CASEY AIDE HELD TO HAVE QUIT CIA TO WORK FOR NORTH

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00965R000504130005-7
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: February 27, 2012
• Sequence Number: 5
• Publication Date: April 3, 1987
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/02/28: CIA-RDP90-00965R000504130005-7
POA
Casey Aide Held
to Have Quit CIA
to Work for North
_j By MICHAEL WINES.
Times Staff Writer
WASHINGTON-A special as-
sistant to former CIA Director William J. Caseit.+4uit the intellito-
gence agency early last year and
went to Europe to secretly help
manage White House aide Oliver L.
North's private network to aid the
Nicaraguan contras, according to
government sources.
The former Casey aide, 48-
year-old Ben B. Wickh Jr. was
CIA station c ie anagua, Nic-
aragua, from 1982 until the autumn
of 1984. He later served Casey at
CIA headquarters for about a year
before resigning to work for one of
North's dummy companies abroad,
said knowledgeable officials who
refused to be identified.
The CIA refused to comment
when asked in mid-March and
again Thursday about Wickham's
activities. The agency has said in
the past that it obeyed congres-
sional restrictions on CIA-backed
military aid to the contras.
Sources have called Wickham a
potentially critical link in the chain
of Swiss bank accounts, dummy
firms and covert deals through
which North ran the ill-fated
arms-for-hostages swap with Iran
and a multimillion-dollar secret
military aid program for the Nica-
raguan rebels.
One knowledgeable official con-
tended that Wickham resigned his
CIA post at the suggestion of
Casey, who is said by some to have
orchestrated North's secret contra
supply activities after Congress cut
off funding for the rebels in Octo-
ber, 1984.
'Casey's Eyes and Ears'
"Find Ben and you'll find all the
keys to Ollie's operations," this
official said. "One reason he left the
CIA was to be Casey's eyes and
ears on what North was doing in
Europe." Wickham went to Europe
"to work for one of North's private
groups on Nicaragua-a project
Democracy operation," this source
said.
3 April 1987
But another government source
said that Wickham left the CIA on
his own. Wickham's "first-hand"
duty in Managua, this source said,
convinced him that the United
States would become mired in a
war there unless Americans acted
privately, unfettered by congres-
sional curbs on aid to the contras, to
overturn the Marxist government.
"He quit. Casey didn't send him,"
that source said flatly. He added
that he did not know whether
Casey offered Wickham advice or
other aid after he left the agency.
Whereabouts Unknown
Precisely where and for whom
Wickham worked remains a mys-
tery. His current whereabouts also
are a mystery.
The Wall Street Journal, which
first raised the issue publicly in a
story Thursday on Casey, stated
that a former Casey aide retired in
late 1985 to work "overseas" for
North.
A number of companies with ties
to North are either based in Swit-
zerland or have bank accounts or
dummy addresses there. They in-
clude Lake Resources Inc., which
controlled the flow of money for
the Iran arms deal and secret aid to
the contras, and Stanford Technol-
ogy Corp., a firm controlled by
North's principal private-sector
aides in the Iran-contra deal, Irani-
an-born businessman Albert A.
Hakim and retired Air Force Maj.
Gen. Richard V. Secord.
In computer messages and other
North transcripts reprinted in Feb-
ruary by a presidential commission
that investigated the Iran affair,
North characterized Hakim as the
European director of his contra aid
network. Hakim, who lives in Cali-
fornia, frequently visited Europe
on missions for North.
Cryptic References
North's transcripts make occa-
sional cryptic references to his
European operations. At one point,
they state that a "Democracy INC.
European subsidiary" owned a
Lear jet used to ferry North on part
of his journey last May to Tehran.
Little is known about Wickham,
reportedly a low-key career CIA
undercover officer whose political
beliefs are as secret as his true
work. An unclassified State De-
partment directory listed him as a
diplomatic attache in Tehran in
1971.
He is believed to have held the
State Department post of political
officer after moving to Managua in
the fall of 1982 but to have done
little, if any, intelligence work
related to the contras' effort to
bring down the Nicaraguan gov-
ernment.
One associate nevertheless de-
scribed him as committed to the
contra cause. He said that friends
could not dissuade Wickham from
dropping a promising CIA career to
organize private aid for the rebels.
By that account, Wickham told
friends that the U.S. government
had "pulled the chain" on the
contras and that his children would
be fighting in Nicaragua unless he
did something on their behalf.
Other officials, however, said
that Wickham's CIA resignation
and hiring by North parroted the
actions of other former intelligence
officers who joined the secret
North network in 1985 and 1986.
Those officials have alleged that
Casey singled out former CIA em-
ployees to join North's efforts to
sidestep Congress' ban on direct
U.S. involvement in military or
training assistance to the contras.
The Times reported in February
that North and Casey met regular-
ly, beginning in 1984 and continu-
ing through last fall, to discuss the
contras' military and financial con-
ditions in the wake of Congress'
prohibition on aid.
Training for Rebels
Last Saturday, The Times re-
ported that North's contra aid
operations in Honduras were led in
part by a CIA officer who quit the
agency roughly at the time he
joined the North network. That
account stated that at least two
men under contract to the agency
worked part time training the reb-
els in Honduras.
Casey underwent surgery for a
malignant brain tumor in Decem-
ber and has been in poor health,
reportedly unable to speak, since
then.
Staff writer Doyle McManus f
contributed to t
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/02/28: CIA-RDP90-00965R000504130005-7