they served. Noth-
ing, after all, is more costly or of less
value than intelligence that goes no.
where.
Like medieval courtiers, some di-
rectors have resorted to guile, drop.
ping in on a chief executive when he
was about to take a nap, studying his
schedWe so as to run into him an his
way back to the Oval Office at the end
of a public function, or suddeNy ap-
Peering on a Saturday morning when
defenses raised by the White House
staff might be slightly lowered.
with Dulles, access was fraternal,
through his brother, Jahn Foster
Dulles, the Secretary of State.
McCone, who became close to the
Kennedys, knew that his time to re-
sign had cause when Lyndon B. John-
teroom. o~ made Helm a regu-
lar at his "Tuesday lunches," which
were seldom on Tuesdays, but Nixon
first wanted to exclude him alto-
gether from National Securi
dl meetings sad then decreed that his
Director of Central Iatelltgence
would have to leave the room before
aqy policy matters were discussed,
(h Practice, says Helms, taking issue
~, ~ ~~ Kissiager's mem-
Ys yed.) .
a
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In a tone that snoods boastful,
Zbigniew Brzeziasld, national
security adviser under Jimmy
Carter. notes in hb memoirs
that Admiral Turner had
"practically ao o4s-no-one
meetiaga" with President Car-
ter and "aU C.I.A. reporting
was tunneled to the President
throuSh me." The admiral in-
sists that thL is simply not so,
that he saw the President alone
when he needed to. But his reSw
lady scheduled briefinS ses-
afans for the President declined
from ttpioe to aace a week and
then W once every two weeks.
As his own and the President's
command of intelligence in.
creased, he ranSed tuethsr
afield for oompeWng subjects
for the briefinBt until aaoe, so
the story Soes at Langley, he
showed up with charts of Mos-
cow sewer tunnels. "Never hap-
pened." says Turner. Sut the
story lives oa to show what di-
rsctonwill do for access.
By contrast, Ronald Reagan
tried to Set to William Casey be-
fore WiWam Casey ever tried to Set to
him. The Californian was the third
Republican Presidential hopeful to
phone Casey at his New York law of-
ficx in 1~ to seek support. In the first
two cases, those of John B. Connally
and George Bush, the caller Sot Sood
wishes and checks of 11,000. In Rea-
San's case, a real cenversaticn devel-
oped, leading to breakfast and a com-
mitment. But the two men didn't Set
to know each other well until after the
New Hampshire primary. when the
caosen-ative Easterner was suddenly
called oa to take charge of the cam-
paiSn. The rapport established then
was to~mded, first of all. on the cam-
paign's success. "Casey's not his
pal," eatplaiaed as old New York
iliend of the director. "Reagan thialts
Casey is a dame smart Suy who
elected him. It's the way an actor
feels about his agent. This V his agent
- he has got to bslleve the guy is
~"
An Ad:niNstratian offidal, at-
temptis~S to interpret the President's
attitude toward Casey. said it was ob-
viously one of fondness: "He's a wuy
old Suy, touch as all Set out, which the
President likes." Whatever the feel-
inS. it appears to tratulateinto job se-
curity. It is also as apparent a: such
things ever are that the relationship
between the Director of Central Intel-
ligaaoeand the White House staff was
not one of mutual admiration so Iang
as James A. Baker Sd, who will noov
Set his mail next door at the Treas-
ury. was its chief. Asked to esplain
Casey's staying power. a former ottl-
dal commented, "He wan one of the
Brat to realize the importance of
Nancy Reagan."
The deSree to which stayhig power
translates into influence is harder to
assess. Mr. Casey's prtvate oo~a--
munications with the President ap-
petr to bemostly onthetelephone. He
can see the President alone when he
feels he needs to do so, offidals ac-
kaowledge, but such private meeting:
don't ohen occur. Influence can be
measured in various ways, but for the
C.I.A., the value of a "political" di-
rectorwithunquestioned White House
accxss can be measured first of all in
dollars: is the 00 percwnt increase in
appropriations that accrued to the
C.I.A. is the first three Reagan budg-
ets. Moreover, a senior official at the
agency asserted. the het that he L
presumed to have direct aooeas to the
President is translated into enhanced
acorns and influence for the agency at
all leveb of government. "Poor Stan
Turner had to scheme and maneuver
tD get in to see the President," he
said. "His lack of access cad lack of
clout oommudcated. itself from the
very top to the very bottom. It is just
the obverse with Casey. We just don't
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have trouble getting in to see people.'.
But with the advent of Congres-
sional oversight, access at the White
House is no leer enough to insure a
director's effectiveness. In the days
of Dulles and McCone, a director who
was known to have the President's
conridence could handle his Congres-
sional relations by dealing oontidea-
tially wiW leaders of both houses and
key committee ciulrmen; lee: by per-
suading than allowing them to peer
into his hidden world. Today a direc-
tor who is known to have easier ac-
cess to the President than any other
director in at least ZO years, and who
is presumed to be more influential,
has worse Congressional relations
than any of hb lZ predecessors. This
could have happened only in an era is
which the Director of Central Intelli-
gence 1s expected to be aooonntabk
not only to the President but to the
oversight committees; and expected,
as U now apparently the case in the
Reagan AdmiNstration, to win the
backing of those committees for poli-
cies that are inherently controversial
-notably support for anti-Sandinista
Contras in Nicaragua.
A veteran of many C.I.A. covert-aa
tiara caanpaigns, now reared from the
agency but still jealous of his ano-
nymity, as are most former agents,
observed that Casey has been ex-
pected to serve u a, political point
man in Congress, not only allaying
doubts, but also taking whatever rite
the Nicaraguan involvement draws.
This insight appeared to be validated
when an Administration official, of-
fering what he said was a White
House perspective on Casey's atew-
ardship of the C.I.A., empha-
sised rirstthe head "to achieve
Congressional backing.. for
Presidential policies, especially
in Contra! America. Choosing
his words carefully, the oCicial
dryly tormod this "aa uoa-
chieved goal." The pressure of
Cong:esalonal oversight, in
other words, has helped make
the lob of Director of Central In-
telligence what It was never
supposed to be in the put - a
political lob. So the lob that
once involved We balancing of
aNy throe distinct respoeuibll-
itias - serving u We Presf-
-dent's intelligence .adviser,
managing the intelligence oom?
munity and running the C.I.A.
in its various analytical sad es-
pionage components - can now
be said to involve a fourth, that
of Congressional liaison as be-
half of Presidential policies that
may or may not be publicly ac-
kaowladged.
ASEY IS OBVI-
ously apolitical
man. But be
seems m be sin-
gululy ill
equipped for the
sort of political
role in which he
will be cast in the Doming
weeks, when he seeks to per..
strode the oversight committees to re-
move the fresse that has held up
funds for thenot-so-secret war in Cen-
tral America. The arts at advocacy
and persuasion are not his torte. in
private oonversatian, he toads to
avert hb gnu u if he were speaking
to someone behind hian and to swat-
low We last words of his sentences u
be moves on impatiently to bb next
thought. The mumbling, combined
with an instinctive guardedness, can
leave as impression that he is being
evasive even when he V speaking
with notable candor.
The upshot is that he is criticized
for being "too political" and not being
political enough, for "politicizing? irr
telligence and being politically inef-
fective. But that. too, may say some-
thing about built-in conflicts and con-
tradictions of Ws jlob, which were al-
ready a cause for concern before
ulesmanship was added to the list of
the director's responsibilities. Insid-
ers scoffed when sutianery was
printed for Admiral Turner describ-
ing him u the Director of the C.I.A. ;
strictly speaking. in terms of the Na-
tional Security Act of IW7, which es-
ubliahed the C.I.A., Were is tw such
position. The title, Director of Central
Intelligence, refers to more than iuat
We agency. The director is also sup-
posed to coordinate We actlvlties of
We Pentagon-based National Se-
curity Agency and Defense InteAi-
gence Agency arul to funnel objective
intelligence to the White House. If he
is actively running one agency, it was
asked, how can he keep from favoring
its estimates and defending its opesa-
tions?
Thus the concern that a Director of
Central Intelligence might function
as as advocate of policies was evident
even before Congressional oversight
helped to make advocacy one of his
tasks. The traditiaaal Idea was that
the President's intelligence adviser
had to be aloof from party and com?
peting factional interests within an
administration. Five of the rirst seven
directors were military officers.
President John F. Kennedy made a
point of retaining Duties from a Re-
publican admWstration and, after
the Bay of Pigs fiasco, replaced him
with a conservative Republican,
McCone. The quintessential career
man and insider, Richud Helms, sur-
vived the transluon from the Johnson
Administration to the Nikon Adminis-
tratian. Sut since oversight became a
recognized fact of life, each new
President has been more concerned to
have someone he regarded as politi-
callydependable in the job than to up-
hold the idea that it had to be kept
above politics.
The turning point came when
George Hush, a former chairman of
the Republican National Committee
and Congressman, was chosen by
Gerald R. Ford to replace William E.
Colby. the last intelligence profes-
sional to hold the job. Colby, who was
blamed by Kissinger and others in the
Ford Administration for being too
candid wiW Congressional panels
they lnveatigating the agency, now
argues that the agency functions best
when run by a political man who has
We President's confidence. Admiral
Turner, who did not ilt that bill, was a
second choice for Jimmy Carter aher
his more obviously political choice of
Theodore C. Sorensen met Congres-
sional resistance. The admiral may
not have been a political man, but he
was an outsider at Langley who
shared his President's initial akepti-
dsm about covert action as an instru-
ment of policy. Jimmy Carter, so he
later told Admiral Turner, got the dis-
tinct impression that George Hush
was eager to be retained in a Demo?
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cratic Administration (a spokesman
for the Vicx President says he was
merely ottering w stay m for several
months) and the admiral frankly as
knowledges that he was ready to
serve President Reagan. But no new
President, it ~w seems, wants a used
Director of Central Intelligence.
HE DIFFER-
ence with Casey b
sot that he U a
"political" choice,
but that he is the
political choice of
as Adatinistration
that consciously
wanted to restore the capadty of the
C.I.A. for political and military a~
tion in foreign countries. His critics
have seldom ack:towledged that his
claim art the lob want beyond political
obligation. Yet in terms of qualities of
mind as well as experience 1n govern-
ment, his credentials were at lout u
conspicuous as those of his immediate
two predecessors. In a sense, he has ~
been in the intelligence game
most of his life. His first lob
after Uw school was with the
Research Institute of Amer-
ica, aprivate c~rtcern that
aside iu mark prognosticat-
ing on the New Deal and its
laws for business sutiacrib-
ers. The institute's founder,
Leo Cherne, found the young
lawyer to be extremely con-
servative-Pro-Franco is the
dull war then raging in Spain
- but also indispensable, for
he had a knack, almost a
genius, for marshaling and
analyzing facts. Later he set
himself up as a competitor in
the business of packaging
business intelligence.
He made his rirn fortune
there, processing huge
amounts of legal and eco-
nomic information for corpo-
rate subscribers and leaving
hU name an more than two
dozen books. He made most of
his subsequent tortuaes as a
venture capitalist, staying
alert to sew markets, pro-
oessea and trends. Kissinger
wrote of Helms. "He under-
stood that in Washington
knowledge was power." That
wu something Casey already
appears to have known when
he rirst went to Washington -
in 1841.
In 1868, the Nixon transition
team sounded him out on
going to Langley as deputy di-
rector to Helms, with whom
he had roomed for a duple of
months in an apartment on
Grosvenor Street in London,
in their O.S.S. salad days. But
not liking the sound of the
word deputy, he chose to re-
main in private life unti11971,
when he became chairman of
the Securities and Exchange
Commission. Then, having
surprised many by proving to
be an activist and reforming
chairman, he moved to the
State Department as tinder
secretary for economic af-
fairs, a fob in which he be.
came restless soon after Kis-
~-ger became Secretary of
state.
The job of Director of Cen-
tral Intelligence, his old boss
Leo Cherne remarked. is the
first lob he has ever had in
which he U unlikely to be-
oome restless. Obviously. he
loves the role. signing the ini-
tial "C" to the memos that go
rocketing around the Langley
headquarters, in what, as an
old intelligence buff, he must
know is a copy of the epony-
mous stgnattue of We head of
the British M.I.6 (changed to
"M" in the James Bond
novels).
It may not be demonstrable
that be has "the best mind in
Washington, in or out of the
Adnninistration," as as ofri-
dal on the National Intelli-
gence Coundl claimed, with a
devotion to hb-chief that
seems far beyond the call of
duty. But it is a more interest-
ing and better stocked mind
than the one described by
Cortaressmen and their aides
after they had hoard him
mumble his way through
seemingly evasive testimony
in closed sessions of their
committees. Casey is the
Reagan AdmWstratiort's bib?
liophile, a voracious and
eclectic speed reader with
surprising range. His reading
during the last Christmas
season included a book by a
Yale Sinologist about a 16Ut-
century Jesuit in China, "The
Memory Palace of Matteo
Ricci" by Jarutthan D.
Spence. When friends search
for an anecdote, it usually in-
volves his droppir-g a prodi-
gious sum is a very short
time at a bookshop or airport
newsstand.
He had started gravitating
back toward the intelligence
rield even before he showed
up in Reagan's political tent
as a relative latecomer in
1878. In the mid-70's, he
Chaired Lhe auboommittee On
intelligence for a Presidential
commission; and Ford -
whom he supported against
the Reagan challenge in 1976
-named him to the Presi-
dent's Foreign Intelligence
Advisory Board, which func-
tions as a board of directors
to the intelligence communi-
ty.
But the idea that he ever
saw his alumnus status in the
O.S.S. as a gtulirication for
the top lob at Langley quickly
gets brushed aside. "That's
so superficial," he grumbled
in the course of a long break-
fastinterview at his Washing.
ton residence in a rich man's
housing development on the
edge of the old Nelson A.
Rockefeller estate. "What I
am doing now bears no rela-
tion to what we were doing
then. All we could do was pop
a guy into Germany with a
radio and hope to hear from
him."
THE OPEN DEBATE
in the 1970's on the
proper role of the
C.I.A. more or leas faded
from public view ortcx the
Senate Select Committee
headed by the late Frank
Church published its conclu-
sions about covert action, do?
mastic surveWance and Con-
gressional oversight. The
committee said it had consid-
ered seeking "a toW ban on
all forms of covert action,"
but concluded that the ca-
padty tointervene secretly in
the affairs of other c~tuttries
should be retained for use in
cases in which it was "abso-
lutely essential to the na-
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tional security." Even then. it
declared. clandestine actions
must "in no Case" be incom-
padblewith wmerican prlad-
ples.
The committee's findings
may have ianplied a oonsen-
sua, but beyond the question
of assassination -that, all
sides seemed to Concede, was
naughty -there was no con-
sensus on the meaning of
terms such as "absolutely es?
sential; ' espedally when the
contemplated actions in-
volved paramilitary force.
The debate continued, usw
ally behind closed doors. as a
matter for specialists with se-
curity dearaacsis - Congres-
sional aides who devoted
their Careers to drafting ~
resisting legislated guides
lines for the C.I.A. that were
finally shelved is INO, or aca-
demicswho tried to study the
intelligence establishment
from the outside. By the end
of the Carter Years - foAow-
ing the tall of Iran's Shah and
the Soviet invasion of Af-
ghanistan -the focus of the
debate shifted from the ques-
tions of what the. C.I.A.
should be allowed to do and
how it should be restrained to
how the intelligence agendas
Could be strengthened and
made more effective.
The Carter Adrninistratian
resolved to keep itself to the
absolutely essential" stand-
,ardbuttook adeliberate deri-
sion in its first year to pre-
serve the capacity of the
C.I.A. to involve itself in in-
surgent struggles around the
world, on the side of friendly
regimes or in opposition to
hostile ones. (On a higMY ~-
cret basis, it even created a
parallel capability in the Pen-
tagon.)The Reagan Adminis-
tration, recoiling from the
soul-searching of the 70's,
was more disposed to put
these capabilities to work.
The contrasting attitudes
were reflected in the last two
Directors of Central Intelli-
gence. In obvious respects,
Casey can be presented as an
antithesis of Turner. The ad-
miral, who had to fight for en-
tree at the Carter White
goose, religiously stayed out
of policy debates. At Langley,
his first aim was to impose
command sad control over
the clandestine servicxs.
Casey disdained bureau-
cratic boundaries: if neces-
eery, he was reported to have
'~ said once. he could ask other
aides to leave the room so he
could speak to the President
iA confidence. He spoke of re-
storing the C.I.A.. rot of
dominating it: and, with ao
more qualifications than
Allen Dulles would have
found necessary, he saw most
third-world struggles u bat-
ties is a single secret war.
"You have to be prudent and
careful about these things,'.
he oberved in the interview
at his home, spsakirg of
third-world conflicts, "but if
you're living in a world where
the Soviets and their allies
an tree to get involved in
these things with impunity,
and people who share our
values orb our notions of free-
dom don't respond, then You
lose...
Yet then is less antithesis
ar-d more contlauity between
the Turner and Casey eras at
the C.I.A. than meets the eye.
The revival to which Mr.
Casey likes to call attention
really started under his
predecessor, propelled in
part by Carter's growing dis-
satiafaction with the quality
of the political intelligence he
was getting and by Congres-
sional concern that funds for
the agency had been held
down too severely in the 70's.
By the end of the Turner
period at the C.I.A., accord-
ing to a former sector intelli-
gence figure, the number of
authorized covert actions was
at a higher level than at any
time since Kennedy, when
covert operations wen at
their peak. Axording to a
Reagan offidal, the total of
formal "Presidential find-
ings" -the highly classified
statements that a President
is now required by law to sign
and pass on to the oversight
ooramittees wbea a new
operation bas been author-
ized -actually declined in
Reagan'a first term. Jimmy
Carter signed nearly two
such ..findings'. to every one
sigr-ed by hb successor, this
source said.
The comparison provokes
outrage from former Carter
officials, who argue that it
measures the literalness with
which each adminiatntion in-
terpreted its legal responsi-
bility to frame new "find-
ings," not the scope or cyst of
the operations. Admiral
Turner, who still lives near
the Potomac, about three
minutes' drive from his for-
mer Langley headquarters, is
especially roiled by sugges-
tiaasthat the paramilitary in-
volvement in Nicaragua was
actually initiated on his
watch.
There was, however, a Car-
ter "finding" on Nicaragua
that, according to Senator
Malcolm Wallop, the very
Conservative Wyoming Re-
publican who served on the
senate InteWgenx Commit-
tee unto this month, ex-
pndtly declared an intention
to "change the nature" of the
Sandinisu regime. The pro-
gramwas intended to support
"pluralistic" tendencies in
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trade udons, the press and
the countryside, a former na-
tiaoal security ottidal de-
clared. Another former otfi-
dal familiar with deuila of
the program as it evolved in
both Admidstntiona main-
tained that the Carter effort
was really "small and inept'.
and, moreover, that it back-
~ fired because it gave hard-
liners in the Managua Gov-
ernment as a:case to elimi-
Hate precisely those elements
the Americans had been seek-
ing to promote. Nevertheless,
the Reagan Administration
was able to rely on the Carter
"finding" for nearly a year,
ertpandiag a program that
was already in place, as it
was doing simultaneously is
Afghanistan. The idtial
impetus for assistance to the
Contras. according to an offi?
dal who was present at some
01 the discussions, came from
the Sute Department and
Secreury of Sute Alexander
M. Haig Jr., who stipulated
Daly that the aid be channeled
through a third party. which
turned out to be the military
government then ruling in Ar-
gentina. Lour, another otfi-
dal asserted. it was also
Sate that "tasked" the min-
ing of the harbor at Coriato.
Commenting from the side-
lines. a former Latin Amer-
ican sution chief for the
C.I.A. with an extensive
background in covert open-
tions said the choice of the Ar-
gentines revealed a htal
ideological blindness; to pro-
tact the Contras iron the
charge that they were pup-
pets of the Yankee imperial-
ists, Washington needed to
gain the support of a-ore
repuuble regimes closer to
Central America, he argued.
With swell-based sense of
paradox, which seems to be a
byproduct of clandestine
work, the former sutian chief
listed three qualities that he
said were essential is a Dh^sF
j for of Central InteIIigence -
"ruthlessness, duplidty and
j absolute integrity." The first
two were essential for the
running of covert operations,
he Bald; the last for insuring
that the national interest was
not narrowly ooQOeived or
damaged in the process.
~ Ruthlessness and duplidty
~ might have argued for a Con-
tra program, he implied;
"absolute integrity" would
have ezcluded the Argentine
~unu.
cress and intluena has
an undeniable bureau-
cratic value for his agency,
but there remains the perm.
dal question of wheWer he
al~otild have any role is an Ad-
ministration's inner policy
debates. Helms says that he
c~oncelved his role under
Presidenu Johns and
Nixon to be "one man who
helped to keep the game hon-
est," providing information
that bore on policy debates
without taking sides or adva
toting a position himself. Ob-
viously, it was a delicate line
to walk, because information
thus provided could tip the
scales.
Turner committed himself
on a policy question ady once
in four years, allowing him-
self to speak against the MX
missile at a National Security
Coundl meeting. He did so,
he explains, otter President
Carter summed up the dis-
cussion by saying he coa-
duded that everyone at the
able favored deployment. By
contrast, accounts of ha
tional tugs of war over issues
and personnel at the Reagan
White House routinely men-
tion the Director of Central
Intelligence.
The current director does
not seek w deny chat he get:
into policy discussions h the
Cabinet. "I thWt I'm a
player," he admowledged
guardedly, speaking of do-
mastic iuues, "but I don't get
much involved." Offering an
example, he said he might
say something if an faros of
economic policy came up on
which he felt he had some
background. On national se-
curity issues, he went on, he
is "pretty careful" about the
distinction between latelli-
gence and policy, trying not
to express an opinion uNess
be is asked to do so. "I recog-
nize the distinction," the dl-
rector declared. Whether
those who are at the able find
It as easy to recognize the dis-
thtction between intelligence
and opiNon when this direc-
tor speaks is a question that
few individuals who are not
~ We National Security
Coundl can usefully discuss.
But 1t goes to the heart of the
question of how well Presi-
dent Reagan is being served
by his prhuipal iateWgence
adviser.
Conservative as he is - "he
b more conservative than
Reagan" h his instinctive
reactions on issues, accord-
ing to a former ofHdal - he is
rw diehard. He urged his can-
didate iA 1080 act to repeat
the htal error be thought
Gerald Ford had made four
years earlier in falling to put
his chief rival for the nomina-
tion, Reagan, on his ticket.
Campaign manager Casey
promoted the dwtce of
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George Bush and brought
James Baker, the Bush tarn.
paign manager and later the
White House chief of staff,
into his own operation. Going
further back, the conserva-
tive Casey couldn't bring
himself to work for Barry
Goldwater In 1061, trot for any
Ideological reasons, but bs?
cause he thought the Arl-
sonanwas asure loser.
C~Y's conservative crlt-
Ics, who had an agenda br
the C.I.A. they assumed he
shared. find a worrisome te.
tlection of this P~tnatic
tendency in his readiness to
make hU senior appoint-
ments at Langley from within
~ ~Y: the effect, it is
argued, is to tefnforce bu-
reaucratic cauUori. A recent
report by the Heritage Foun-
dation urged President Rea.
gar to "improve intelligence
leadership by appotngng to
mP Intelligence paaiti~
Mgh1y gwtllfied indiWduab"
who share his goals. "He sim-
ply hasn't cleared the deck
and put officers oat deck who
believe in where bees going,"
Senator Wallop said of Casey,
What !s !n question b a di-
rector's abUity to dominate
the institution he is supposed
to head. 'ILrner tried, impos.
~ what ~ regarded as maa-
agement controls on the clan.
destine service, eltminaUng
8Z0 jobs at a stroke. By cat--
trast, Ne common denomina-
tor among Casey's key aides
is that they rose to promi-
nence in the Turner
Robert M. Gates, the dep ry
director for intelligence .
the official who oversees the
production oftbelnteUigence
studies that circulate among
policy maker -served sue
cessively as a staff assistant
in the last AdrninlstraUon to
David Aaron and Brsezinski
at the National Security
Cotu~cil sad, fiuauy, to Turn,
er.
John N, Mme. ~
deputy director of Central In-
telligence and thus the high.
e:t-ranking intelligence pro.
fessional, is a veteran of S3
Y~ at the agency. the last
ZB at Langley. Under Turner,
McMahon became deputy di-
rector for operations a!-
Haugh hehadneverserved in
the clandestine service. A
generalist wlW intimate
1~nnerlw~orletingf s ~ ~cy's
ar
with the oversight m
tees. But he would be ilrst to
go in an ideological purge of
those who are suspected by
conservatives of not sharing
tbelrgoab.
Those who worry about the
agency's will and effective
peas believe that the investi-
gallons and reforms of the
TO's weakened tt N three cru-
dalareas.
First, in what are supposed
to be its clandestine services,
the agency has allowed itself.
~Y uy, to become exces-
sively reliant aft official
..cover.. In American diplo?
matic missions abroad; We
use of nonofficial cover _. r+e.
cruitment of agents among
jouttialists, churchmen,
scholars and bwinessmen -
was repeatedly ..blown" !n
the investigations.
Second, it Is aAeged to have
become similarly complacent
about oounterltttepigence,
the effort to Protect Itself
from penetration by loreign
agents.
Third. the elaborate pro.
teas of preparing national ln-
teUtgence "estimates" came
under attack for submerging
eonfllcting evidence and db.
seating viewpoints.
I-coking down from iris
perch on top of the whole se-
cret apparatus, the director
contemptuously rejects the
argument that the C.I.A. bas
withstood the Pressure to
slope uP? Asked what hL big-
gest surprise was is four
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{J
~n~~,~~~
the caliber of the people be
found there. '"ILere's a lot of
resurgence in this Sroap of
people,.' he said. "It's the
most dhctive apparatus fa
the American Government -
by a kaogshot...
An ouWdar trying to assess
the parformaace of the fatelli-
gence community daring the
tenure of any given director L
Wce the blind man trying to
identify the elephant. It's is
the nature of the bsastthat of-
ficials cannot provide evi-
denoe of their suocesees m ac-
quiring agents in a rival serv-
ice or government, penetrat-
ing terrorist groups or inter-
cepting sensitive military
transaaissions. As far as any
outsider can tell, the Llnitsd
States V no batter able today
to predict or influence the ac-
tions of Islamic factlaas is
Teheran or Beirut thaw it was
four years ago. But they m
outsider could know.
The Casey years. it b said,
have seen an lntstuitication
in the C.I.A. at efforts to
counter terrorism and the
drug traffic. Maybe so, but
exactly the same claims were
made when Bush and Turner
were directors. Presumably
they reflect a ooatiauing ef-
fort. what they say about the
impact of a given director V
harder t0 assess.
Clearly, wIW the major h>?
crease 1n appraprlations, out-
put at Iaog-term and ahort-
term intelligeaoe has been
stepped up dramatically.
More than 50 national "esti-
mates" wen prepared last
year, the present director
likes to point out, compared
to ady l1 in the last year of
the Carter Administration.
But does increased quantity
insure increased quality? On
this score, recent members of
the Senate Intelligence Com-
mittee -from Senator wal-
lop onthe far right to Senator
Patrick J. Leahy, the Ver-
mont Democrat who has been
a ooosistent Casey critic -
ssem willing to give the direct
for benefit of the doubt, aF
koowledging an improve-
ment is the clarity and rigor
of the agency's studies.
Others with the security
clearances that are a prereq-
uisite for judgment say the
improvement has been mar-
ginal; that while more ques-
tion are aslrod of the intelli-
gence establishment. those
supplying the answers are
often limited is their e=po-
sure to the countries about
which they are expected to
prophesy; frequently, it is
said, they don't read or speak
the relevant languages.
Already in 1Y78 the Church
committee was wrorrylag
about the problem of "over-
load." The analysts were
swamped with intelligence
(Continued on Page SO)
Continued from Pape 28
data. it said, and they is turn
were swamping the policy
makers. "There is simply too
much to rand, from too many
sources,.' the committee
found. By the end of the
Turner years, a high offidal
said, few National Security
Coundl offidals had time to
more than glance at the iatel?
ligeace studies piW~g up an
their desks. Still it is a Stak-
hanoviteboastthatthe output
has been raised.
Casey's involvement in the
policy game provokes dark
suspidons about his involve-
ment in the analysb process,
as ii that were not an ssaen-
tial mie of a Director of Cen-
tral Intelligence. The issue
arose most recently with the
resignation of the national in-
telliger-oe officxr for Ltin
America on the ground that
the director had forced a
change in the caaclusion of an
..estimate" oa Mexico in or-
der to magnify the poaibility
of instability south o! the bor-
der and thus, it was implied,
advance a Central American
domino theory as ~ustifica-
floe for support to the rebels
in Nicaragua.
William Colby. defending
Mr. Casey's prerogative,
noted that national "esti-
mates" go forward over the
signature of the Director of
Central Intelligence. that it b
formally his estimate; he had
clwnged them himself, the
former director said.
The case draw suffident at-
tention on Capitol Hill for
Casey to authorize his analy-
sis chief, Robert Gates, to
take to the public prints with
an article defending the in-
tegrity of the process. Ia the
article, the career man points
out that he, rather than the di-
rector, is "the final approv-
ingofficial" on the current in-
telligence that goes on a daily
basis to the President. Never
before had public assurancws
had to be offered that a direc-
tor of Central intelligence did
not meddle in the process.
On other issues, outside
Central America, the C.I.A.
has shown in the Caney period
an ability to fun~ish intelli-
gancx estimates that cut
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across the policy-maldnS
Brain. For instance, it mid the
Reagan white House that 14
effort m orgaNs-0e a boycott by
western suppliers m the Sibe-
rian pipeline wouldn't work.
Casey, a former official said.
characceriscicauy rumps m
oo~ageaial ideological oonclu-
sims m issues. "But," he
went m, ..Casey absorbs and
?spmda m evidence very
quickly; he doss not discard
evidence which does not sup`
port his predetermined Point
of view: he assimilates it. ?'
Yet this director's bias, as a
former venture capitaWt and
sometime policy maker. 4
clearly in hvor of actin.
Reminiscing in a speech
about hie O.S.S. boss, William
J. Dmovaa, he recalled his
"bouncing inm I.mdm. with
little or to notice, brimful of
new ideas, ready m approve
any opaatim that had half ?
chance." This iced portrait
was drawn long before he ba
came Director of Central In-
telligeaoe himself, but it
probably came close m de-
scribing the sort of mteW-
getxx chief he dreamed of
~?
8e himself was m the
move, as much as nay direc-
tor since Allen Duties. 8e
says he b out of the country
no more than ZO peroeat of the
tithe dad that, scheduling hb
trips so he can take in five or
six catatrles over two week-
ends and one working week.
he seldom is away from
wasldngtm more than 10
days at a time. The trips have
enabled him m stay in much
with iatdligeaoe chieh is the
18 m 90 countries that have
been involved thsmselwe in
supporting purportedly anti-
ConuauNst insurgencies.
"More than a quarter of a
minim people have talon up
arms aSainst Communist co-
pressim," the direcmr said is
a speech last October, rehr-
tiag m Angola, Cambodia and
Ethiopia as well as Aigl~ani-
stanand Nicaragua.
At both ends of the politlcal
spectrum there V the oom-
ptaiat that covert actin is
used as a substitute tar policy
-the reQectim of an arse m
"do something" -ether
than a: an e:ten:im of poli-
cy. The Heritage Foundation
report complained that cov-
ert action objectives in Af-
ghanistan and Nicaragua
were "vague and iu defined,"
then added !lour other cam-
trlas mthe dirscmr's implied
hit list - Iran, Libya, I.tos
and Vietnam - as desirable
P~~~'Y ~ for 1Yf16.
One aZ the Church oo?mitr
tee's strongest proposals !br
reetraiat is oo~vert action was
that all schemes be reviewed
at a high level is the Natimal
Security Council. In the Rea-
gan Administration, covert
actin pvoposals are is
viewed at a higher level than
eves before, m a body called
the National Ssauity Plaa-
niag Group that normally ia-
ciudes the President, vice
President. Secretary of State
atW the Secretary of Defense.
The partidpaats meet with-
outtheir aide:, according m a
former high officW. Sons
times the studios are under-
taken at Lngley only after
the program bas been ap-
proved. BY then a task Faroe
may already be is motim.
The high-level group thus
functions lees ae a illter, as
the Church committee emi-
siaaed, and more as a strat-
egy session in which the
search for ways m act effect
lively in support of what are
deemed m be pressing na-
tional interests takes priori-
ty. Casey may be doubly tied
m Nicaragua and other cov-
ert actin programs, as a
policy maker as well ae the
official responsible for carry-
inS out the programs. But a
nonpartisan director w~p was
ordered m iaitlate an opera.
lion would stlll be fled. And
the political managers in the
white House world still want
him m make the case for the
h3volvement m the oversight
committees. There, insofar
a: it lacked bipartisan sup-
port, it would still make the
C.I.A. a target of mistrust
and controversy. "An idea
k-g[cal regime may revel >n
exotic covert intelligence
operations, eac~urage them
atb stW keep intelligence
evaluatiaas at arms length "
a former chief of Israeli mili-
tary intelligence, Yehashaht
Harkabi, notes in as article in
The Jazwalem Quarterly
that :eoently was circulated
among top intelligence offi-
cials at Lagley. "Good intel-
ligenoe," the Israeli ~varnsd,
"is to guarantee aT good
policy and vice versa..,
Nevertheless, lbrgetting that
it was not Casey who signed
the secret Presidential "find-
ing" authorising support for
the Contras, the members of
the oversight committees ap-
pear mhankerfor a mnparti-
saa Dir+scmr of Central Intel-
ligence. an intelligence pro-
factional -someone, after
all, like Helms, as ii that
~,~,~, J u
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would be enoush to produce a
caoseosu: an covert action.
T'he 1878 Church committee
concluded its remarb an the
role of the Director of Central
InteUisenca by sussestlns
that Cat~sress misfit want to
pass lesislatloo to relieve the
President's principal iatalli-
senceadviser oihisexecutive
responsibility over the C.I.A..
thus ramovfns him tt+om the
sphere of opesatlaos. 7~is
would have the advantase~
the report arsued. os elimi-
aatiasthe oantlicts of interest
that misfit bias him in favor
of the C.I.A. in the inter-
asency oompetltian or tempt
him tiD jastifY opentlaos as
which the asency was em-
barked. Beddss, the oonsmit-
tee worried, tLe sob misfit be
too bds for ar~- man.
As a possible solution. it ad-
vanosd the idea of establish-
ins adirector of natlaoal ia-
telliseooe mthe White House
to advise tLe President and.
simultaneously. allocate
tasks and itmds to the various
asendes. lbere would tbbo
be a director of the Central
Intellisenoe Aseacy respon-
dble for tLe C.I.A. only, Al-
tLoush it oontlnusd to be dis-
cussed is the Carter years it
was an idea wLoee time had
not antes. partly because
'ILrner's interpretation aZ the
respoosibilitles of a director
of national intellisenoe was
so a11-enoompassir~s that it
scared oft many of tLe idea's
orisinal adhersats. and
partly because the pendulum
was already swlnsins back
an covert action. Others have
sussesosd that the Peotason
could take over the C.I.A.'s
paramWtary functions to
protect the asency from con-
troversy and enable it to ooo-
osntrate in secrecy m espio-
nase and analysis. its main
tacks.
Hut wiwam Casey doesn't
bay the idea that hb sob b too
his. in hb first year and a
half at I,ansley. Le worried
out a divisiaa of tort and
bibors with his Lrst deputy
Adm. Bobby Ray Iaman~ in
which he ran the claadatMe
service. supervised analysis
and advised the President.
leavins hU other adminbtra-
tlve tasks in the assncy and
the intellisence community to
the Admiral. Now. Le says Le
b much more active on com-
munitymatters.
"I feel that I'm leadiad and
I feel that I'm as top of all
hosts of the fob." bs says. "I
Lave a capadty to sire aP a
situation once I set tLs facts
and to make decisions and
I've been able to set into all
pLases of the work. For 10
years there hasn't been any.
one here trios encash to do
that."^
THE K.G.B.'s vll~tor~r.rhe-
brtkov. head o~ the principal Soviet in-
telltssnce asency.
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