BLAME BILL: CASEY CONVENIENT SCANDAL SCAPEGOAT

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00965R000807550008-2
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: January 17, 2012
• Sequence Number: 8
• Publication Date: April 29, 1987
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/01/17: CIA-RDP90-00965R000807550008-2 STAT
SYRACUSE HERALD JOURNAL (NY)
29 March 1987
Casey convenient
BLAME BILL: s
candal scapegoat
It now appears that if the rather messy
Iran-Contra affair is tied up in a neat,
pretty package after all, it will be laid at
the clay feet of a perfect clay pigeon,
William J. Casey, former director of the
Central Intelligence Agency.
For tt i ose who have hated all the loose
ends - the high-ranking military types
who refused to testify about anything,
the president who can't remember any-
thing and the members of Congress
whose lives would be less complicated if
they didn't know the answers to such
questions as, "What happened to all the
private donations and proceeds from the
arms sale that were supposed to go to the
Contras?" - Casey is such a convenient
out.
During his tenure as CIA chief, we
often found ourselves in total disagree-
ment with Casey, believing his attacks
on the press, his schemes and his. petty
ways to be below the professional stan-
dards we might hope for from a person in
such a, highly sensitive national position..
A~ 11Z7
We didn't find the sly-smirking Casey
to be a very attractive person, but we
certainly felt sympathy for the man and
his family when it was learned that he
was critically ill with a brain tumor and
had to resign his post. At the same time,
we also understood when one skeptic -
Bob Woodward of the Washington Post
- tried to sneak into Casey's hospital
room to make sure the nation's top spook
was-indeed there ... and indeed ailing.
Casey, before being hospitalized last
year, flat out denied that he played any
role in the Iran deal or that he knew any-
thing about the funneling of money to-
~the Contras. Now that Casey cannot pro-
test, it looks as if investigators will be
able to blame just about everything on
him.
Congressional probers and their staffs
- Republican members, in fact - are
telling reporters that it looks as if Casey
influenced Lt. Col. Oliver North's role in
the arms scandal, probably telling North
that the president wanted him to assist
the Contras.
Making Casey the dupe would conven-
iently clear North, who probers now say
apparently was not really the renegade
he's been pictured to be. According to
this scenario, North was only a soldier
following what he thought were the
orders of his commander-in-chief.
("Jawohl, mein commandant!") It would
also place our puzzled president in a bet-
ter light.
"Casey's fingerprints are every-
where," one informant said.
And even Casey, the evil mastermind
behind all the shenanigans, doesn't come
off looking too evil. After all, he did have
a brain tumor...
Excuse us for saying so, but all this
sounds an awful lot like a Bill Casey "dis-
information special."
At this rate, in a few more weeks we'll
find out it wasn't Nixon who covered up
the Watergate burglary and payoffs, it
was Bill Casey. It wasn't Jimmy Swag-
gart who brought about the downfall of
TV evangelist Jim Bakker, it was Bill
Casey. Before these intrepid investiga-
tors are done, it may turn out that Casey
was Ivan the Terrible, Joseph Stalin and
the iceberg that sank the Titanic.
You know, it's really too bad Wood-
ward ,Wasn't able to get into that guy's
hospital room.
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/01/17: CIA-RDP90-00965R000807550008-2