GATES: I KNEW EARLY, BUT...

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00965R000707030003-5
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: U
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: December 13, 2011
• Sequence Number: 3
• Publication Date: February 18, 1987
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

Declassified and Approved For Release 2011/12/13: CIA-RDP90-00965R000707030003-5
ARTICLE APPEARED
ON PAGE If - 7 -
NEW YORK DAILY NEWS
18 February 1987
A touch of flimsy
Gates testifies before Senate Intelligence Committee about his
advance knowledge of the Iran-Contra scandal. AP
By JOSEPH VOLZ
News Weshuglon Bureau
WASHINGTON - Robert Gates, President
Reagan's nominee to hea e , sai yesterday
that he learned about a possible Iran-Contra arms
connection two months before the scandal became
public but didn't tell Congress because his informa-
tion was "extraordinarily flimsy."
In fact, Gates, 43, and the
No. 2 man at the CIA,
claimed in a day of grilling
before the Senate Intelli-
gence Committee that he had
very little solid information
about the whole matter be-
cause Iran and the Contras
were pet projects of former
CIA Director William v.
fey, recovering from the
brain tumor surgery that
forced him to resign, was too
ill to testify.
Gates, a career CIA offi-
cial who would be the
youngest man ever to head
the nation's chief spy agency,
appeared to be trying to put
some distance between him-
self and his former boss, who
had enraged Intelligence
Committee members, includ-
ing New York's Daniel Pat-
rick Moynihan, for keeping
Congress in the dark about
covert CIA actions.
Mending fences
In an effort to pacify
angry members of the com-
mittee who complained they
had been deliberately
ignored by Casey, Gates
admitted: "The long period
of withholding went beyond
the bounds ... stretching the
comity between the two bran-
ches (executive and Con-
gress) to the breaking point."
He insisted that he would
press in the future to tell
Congress in advance of CIA
covert operations "except in
the most extraordinary cir-
cumstances." -
In those cases, Gates said
Congress should then be told
in a few days and that he
would consider resigning if
the President objected to
such disclosure.
Informal agreement
Gates' comments about
the Iran-Contra scheme
showed that despite his con-
tention he had an "informal"
agreement which put the
plan under Casey's control,
he did have key information
about the subject last Oct. 1,
less than two months before
Attorney General Edwin
Meese revealed the operation
to the rest of the country.
Gates said he was con-
cerned about asking ques-
tions at the time because
Congress had strictly limited
CIA involvement with the
Contras.
Said Gates yesterday: "I
considered in October and
November, and even today,
that it would have been ir-
responsible to report to these
bodies the flimsy spec-
ulation."
Declassified and Approved For Release 2011/12/13: CIA-RDP90-00965R000707030003-5