RON'S CIA SHOCKER

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP99-01448R000301290093-2
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: August 16, 2012
• Sequence Number: 93
• Publication Date: March 1, 1987
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

STAT
C Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/08/16: CIA-RDP99-01448R000301290093-2
ARTICLE APPEARED
- ON PAGE
NEW YORK DAILY NEWS
1 March 1987
:11AE UV V
CHANGING OF THE GUARD
Ron's CIA shocker
Offered job to chief
of North's legal firm
By HARRISON RAINIE
News Washington Bureau
WASHINGTON?President Reagan offered the
job of CIA director to famed criminal attorney
Edward Bennett Williams in January?a move
that has shocked some observers as an attempted
I
"political payoff."
Williams' law firm repre-
sents Oliver North, the central
figure in the Iran-Contra scan-
dal, whose testimony could
potentially ruin the adminis-
tration. Williams turned down
the job, citing health reasons,
according to reliable Senate
sources.
The disclosure about Wil-
liams comes at the same time
that there is mounting suspi-
cion Reagan will withdraw
the nomination of Robert
Gates as CIA director. It is in-
creasingly unlikely that Gates
will be confirmed by the Sen-
ate in the wake of strong criti-
cism of his performance as
deputy CIA director during
the administration's covert
actions in the IranCon scan-
dl.
Nixon parallel?
Several sources have drawn
a parallel between the offer
made to Williams and the con-
troversial offer to run the FBI
that President Richard Nixon
made in 1973 to Judge Mat-
thew Byrne when he was pre-
siding over a Watergate-relat-
ed criminal case?an offer
damned in many quarters as a
kind of political bribe at-
tempt. (Byrne eventually
spurned the offer and went
public with the story.)
"It certainly gives the ap-
pearance that Williams was
being offered a political pay-
off," said one angry Senate
Democrat.
A partner in Williams' firm,
Brendan Sullivan, is North's
lead attorney. Sullivan has
mounted a vigorous defense
by trying to block investiga-
tors' attempts to get North to
testify without immunity and?
to get access to key documents
and bank accounts that will
show what happened to tens
of millions of dollars North
controlled In the Iran arms
sales and the private effort to
help the Contras in Nicara-
gua.
Effort to block probe
Sullivan also filed suit in
Federal District Court here
last week trying to end the
Iran-Contra investigation by
special prosecutor Lawrence
Walsh and Sullivan has moved
to block Justice Department
access to secret Swiss bank
accounts controlled by North
and his cronies.
North, like John Dean in
Watergate, is the central fig-
ure in this scandal, and his
testimony about who gave au-
thorization for his efforts and
who knew what he was doing
is the most important missing
information.
It is conceivable that he is
the only person besides Rea-
gan himself who knows exact-
ly what the President knew
about North's secret efforts to
help provide military supplies
to the Contras during the two-
year period when the admin-
istration was barred by law
from giving lethal military aid
to the rebels.
Won't return calls
Neither Williams nor Sulli-
van would return phone calls
from the Daily News in the
past two weeks to determine
how they reacted to the White
House offer that Williams
take charge of American intel-
ligence gathering.
Williams is a prominent
Democrat who became a le-
gend for winning criminal de-
fenses of mobsters and Jimmy
Hoffa. He has been a member
of the Intelligence Oversight
Board, a civilian group of ad-
visers to the intelligence com-
munity that was sharply criti-
cized by last week's Tower
Commission report for provid-
ing poor advice to North and
other officials about the legal-
ity of administration's efforts
in aiding the covert war
against the Sandinista govern-
ment in Nicaragua.
It could not be learned if
Williams himself provided the
legal advice, but there was a
strong feeling in the adminis-
tration that the Boland
Amendment restrictions on
U.S. covert war-making in
Central America were uncon-
stitutional.
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/08/16: CIA-RDP99-01448R000301290093-2