WILLIAM CASEY WAS MORE THAN ROGUISH

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00965R000807540040-7
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: January 12, 2012
• Sequence Number: 40
• Publication Date: October 1, 1987
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

ST Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for
STAT
William Casey Was
More Than Roguish
Paris. believe that the administration
PART OF THE American public
and its political elite is crucial-
ly alienated from the political
system as it exists. The actions of
William Casey of the Central Intelli-
gence Agency. as revealed - or pur-
portedly revealed since there are de-
nials - by Bob Woodward of The
nonetheless was staying within the
letter of the law. or of what it willful-
ly construed to be the letter of the
law. Since the Iran-contra hearings
we know otherwise. It operated out-
side the law, and Mr. Casey wanted
to make such an arrangement per-
manent by setting up a non-official
secret service to be at the personal
disposal of the president and himself
- in U. Col. Oliver North's phrase.
an "off-the-shelf. self-sustaining.
stand-alone" secret service. Mr. Cas-
By William Pfaff
Washington Post, are the conse-
quences.
If what Mr. Casey did had merely
been his own rogue projects, they
would not be worth taking so seri-
ously. but of course they were much
more. They faithfully reflected be-
liefs fundamental to the larger poli-
cies of the Reagan Administration.
They pose a problem which critics of
that administration must recognize
- the perceived dilemma of people
who passionately believe that the
democratic majority in the United
States, by Its unwillingness to coun-
tenance an adventuresome and in-
terventionist secret policy. Jeopard-
izes democracy's survival.
It has been apparent for some
time that the administration was do-
ing all that it could to evade congres.
sional restrictions on clandestine op-
erations, particularly those directed
against the Sandinista government
in Nicaragua - considered by Mr.
Casey "an occupied country" in a
war, and "not even an undeclared
war," between the Soviet Union and
the West.
Until Irangate it was possible to
ey allegedly put such a group togeth-
er to attempt the murder of the lead-
er of the Hezbollah Party in
Lebanon. He succeeded only in mur-
dering 80 passers-by.
The United States has arrived at
a point where people elected or ap-
pointed to execute the law find the
law itself an obstacle to a mission
which they believe history, rather
than the public, has confided to
them. Mr. Casey. Colonel North,
Rear Adm. John Poindexter, plus
those working with them, and the
very large number of people who
heatedly defend what they have
done. all consider themselves agents
of a nobler cause than either the law
or the Congress provides. .
People who believe they possess a
mission beyond the constraints of
law and duly expressed public opin-
ion will not be stopped by more laws..
Those who believe, as did Mr. Casey,
that the world is in a great crisis,
that a third world war is already
waged in the shadows. that it is the
1930s all over again, will conclude
that those who write laws
restraining American secret opera-
tions must be fools, or duped by the
enemy, or appeasers, or collabora-
tors under the enemy's sway. They
will believe that breaking or evading
the law is for heroes, and that one
day they will be understood and
cheered for having done so.
It is a bad road that the United
States has been traveling. A certain
capability for covert action is neces-
sary to modern governments, and
used intelligently this can serve the
common good - although the rec-
ord of intelligent use is not very im-
pressive even among those, like Brit-
ain and France, who order these
things better than the United States
has been able to do.
i ne New York Times
The Washington Times
The Wall Street Journal _
The Christian Science Monitor
New York Daily News
USA Today
The Chicago Tribune
Date
The CIA has itself to blame for
part of the trouble it has expert.
enced. A lack of - trict professional
conscience In th1: past led it into
crimes and follies meant to please
presidents - Kennedy, Johnson.
Nixon - wiWng to turn a blind eye
to Illegality, That exploded on the
Agency in the " 1970s and left it
CIA scruple, since then were re-
sponsible for Mr. Casey's plan to cre-
ate still another agency outside the
law, and for the bizarre transforma.
tion of the National security council
Into a covert operations agency. The
CIA can't be blamed, although it will
undoubtedly PRY Pad thed price.
of The larger problem is that a part
opinion and a part of U.S.
national Imminent - even leadership amp ~alyp~
world crisis that the American sys-
tem no longer suits them. They want
a president free to act, so long as he
is In office, without restraint in for-
eign relations. and without account-
ha et bCongress. ecause then United' States
Constitution doesn't allow it. Thus
they have disregarded the law in the
conviction that world crisis confers
on them a right to unconstitutional
action.
This, of course. has been subver.
sive of representative government
and of the Constitution but they jus-
tify it. saying we are all on the brink
of totalitarian conquest under which
law and the Constitution would well
and truly collapse.
One can understand what these
people believe, and why. but it is
useless to argue with them. to tell
them that they are destroying what
they claim to be protecting. They are
patriots, in their way, but they are
zealots; in the end. they are not in
democracy's camp but in the other.
This is too bad for them: but If they
had their way it could also prove too
bad for the rest of us.
Page 2 ,
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/01/12 : CIA-RDP90-00965R000807540040-7