WEBSTER'S FITNESS...

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP99-01448R000301290020-2
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: August 16, 2012
• Sequence Number: 20
• Publication Date: March 7, 1987
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

STAT
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/08/16: CIA-RDP99-01448R000301290020-2
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ON PAGE BOSTON GLOBE
7 March 1987
Webster's fitness . . .
The House and Senate Judiciary commit-
tees are among the least pork-laden in Con-
gress. Members of these committees pass out
no patronage and distribute no largess; they
focus more on civil rights and civil liberties. It
is all the more impressive, therefore, that both
committees have unanimously praised Wil-
liam H. Webster, director of the Federal Bu-
reau of Investigation and President Reagan's
choice to be director of central intelligence.
William Casey, the president's first choice
to head the agency, was a veteran of the CIA's
World War II predecessor, the Office of Strate-
gic Services. In OSS days, standard equipment
for an operative was a parachute, weaponry
and hard currency to aid partisans or topple a
government.
In today's world, the CIA's philosophy
needs to be based on the rule of law. That phi-
losophy seems to have animated Webster's
life. A graduate of Amherst College and a veter-
an of World War II and Korea, he has been a
US attorney and a federal district judge and
? ?
was named to the Eighth Circuit Court of Ap-
peals in 1973.
In 1978, President Carter appointed him di-
rector of the FBI, an agency undergoing the
same loss of confidence as the CIA has had in
the past few years. FBI agents were accused of
disobeying the law in so-called "black bag"
cases and of trying to escape congressional
oversight.
"Congress is oversighting the hell out of us,
and they should," he said in 1979. "We need to
work on a charter. We need standards of ac-
ceptability." Webster restored the FBI's repu-
tation in both instances. He de-Hooverizeci the
FBI with congressional help, and with similar
help may de-Caseyize the CIA soon.
"We'll miss you, Judge," Rep. Don Ed-
wards (D-Calif.), told Webster at a hearing last
week. That salute from a stalwart champion
of the Constitution is heartening. If Webster's
departure is a loss for the FBI, then in the al-
phabet soup of endangered liberties, it seems
good news for the CIA and the USA.
. and Gates' tinge
He had about him "the Smell of Irangate,"
said President Reagan's old friend Paul Laxalt,
explaining why the president withdrew his
nomination of Robert Gates to become director
of central intelligence. A less pungent phras-
ing of the same judgment came from the chair-
man of the Senate Intelligence Committee, Da-
vid Boren (D-Okla.), who said, "Mr. Gates was
a victim of circumstances."
Republican and Democratic senators alike
were reluctant to confirm Gates' nomination
before they had complete answers to several
grave questions about his role in the Reagan
administration's covert conduct of foreign
policy. It is too soon to judge whether Gates
has been treated unfairly.
As Gates said in his letter to the president.
however, "a prolonged period of uncertainty
would be harmful" to the CIA. This inescap-
able period of uncertainty would also have
been politically harmful to a president who is
suddenly compelled to prove he is capable of
governing.
Time and squads of investigators will likely
reveal the truth about Gates: that he was a
victim of guilt by association, or that he
helped create those circumstances that made
his confirmation impossible.
In a February 1986 speech at Harvard's
Kennedy School of Government, Gates, argu-
ing that scholars ought to be employable by
the CIA, said, "Our very existence depends on
our reputation for integrity and for reliable
and objective assessments." Today that decla-
ration sounds like a clairvoyant summation of
the Tower Commission's criticism of the CIA
while Gates was the No. 2 man.
The commission's report found that the
CIA failed to uphold the "integrity and objec-
tivity of the intelligence process." The report
criticized the CIA, explicitly and implicitly, for
crossing "the line between intelligence and ad-
vocacy of a particular policy."
This is a profound criticism. It implies that
foolish and possibly illegal actions were taken
because intelligence analysts pandered to
what Gates, at Harvard, called "rigid ideologi-
cal conceptions."
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/08/16: CIA-RDP99-01448R000301290020-2