MR. CASEY STEPS DOWN

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP99-01448R000301260072-8
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: August 15, 2012
• Sequence Number: 72
• Publication Date: February 3, 1987
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

STAT
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/08/15: CIA-RDP99-01448R000301260072-8
Aap, WASHINGTON POST
3 February 1987
Mr. Casey Steps Down
ILLNESS HAS now forced William Casey's res-
ignation as the government's intelligence chief.
No one who followed the sad story of Mr.
Casey's battle with cancer will be surprised that he
has been compelled to go. Mr. Casey was the
president's chief intelligence adviser and also direc-
tor of the lead intelligence organization, the Central
Intelligence Agency. As such he had the central role
in delivering on Mr. Reagan's campaign promise?
he was his 1980 campaign manager?to reshape
American intelligence to make it the servant of a
newly assertive foreign policy. This is sometimes
described as "restoring" the CIA's morale, its budg-
et, its status in Washington and, not least, its
capabilities in analysis and operations?especially
support of anticommunist guerrilla movements.
Mr. Casey, charging hard, also crossed institu-
tional and policy lines with abandon?too much
abandon?and as a consequence came into sharp
conflict with others in the administration on
whose territory he tromped and whose mission he
rather casually claimed for his own. Inevitably,
the CIA found itself in a tense situation with its
congressional overseers, most recently in respect
to the Iran-contra affair.
The question .of replacing Mr. Casey stirred a
vigorous battle inside Republican ranks, chiefly
because the administration's persisting internal
divisions opened the possibility that a new intelli-
gence chief could tip the balance one way or
another. Sounding the alarm, Human Events
urged the president to "pick someone in the
Reaganaut mold, a strong non-careerist who is
firmly willing to buck the bureaucracy and vigor-
ously implement the sound intelligence policies
that the president himself fully embraces."
Yesterday the president announced his choice
of a career man, Robert Gates, a 43-year-old
Soviet specialist who came up on the analytical
side of CIA and served as William Casey's deputy.
Even though others were asked first to take this
job, the appointment of Mr. Gates suggests the
president rejects the suggestion that the bureau-
cracy and "sound policy" are natural enemies. It
also suggests that Mr. Reagan, needing no new
public controversies, wants a professional policy-
neutral intelligence directorate. Mr. Gates' con-
firmation hearings should provide a useful oppor-
tunity for the Senate to explore, and bargain out,
the terms on which American intelligence will
operate for the next two years.
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/08/15: CIA-RDP99-01448R000301260072-8