CASEY REJECTED GRENADA REPORT, FORMER CIA ANALYST SAYS

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP91-00587R000100590013-5
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: March 8, 2011
• Sequence Number: 13
• Publication Date: February 13, 1985
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

Approved For Release 2011/03/08: CIA-RDP91-00587R000100590013-5
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MIAMI H RALD
13 February 1985
Casey rejected Grenada report,
former CIA analyst says
Around the Americas
By ALFONSO CHARDY
Herald Washington Bureau
WASHINGTON - The former
CIA analyst who charged that
Director Wil-,
Liam Casey al-
tered a secret
report on Mexi-
co now says
that Casey also
rejected. a re-
port on Cuban
troop strength
in Grenada at
the time of the
U.S.-led 'inva-
Sion.
Former CIA
agent John.Hor-
Casey
ton, writing for :.. ` . U.S. contention that many Cubans
the February issue of Foreign .'were ere hiding in Grenada's hills.
Service journal, blames the"The Sunday after the inva-
Reagan administration for a string Sion," Horton wrote, ."members of
of intelligence failures, among the intelligence community found'
them- the Grenada invasion itself themselves sitting around a table
and the mining. of Nicaraguan. in Washington, assigned with the
harbors. A .. task 'of arriving at a_ meaningful
Both the CIA and the Pentagon: 'number lof Cuban troops). We ....
declined comment on Horton's finally concluded that no one
allegations. But administration remained in. the hills."
sources familiar with CIA proce- "Some officials," however?
dure denied the validity of his found "a serious fault," 'he said.'
claims that officials alter intelli- One person "with some responsi-
gence information to conform to
policy.
Horton, a CIA operations officer
from 1948 to 1975, served in
1983-84 as the chief Latin Ameri-
can officer for the agency's Na-
tional Intelligence Council, respon-'
sible for preparing foreign
intelligence estimates.
Horton left the CIA last year,
claiming that Casey had altered
one of his reports to suggest that
strife in Central America could
because it did not give a high
enough estimate of the number of
Cubans on the island and did not
support administration claims that
Grenada's Cuban-built airport had
a military purpose.
The CIA had assigned Horton
and other analysts to calculate the
number of Cubans in Grenada to
reconcile differing U.S. and Cuban
estimates. The United States
claimed there were more than
1.000 Cubans on the island and
Cuba counted 786, mostly con-
-struction workers.
Cuba's figure turned out to be
correct, and Horton said his esti-
mate not only supported the
bility :.. although not himself an
intelligence officer" read the re-
port and said "'I think it stinks.'
Knowing him to be close to CIA
Director William Casey, I went to
see Casey as soon as I could.- He
was less abrupt, merely finding it
'unimaginative.'
"I can only suppose that the
assessment was 'unimaginative'
because of what it did not say,"
Horton wrote. "For example, -we.,
could have said that the Cuban
create turmoil in Mexico. ' construction workers were actual-
In his Journal article, The Real ly combat troops in. disguise, or
Intelligence Failure, Horton that the arms found in Grenada
charged that Casey disapproved a were destined to be used - to
Grenada report he prepared short- overthrow friendly governments
ly after the Oct. 25, 1983. invasion elsewhere in the Caribbean, or
that the airfield was not for
tourism but for Soviet reconnais.
sance aircraft."
Horton said the "need for securi-
ty and the quite justified obsession
with leaks" may hate led policy-
makers to limit participation in
intelligence debate, thereby result.
ing in bad policies. He said the
decision to mine Nicaraguan ports
last year was made by senior
policymakers without consulting
professional intelligence officers
who might have advised against it.
One administration source fa-
miliar with the CIA* criticized
Horton's description of the agen-
cy's internal workings, saying the
former analyst had portrayed as
conflict "the normal tension of the
give-and-take between analysts
and policymakers."
Congressional sources briefed
by the CIA on the Horton resigna-
tion said Casey revised the Mexico
assessment not to fit policy, but to
give an early warning of possible
trouble there as a result 'of Central
America's conflicts.
Approved For Release 2011/03/08: CIA-RDP91-00587R000100590013-5