CIA AFTER CASEY

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00965R000402970002-1
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 2
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: February 8, 2012
• Sequence Number: 2
• Publication Date: February 7, 1987
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

STAT
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/02/08: CIA-RDP90-00965R000402970002-1
9' -- CHICAGO TRIBUNE
7 February 1987
CIA after Casey
Critics say it's time to unsaddle agency
that openly tilts too often with Congress
T By Nicholas M. Horrock
W ASHINGTON-William J. Casey, fighting
to overcome the effects of a cancerous
brain tumor, resigned from the Central In-
telligence Agency last week, ending a six-year term
as chief of the American intelligence apparatus.
If the people of the United States thought the
CIA was a secret agency moving deftly to assess the
world's dangers and carry out an occasional discreet
operation, the news coverage of the director's resig-
nation alone should dispel this notion.
The CIA under Casey has been one of the most
visible parts of the Reagan administration. It directs
or supplies more men and women in combat than
the Department of Defense. At this juncture, the
CIA is funding and influencing wars in Afghanistan,
Central America, Cambodia and Angola and has
dabbled in Chad and Ethiopia.
As new information about the sale of arms to
Iran and diversion of money to rebels fighting in
Nicaragua comes out, Casey emerges as far more
knowledgeable and influential in the administration
than either the secretary of defense or the secretary
of state.
His battles with Congress are far better known
than any jousts by George Shultz, the secretary of
state, and Casey attended more political festivities
and embassy get-togethers than almost any other
Reagan administration figure.
Were the former director able to grant an inter-
view, he would likely note gruffly that it is the news
media in search of sensationalism that have kept
him and his agency at center stage. In part, of
course, he would be correct. Espionage and secret
wars are romantic stuff and far more interesting to
the reader or viewer than the federal budget.
But the agency's very visibility suggests it may be
the right time to reassess what sort of intelligence
apparatus the U.S. really needs.
Casey has been widely credited with restoring the
morale of the CIA and the other agencies of what is
called the "intelligence community," an amalgama-
tion of defense and security organizations. His in-
fluence on and access to President Reagan are said
to have won significant budget increases for intelli-
gence activities, and he is said to have improved the
intelligence "product," the assessments of problems
the CIA supplies to policymakers.
Historically, the CIA's primary function was to
gather and organize intelligence to give the presi-
dent and the key policymakers objective data upon
which to base national security and foreign policy
decisions.
Before World War II, intelligence flowed into the
White House and the Cabinet in separate streams
from the military forces and the State Department.
It was often contradictory and sometimes driven by
the bureaucratic ambitions of the agencies that pro-
vided it.
The CIA, it was hoped, would give an evenhan-
ded report because it was not trying to buy tanks or
get more money for an aircraft hiid et
From the beginning, the CIA has also been asked
to conduct "covert actions," secret operations de-
signed to further American policy. They've ranged
over the years from trying to buy an Italian election
to seeing if an exploding cigar might kill Fidel Cas-
tro.
CIA agents were willing recruits
to covert action. Most of the origi-
nal leadership, like Casey, had
served in the Office of Strategic
Services, the World War 11 precur-
sor of the CIA and an agency that
mainly conducted covert operations.
Congressional investigations in
the 1970s exposed some of the less
well-thought-out covert actions, and
between these disclosures and the
nation's weariness with the Vietnam
escapade, support and funds for
CIA covert action dried up.
Casey has restored much of the
agency's ability to conduct secret
operations, and from this has
flowed the contra war in Nicaragua
and as many as 50 other opera-
tions. Morton Halperin, a former
analyst in President Richard Nix-
on's White House and a strong crit-
ic of covert action, saw the Casey-
Reagan program as "anachronistic,"
as though the two men came to
Washington in the 1980s as full-
blown "cold warriors from 1949."
The Casey doctrine is based upon
a single conclusion: that the Soviet
Union directs a worldwide cam-
paign to win support in the Third
World through revolution or armed
struggle. The U.S., as Casey sees it,
must counter this worldwide offen-
sive.
With support of the President, he
has led his agency into this battle.
But what bothers many on Capitol
Hill is that if the CIA is an action
agency, with a battle plan of covert
actions, can it continue to supply
objective intelligence on the regions
where it is at war?
Nicaragua is an example. Should
the agency that has been funding a
five-year effort to interdict arms
shipments and overthrow the San-
dinista government over the objec-
tions of many in Congress be the
one to evaluate the need for such a
war?
The questions about Casey and
covert operations go deeper still.
The Reagan administration has reli-
ed heavily on this technique and
many of its operations are paramili-
tary, simply "undeclared wars," as
New York's Democratic Sen. Dan-
iel Patrick Moynihan argues.
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/02/08: CIA-RDP90-00965R000402970002-1
 Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/02/08: CIA-RDP90-00965R000402970002-1
A covert action, in effect, is a for-
eign policy decision that can short-
circuit Congress and public debate.
The president is required to notify
Congress of these actions in a
"timely" fashion, but this forces
those who might oppose them to
try to change the action after the
fact.
In the secret arms sales to Iran,
for instance, Congress did not learn
of the gambit until almost 18
months after Reagan authorized the
weapons shipments.
Because covert operations have
dominated Reagan policy in so
many regions-the Middle East,
Central America and Africa-it
means a good deal of American for-
eign policy is being directed in se-
crecy.
Moreover, the "secrecy" is really
more often only secret from Con-
gress and the American people.
The paramilitary covert opera-
tions are virtually impossible to
conduct secretly in a modern world.
The romantic notion that giant, un-
marked C-130s carrying arms can
fly around unnoticed is fanciful at
best.
While Casey's CIA has centered
its attention on covert operations,
there is a question whether other,
more traditional intelligence gather-
ing has suffered. The answer may
never be known, but there are
dismaying signs of difficulty.
The Vitaly Yurchenko case is an
example. Originally, Yurchenko
would seem to have been a Western
intelligence rniq- A senior KGB of-
ficer, Yurchenko defected to the
U.S. in 1985 and was supplying
valuable information when he sud-
denly redefected to the Soviet
Union. Well-placed intelligence ex-
perts charged that Yurchenko was
mishandled by the CIA. The agency
claims it may have been duped by a
skillful propaganda operation.
Either way, the CIA came out
looking crude and unsophisticated.
Edward Lee Howard is another
uncomfortable example. Howard
was being groomed to be a CIA op-
erative in Moscow, which clearly
has to be the first team of Ameri-
can intelligence officers. Shortly be-
fore he was to complete his training
for Moscow, Howard was fired and
no attempt was made to keep in
touch with him or to secure the in-
formation about CIA operations
that he carried in his head.
Howard defected and sold the
Soviets the names of several agents
in Moscow.
A House committee has con-
cluded that it was one of the na-
tion's worst counterintelligence fail-
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