WILLIAM J. CASEY, FORMER HEAD OF CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE; DEAD AT 74

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00965R000403270001-8
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: February 9, 2012
• Sequence Number: 1
• Publication Date: May 7, 1987
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

ST Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/02/09: CIA-RDP90-00965R000403270001-8
PAM S Y 7 May 1987
9N
OBITUARIES
Wffliam J. Casey, former head .
of central intelligence; dead at 74
J By Fred Kaplan
Globe Staff
WASHINGTON - The former
director of central intelligence,
William J. Casey, died in a New
York hospital yesterday. He was
74.
Mr. Casey, who died of pnue-
monia at 1:15 a.m., had been in
intensive care for nearly two
weeks. In December doctors re-
moved a cancerous tumor from
his brain.
Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.), for-
mer vice chairman of the Senate
Intelligence Committee, said yes-
terday, "It really is the passing of
an era. I think Bill Casey was sort
of a larger-than-life director of the
CIA and I think he's going to be
remembered that way."
Mr. Casey began his intelli-
gence career during World War II,
running spies behind enemy lines
in Germany for the Office of Stra-
tegic Services, the predecessor of
the Central Intelligence Agency.
His critics and admirers say
that, during his tenure at the CIA,
he heavily emphasized covert op-
erations, perhaps trying to re-
create the action-oriented setting
of his wartime years.
Evidence emerging from the
congressional hearings on the
Iran-contra affair indicates Mr.
Casey may have played a far more
central role in the illegal shipment
of arms than he ever admitted.
Over the past five years. Mr.
Casey raised storms of controver-
sy for secretly mining the harbors
of Nicaragua, - a move con-
demned by an international court
- for issuing a "white paper"
charging the Sandinista govern-
ment of Nicaragua with shipping
arms to rebels in El Salvador, a
conclusion shown later to have
dubious foundation; and for in-
venting stories about a Libyan
"hit squad" formed to assassinate
President Reagan, 'to justify a
buildup in the administration's
antiterrorist program.
A congressional official who
once worked in the CIA told a re-
porter for The Boston Globe last
week that Mr. Casey "was a very
independent-minded old fellow. He
pretty much did what he wanted
to do" and "did not need some-
body else's legal opinion."
He said "Casey was not the
kind to scribble the way Colonel
North did. When he had a phone
call with somebody he had had
business dealings with, he would
not write a memo." He liked to
carry out what the official called
"vest-pocket operations." Lt. Col.
Oliver North was fired as a Na-
tional Security Council aide over
the Iran-contra controversy.
During his confirmation hear-
ings to become CIA director, the
Senate Intelligence Committee,
after an investigation into his fi-
nancial background, found Mr.
Casey merely "not unfit to serve"
in the post.
Mr. Casey was Reagan's cam-
paign manager in the 1980 elec-
tion, and was accused at the time
of providing purloined debate
briefing papers from Reagan's op-
ponent, President Jimmy Carter -
though Mr. Casey's involvement
in the matter was never proved.
Mr. Casey became CIA director
in 1981, after Reagan was elected.
His longtime personal friendship
with Reagan gave the CIA much
greater influence over White
House policy than had been the
case in recent years - which re-
portedly led to great boosts in bud-
gets and morale Inside the agency.
Mr. Casey resigned this past-Feb-
ruary after the brain surgery left
him debilitated.
President Reagan said, "The
nation and all those who love free-
dom honor today the name and
memory of Bill Casey."
Robert Dole (R-Kans.), the Sen-
ate minority leader and presiden-
tial candidate, called Mr. Casey "a
true American patriot." Sen. Dan-
iel Inouye (D-Hawaii), chairman of
the Senate committee investigat-
ing the Iran-contra affair, said of
the inquiry's findings, "Whatever
may be the final judgment of his
role in this event, It should not ob-
scure Mr. Casey's distinguished
record of commitment to, this
country."
Many critics of the CIA's prac-
tices had less sympathetic words.
Andrew Cockburn, author of a
forthcoming book on the history
of the intelligence community,
said yesterday, "Casey embodied
the utter ruin and corruption of
US Intelligence. The vague ideal
that intelligence should be obJpc-
ttve In providing analysis to the
nation's leaders didn't interest
him at all. He was a partisan fig-
ure determined that his agency
should provide intelligence best-
suited to the administrations in-
tentions. He was fully prepared to
break the law. It's ironic that tie
should shuffle off this mortal coil
just when the totally disastuyus
consequences of his sort of pdifd
are being publicly aired on Capitol
Hill."
Rep. Henry Hyde (R-111.);1i
member of the House, Intelligence
Committee, defended Mr. Casey's
approach, saying, "Relations with
Congress were never what they
should have been because Bin Ca-
sey distrusted Congress, and with
some justification, concerning
Congress' ability to keep a secret."
In the years between the OSS
and the CIA, Mr. Casey amassed a
fortune as a Wall Street lawyer,
and also served in the Nixon and
Ford administrations as head of
the Securities and Exchange Com-
mission, assistant secretary of
state for economic affairs and
president of the Export-Import
Bank. He ran for Congress from
Long Island, N.Y., in 1966. but
was defeated.
Mr. Casey and his wife Sophia
Kurz had one daughter, Berna-
dette.
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/02/09: CIA-RDP90-00965R000403270001-8