DESPITE RESERVATION, GATES LIKELY TO BE NEXT US.S. SPY CHIEF

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP99-01448R000301270041-1
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 2
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: August 9, 2012
• Sequence Number: 41
• Publication Date: February 22, 1987
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

STAT
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/08/10: CIA-RDP99-01448R000301270041-1
REUTERS
22 February 1987 RIE ONLY
DESPITE RESERVATION, GATES LIKELY TO BE NEXT US.S. SPY CHIEF
BY SUE BAKER
WASHINGTON
Barring new revelations in the next two weeks, Robert Gates appears likely
to be confirmed by the Senate as America's youngest spy chief despite
reservations over his role in the Iran arms scandal.
Gates, President Reagan's nominee to replace ailing William Casey as director
of the Central Intelligence Agency ( CIA) , emerged battered but intact
from two days of often stormy hearings in the Senate intelligence committee last
week.
"He was obviously walking a very tight line between trying not to offend the
White House and yet reassuring Congress the same mistakes won't happen again," a
committee aide said.
But the committee has scheduled another session with Gates later this month
-- this time behind closed doors -- and a news report that appeared two days
after his open testimony could give already skeptical senators additional
ammunition.
The Washington Post reported on Friday that Gates wrote a CIA paper in July
1985 proposing a U.S.-Egyptian attack on Libya. Gates, CIA intelligence
analysis head at the time, said the operation could help "redraw the map of
North Africa."
The committee's secret session was also planned to fall after the release of
the Tower Commission report next week.
The Tower panel, created by. Reagan to investigate the White House National
Security Council (NSC), is expected to shed damaging new light on the Iran arms
scandal. But senators are also interested in anything it may reveal about Gates.
The 20-year CIA veteran, under fire last week from Republicans as well as
opposition Democrats who control the committee, was forced repeatedly to defend
his actions since the Iran operation took shape in mid-1985.
Exposure of the administration's covert arms sales to Iran, which is on the
State Department's list of states supporting terrorism, deepened into a scandal
after last November's disclosure that fired NSC aide Lt.Col. Oliver North may
have diverted funds to U.S.-backed Nicaraguan rebels.
In his testimony before the committee, Gates:
-- Denied the agency had deliberately tried to mislead Congress by omitting
key details from previous secret testimony to the intelligence panels.
-- Denied the CIA broke any laws in participating in the secret operation,
although he conceded that serious mistakes were made in its role of facilitating
the arms shipments and arranging for financial transfers.
-- Expressed his disapproval of the Iran arms sales, which Reagan said were
to reach out to so-called moderates in Iran but which a Senate report said
degenerated into a swap of arms for American hostages held by pro-Iranian forces
in Lebanon.
-- Regretted he had not tried harder to convince his superiors that the
intelligence panels should be notified of the covert program, as it is required
to do by law.. Reagan, in a January 1986 directive called a "finding," ordered nd
Casey not to report to the committees. WNW
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/08/10: CIA-RDP99-01448R000301270041-1
 Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/08/10: CIA-RDP99-01448R000301270041-1
Attempted to distance himself from Casey, saying the former director "took
the lead on Iran and Central America and I took the lead on other issues.
-- Agreed with the administration that so-called "oral" findings are valid
and he would comply, but said he would immediately follow up with a request for
written orders. A dispute has arisen over whether Reagan verbally approved two
Israeli shipments of U.S. arms in the fall of 1985 -- months before Reagan's
finding waived a U.S. law barring such sales.
-- Defended his failure to notify the committee of indications he received of
a possible diversion of arms sales profits to the "contras" nearly two months
before it became public. He called the evidence "extraordinarily flimsy."
Gates pledged to comply scrupulously with congressional requirements for
prior notification of covert actions and said if a delay was needed for national
security reasons, notification would come within a matter of days.
The committees were never notified of the Iran initiative.
Gates also said he would consider resigning if he were ever ordered to
withhold notificiation for more than a few days.
But Arizona Democrat Dennis DeConcini questioned Gates' resolve, asking, "Do
we have somebody here that's going to have the courage and the credibility to do
what the law says regardless of what some president says he wants done."
The picture that appeared to emerge from the two days of hearings was one of
Gates as a loyal deputy who opposed several aspects of.the program, expressed
his disapproval, but in the end complied with orders from his superiors- -- a
picture that disturbed some senators.
Sen. Arlen Specter, a Pennsylvania Republican, said he had deep reservations
about a "high-ranking number-two man who plays it safe, doesn't speak up and
says 'well in hindsight it should all have been done differently."'
"It seems to me to provide incentives for that kind of conduct and for a
repetition of having this committee kept in the dark," Specter said during the
hearings.
But Frank Murkowski, an Alaska Republican, disagreed.
"We're addressing a man's qualifications to do the job, not the kind of a job
that the former director did," said Murkowski. "And to garner from that that Mr.
Gates is going to make those same mistakes I think is very unfair."
But committee aides, and even some senators planning to oppose Gates in a
vote likely to come early next month, concede the 43-year-old career
intelligence officer is likely to become the youngest director in the CIA's
40-year history.
".He's not in serious trouble ... unless the Tower Commission reveals
something ... or something comes up at the closed session," the committee aide
said.
DeConcini reluctantly agreed. "If I had to guess right now, or predict, he
probably will get the votes," he said.
Gates, the CIA's deputy director since last April, has been acting director
since Casey was incapacitated by brain surgery last December. Casey resigned
last month.
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/08/10: CIA-RDP99-01448R000301270041-1