FROM ACTIVISM TO ANALYSIS

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP99-01448R000301260029-6
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 27, 2016
• Document Release Date: May 21, 2013
• Sequence Number: 29
• Publication Date: February 7, 1987
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

Declassified and Approved For Release 2013/05/21 CIA-RDP99-01448R000301260029-6
ECONOMIST
7 February 1987
From activism to analysis
A patch of professional dullness will suit
the CIA well, too. Mr William Casey,
who had a cancerous tumour removed
from his brain in December, resigned as
director of central intelligence this week.
Fl His deputy, Mr Robert Gats&?has been
nominated to succeed him.
Mr Casey, who ran Me Reagan's 1980
presidential campaign, was a man after
the president's heart. He was an activist,
winning money and strength for the CIA,
and building up its readiness for covert
operations. He created the Nicaraguan
contra army, leading the CIA into a
number of controversial actions, above
all the 1984 mining of Nicaragua's har-
bours. The guerrilla campaign against
the Sandinists came to be known as
"Casey's war". His relations with the
congressional intelligence committees
were by no means his strong point.
Mr Gates may be the man to win back
congressional confidence in the agency.
His 20 years with the CIA (he is still only
43 years old) have nearly all been on the
analytical, not the clandestine, side. A
respected specialist on the Soviet Union,
he is described as an ideal bureaucrat.
Nothing, at this stage, could be better.
The Senate intelligence committee is
expected to hurry his confirmation
through. The chairman, Senator David
Boren, has said that he will not use the
occasion for a full-scale review of the
agency's part?as shipping agent for
weapons on their way to Iran and banker
for the surreptitious profits from the
WASHINGTON. DC
sale?in the Iraguan affair. The senators
can, ? however, be expected to ask Mr
Gates why he did not pass on his suspi-
cions when, early last October, he and
Mr Casey first heard rumours of the
contra .connection. The committee may
also use the hearings to ask Mr Gates
one or two questions on what the CIA,
and in particular a former station chief in
Costa Rica, may have been up to during
the years when official aid to the contras
was forbidden by Congress.
sates must build confidence
npriassified and Approved For Release 2013/05/21 CIA-RDP99-01448R000301260029-6