WILLIAM CASEY/TOMAS CASTILLO

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP99-01448R000301290001-3
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 4
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: August 16, 2012
• Sequence Number: 1
• Publication Date: March 30, 1987
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/08/16: CIA-RDP99-01448R000301290001-3
STAT
RADIO TV REPORTS, INC.
4701 WILLARD AVENUE, CHEVY CHASE, MARYLAND 20815 [phone]
FOR
PROGRAM
DATE
SUBJECT
PURLIC AFFAIRS STAFF
Morning Edition WAMU-FM
STATION
March 30, 1987 7:40 AM
William Casey/Tomas Castillo
CITY
NPR Network
Washington, DE
8-08 EDWARDS: In recent weeks, the investigations into
the Iran-contra affair have brought to light a mass of evidence
that some administration officials set out to deliberately and
systematically violate congressional restrictions on aid to the
Nicaraguan rebels.
Former National Security Council staff, member Oliver
North seems to have been the organizer and manager of those
efforts. But there have been repeated reports that the plan to
skirt congressional restrictions on contra aid was conceived and
launched by then CIA Director William Casey.
NPR's Jim Angle ? has more.
JIM ANGLE: People keep looking for who gave 011ie North
his marching orders, said one congressional source. And if it
wasn't the President, some think it must have been Bill Casey.
In fact, a number of officials have been telling journalists that
the effort to, aid the contras, in violation of congressional
restrictions, was a Casey initiative. One administration source
told NPR that it w.as Casey who conceived of the ooeration and
appointed 011ie to carry- it out. This source, who asked to
remain anonymous, said that key officials at the CIA also knew
about North's efforts.
On Saturday, the Los Angeles Times quoted anonymous
sources as saying that Casey personally supervised North's secret
program to help the contras during a time when most forms of
support were prohibited. The paper quoted a former associate of
North's as saying that 011ie was reporting to Casey. Last week
the New York Times quoted congressional sources as saying Casey's
OFFICES IN: WASHINGTON D.C. ? NEW YORK ? LOS ANGELES ? CHICAGO ? DETROIT ? AND OTHER PRINCIPAL CITIES
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fingerprints were all over the operation. The article referred
to Casey as the mastermind of the secret aid plan.
An intelligence official rejects these charges as tire-at
conspiracy theories. "Every guy who has a cockamamy story or
wants to stab somebody in the back is going to say 'Bill Casey
made me do .it.' That is especially true now," he said, "because
it appears that Casey will never be able to testify on the
.matter."
Nevertheless., administration officials speaking
privately continue to point to .Casey and offer at least
circumstantial evidence to support their claims.
Many of the suspicions about Casey's role are tied to
011ie North's access to and reliance on CIA assistance both to
run the Iran arms sales and to carry out a lengthy operation to
funnel money and arms to the contras. When others asked for help
from the CIA, said one source familiar with North's actions, the
agency wanted it in writing from 100 angels. But 011ie seemed to
be able to pick up the phone, and the ocean parted for him.
A number of officials have said that Casey and'North
talked often. Casey had a second office in the same building as
the NSC staff and stopped by North's office on many occasions.
The two men would talk at length, North's associates have said.
There was also .a personal dimension to the relationship. One
source said that when North was fired and faced expensive legal
problems, Casey even contributed to his leoal defense fund.
Other sources said there were many other things the two men
could have discussed since North was running the
counter-terrorism program as well as the contra account. Their
association, said one critic of contra aid, is not necessarily
evidence that Casey was running 011ie's contra aid efforts.
The most damaging evidence about CIA involvement may
come from the former CIA station chief in Costa Rica. Tomas
Castillo, as he's known, was recalled from his post and will be
forced into early retirement for helping North 'deliver weapons to
the contras at a time when it was illegal to do so. North sent
sophisticated coding devices to Castillo and to retired General
Richard Secord, who functioned as the field commander for aid to
the contras. They were used to maintain a rapid communications
link between North and the others to coordinate the times and the
locations of air drops.
Ian Crawford was a crewmember on one of the supply
planes that was dropping weapons at night about 20 mnutes' flying
time inside Nicaragua.
IAN CRAWFORD: You were looking for small drop zone
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markings which are either camp fires, lanterns, or something like
this, in a specific pattern on the ground. So what happens is
the contras would relay to us through some unknown channel what
their coordinates, their map coordinates on the ground were.
ANGLE: Sometimes they could be off a mile or two,
Crawford said, as they were on the night on April 10th, 1986.
CRAWFORD: We're flying and we're looking for where they
are. We couldn't find them that night. The drop zone .wasn't
marked bright enough for us to see from the air, and we were just
not in the right place.
ANGLE: So the plane returned to El Salvador where the
crew told their contacts what had happened. Twenty-four hours
later, the contra camp was ready.
CRAWFORD: And then on Friday night, the 11th, we flew
the same mission again and found the drop zone this time. It was
quite brightly lit and no problem in spotting it the second
night.
ANGLE: The CIA Inspector-General found that Tomas
Castillo had violated agency policy by participating in the
communications network that managed these drops. Rut the agency
has maintained that no other CIA officials were involved. One
intelligence official said that Castillo did it on his own
without any knowledge of authorization from any officer in the
agency. Another source, however, said that Castillo, who has
been granted limited immunity, will testify that everything he
did was done with the knowledge of his superiors. This source
says that two or three key officials at the agency gave tacit
apnroval for Castillo's actions. They include the Director of
the Central American Task Force and Clare George, the Deputy
Director of Operations, and the whole 0-ling was blessed by Casey,
he said.
According to this official, the CIA's Inspector-General
is considering disciplinary actions for a number of agency
personnel for their involvement in the contra aid network. CIA
spokesmen would not comment on the Inspector-General's
investigation, which is continuing.
Another piece of evidence was made public in the Tower
Board's report. It cites a memo from Colonel North to National
Security Adviser John Poindexter. North proposed that when the
congressional ban on aid was removed, the CIA should buy out $4
1/2 million in assets of Project Democracy, the name for his
contra funding efforts. Poindexter wrote back a message that
suggested William Casey and CIA Deputy Director Robert Gates were
also aware of the secret funding effort. "I did tell Gates,"
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Poindexter wrote, "that I thought the private effort should be.
phased out. Please talk to Casey about this.. I agree with you."
A Casey-North operation could have been motivated by
several. reasons. One, putting 'North in charge would keep the CIA
.out of it as much as possible. That was a concern expressed by
Casey and Gates in a luncheon meeting with North last October.
Gates 'described the conversation during testimony before the
'Senate Intelligence Committee.
DEPUTY DIRECTOR ROBERT GATES: I asked Colonel North at
the lunch if there were any CIA involvement, direct or indirect,
in the private funding effort on behalf of the. contras. He told
us the CIA is completely clean, auote, unquote, of any contact
with those organizing and funding the operation.
ANGLE: Some congressional sources have said assigning
management of the operation to Oliver North was not a way to
shield the agency if CIA personnel were going to he involved.
Several sources said that even if Casey initiated the North
effort, he might not have kept up with the details and might not have
known exactly what North was doing. Some sources speculated that
Casey might have been motivated most by the knowledge that North
could pull it off better than anyone else. "011ie was Casey's
kind of guy," said one former associate. "011ie knew how to get
things done, .now to work the system. And he was implementing
policies that Casey agreed with," the official said. "011ie was
the perfect covert operations' officer."
In all the reports about Casey's involvement, there is
little hard evidence, but many accusations from unnamed
officials. One congressional source is suspicious of all the
reports. He knows that Casey is out of the picture and could be
a convenient person to absorb the blame. "If they can hang it
all on Casey," this source warned, "and North says Casey told me
to do it, that would be ideal from a lot of peoples' point of
view."
I'm Jim Angle in Washington.
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