TOWER COMMISSION FEARED ANALYSIS WAS COMPROMISED

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP91-00587R000100240018-8
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: February 24, 2011
• Sequence Number: 18
• Publication Date: February 28, 1987
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

STAT
Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2011/02/24: CIA-RDP91-00587R000100240018-8
ARTICLE APPENM NEW YORK TIMES
ON PAGE - , 2t February 1987
Tawer Commission Feared
Analysis Was Compromised
STAT
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By FOX BUTTERFIELD
Special to Tiro New York Times
WASHINGTON, Feb. 27 - The
Tower Commission was concerned that
the Central Intelligence Agency al-
lowed some of its intelligence analysis
urity Council's goals and was critical
f William J. Caste the former Direc-
the White House, a commission mem-
ber said today.
The commission member, Brent
Scowcroft, a former national security
adviser to President Ford, said the
commission had found that only a
"handful of selected individuals" in the
C.I.A. were involved in the Iran-contra
affair, rather than the agency as a
whole.
In an interview, Mr. Scowcroft said
the most troublesome finding about the
. Was the C.I.A.
affected by
N.S.C. goals?
C.I.A.'s role was that we saw signs of
intelligence which included policy
recommendations."
Mr. Scowcroft was referring to a re-
vised Special National Intelligence
Estimate on Iran in May 1985 that
agency analysts provided after pres-
sure from members of the National Se-
curity Council who wanted a basis for
opening talks with Teheran. The re-
vised estimate superseded a 1984 re-
port that found little support for Amer-
ican influence in Iran.
"There was close coordination be-
tween the N.S.C. and the writing of the
revised estimate and we saw that as a
special caution," Mr. Scowcroft said.
"You don't want cooked intelligence."
The head of the C.I.A.'s analysis di-
rectorate at the time was R2W1LhL
Gates whose confirmation to succeed
asey as director has been held up
in the Senate by questions about his
role in the affair.
The commission named several
C.I.A. officials who helped Marine
Lieut. Col. Oliver L. North carry out the
arms shipments to Iran and cooper-
ated with him in supplying weapons to
the rebels in Nicaragua. They included
Clair Geor a the head of the agency's
directorate o operations; Charles
Allen, who was Colonel North's liaison
with the intelligence community, and
George Cave, a retired C.I.A. specialist
n ran w- served as a translator and
then held a number of meetings with
Colonel North and his Iranian contacts.
They became active after a secret
finding by President Reagan in Janu-
ary 1986 authorized the arms deals
with Iran. The commission said that
Mr. Casey, who supported the Iran
initiative, should have taken over the
operation, explained the risks to Presi-
dent Reagan and notified Congress as
legally required.
In particular, the commission
faulted Mr. Casey for not checking the
background of Manucher Ghorbanifar,
the Iranian arms dealer on whom the
N.S.C. relied, 'despite C.I.A.' doubts
about his honesty as early as 1980 and
his failure on a polygraph test.
The Tower Commission also re-
ported that a C.I.A. field officer in Cen-
tral America, whom it did not name but
who has been identified by Congres-
sional investigators as Thomas Casti
-
lo, the station chief in Costa tca, was
given a coding machine by Colonel
North to help in arranging weapons
deliveries to the contras.
After Mr. Castillo received one ship-
ment in April 1986, he asked Colonel
North, "When and where do you want
this stuff? We are prepared to deliver
as soon as you call for it."
Although the commission did not in-
dict the C.I.A. as an institution, one in-
telligence official said many in the
C.I.A. were reading the report today
with shock and dismay as they learned
about involvement of some colleagues.
The commission's focus on individu-
als in the C.I.A. was echoed today by
Senator Frank rkowskj, Republi-
can of Alaska, a member of the Senate
Intelligence Committee. "It isn't that
the system didn't work," he said of the
C.I.A. "It was really the human factor
that got us into this thing."
Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2011/02/24: CIA-RDP91-00587R000100240018-8