CASEY REVIVED DEMORALIZED CIA

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00965R000807550024-4
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: January 17, 2012
• Sequence Number: 24
• Publication Date: February 3, 1987
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

Declassified and Approved For Release 2012/01/17: CIA-RDP90-00965R000807550024-4
. AL_._
3 February 1987
Casey Revived
Demoralized CIA
But Errant Operations
Again Embroil Agency
By Bob Woodward
wa,hmgmn Pat Sufi wr,trr
In six years as director of the Central
Intelligence Agency, William J. Casey en.
ergetically rebuilt an agency that had been
battered by scandal and demoralized by re-
trenchment. For a time Casey's CIA rode
high, but when illness removed him from
the agency late last year, it was once again
embroiled in scandal caused by covert op-
erations that went astray.
Casey's determination and his ability to
respond to the yearnings of President Rea-
gan in the policy arena made him one of the
NEWS
ANALYSIS
most influential figures in the
administration. He used his
status as Reagan's 1980 cam-
paign manager and friend to create a special
place for himself among the president's as-
sociates.
With the Defense Department strongly
inclined to avoid military action and a State
Department often hesitant to act, Casey's
CIA was able to fill a vacuum in the Reagan
administration, and play as large a role in
foreign policy as it ever has in its 30-year
history.
Casey helped formulate what later be-
came known as the Reagan Doctrine-the
.supposedly covert support opera.
tions to aid anticommunist resis-
tance movements. He leaves the
CIA with a number of such opera-
tions in full swing;. Afghanistan,
Cambodia, Ethiopi Angola and
Nicaragua.
Casey had an abiding confidence
that an intelligence agency could be
used to make a difference in the
world, and he set out to do so. He
nearly tripled the CIA's budget,
significantly upgrading its intelli-
gence capabilities and reviving its
covert action arm,
"A person with lots of ideas is
going to make some mistakes," he
once said., "He is going to have
some good ideas and some bad
ideas .... I don't-get terribly upset
about mistakes." Said one of his
senior deputies, "His passion is
risk."
Casey's penchant for secrecy and
activism-"solutions now," as one
of his former deputies calls it-may
have helped revive the agency. But
they also account for no small part
of the Reagan administration's cur-
rent troubles in the Iran-contra af-
fair. While State and Defense kept
their distance from the Iran initi.
ative, Casey understood the pres.
ident's desires and supported the
[ran opening.
Casey seemed at home in an ad-
ministration that has often impro-
vised its foreign policy initiatives. A
former senior national security of-
ficial in the Reagan White House
said, "We have an ad hoc, uncoor-
dinated, let's-try-this, shoot-from-
the-hip method of making our na-
tional security affairs decisions. Our
actions are based primarily upon
emotion .... "
Whatever the emotion of the mo-
ment. Reagan and Casey generally
agreed. Casey seemed to under-
stand Reagan's response to sym-
bols. When opportunities arose-or
were created-to assist anticom-
munist resistance movements, the
question for Casey was not whether
to help but how to do it-at once.
In his first months at the CIA in
1981, Casey was surprised by the
sense of caution that pervaded ev-
ery activity. He found that the
agency's analytical efforts often
addressed obscure issues. He un-
dertook-successfully, by many
accounts-to insure that the papers
and estimates addressed the issues
that White House and other policy-
makers would have to deal with.
To revive the clandestine ser-
vice, Casey named a former Reagan
campaign aide, Max C. Hugel, as
the deputy director of operations
(DDO). Hugel had no previous CIA
experience, and Casey was strongly
advised against the appointment.
After two months on the job, Hugel
resigned after publication of alle-
gations about his previous business.
and stock dealings.
Casey has had operations veter
-
ans in the DDO post since, but he
took a direct hand in the secret sup-
port operation to the Nicaraguan
contras approved first by the pres-
ident Dec. 1, 1981.
Casey and his deputies created
the contra army, at its peak a force
of about 15,000 guerrilla tighters.
The CIA's controversial 1984 min-
ing of Nicaraguan harbors was pos-
sible because Casey created the
capability.
Inside the CIA many called it
"Casey's War." As congressional
support ebbed and flowed, Casey
persisted. "He wanted the contras
to win," said one associate, "and
everything in his heart told him it
was possible. But the pragmatic
side told him it was impossible."
His "hands-on" approach to the'
~'icaraguan war was characteristic.
Casey was an activist director who
involved himself in many details.
One of his former senior associates'
observed that Casey served, in of-'
fect, as his own deputy director, his'
own deputy for intelligence and fdr'
operations. Evidently, Casey never'
shared all the secrets he knew with'
anyone inside the CIA. I,
His passion created a "can-do"
confidence within the CIA and tbe"
other intelligence agencies. Aga+'
lysts and operators felt that if the>
took a chance and were wropg,_
Casey would back them up and take-
the heat himself as he did many,
times.
By law Casey is required to share'
his secrets with the congressional
intelligence oversight committees`,
On this he balked, and never
achieved the degree of rapport.or'
candor that both Republicans and
Democrats felt was necessary.
"Don't brief, limit disclosure,"
once told a CIA associate, and th
uttered an expletive to describe all
members of Congress. .t-
Casey suffered a number of sit-
backs and embarrassments. An
agent recruited and trained on his
watch for duty in Moscow-Ed-
ward Howard-betrayed important
CIA secrets to the Soviets, they
defected to Moscow. CIA plans td
conduct preemptive strikes against;
terrorists appeared in the news mler,
dia, as did a presidentially author-,
ized covert operation to undermine
the regime of Libyan leader Moam-
mar Gadhafi.
But whatever problems he eli-
countered, Casey retained Reagad'v
unflagging support. One White'
House official put it simply late last'
year: "Ronald Reagan loves l4
Casey."
Declassified and Approved For Release 2012/01/17: CIA-RDP90-00965R000807550024-4