UNDER BILL CASEY, THE CIA IS BACK IN BUSINESS

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00965R000100440060-0
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 3
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: December 28, 2011
• Sequence Number: 60
• Publication Date: March 15, 1984
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

STAT
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2011/12/28: CIA-
ARTICLE APPEARED
ON PAGE,_,C'.. -) ...
WASHINGTON TIMES
15 March 1984
R D P90-00965 R000100440060-0
Under Bill Casey, thcJA7ts
back in business
William J. Casey, a tall,
erudite man in his early
70s, has been director
of Central Intelligence
since the Reagan administration
took office. During the last three
years, it has been a rare day that his
reputation and character have not
been attacked, sometimes from the
right, most often from the left.
The attacks have focused largely
on financial matters which oc-
curred long before he took his
present post and most recently, the
so-called "Briefingate affair in-
volving Carter strategy documents
allegedly obtained by Reagan elec-
tion officials during the 1980 cam-
paign. While no crime has ever been
spelled out, ethical violations have
been charged. So Mr. Casey, who
enjoys Cabinet status, has been a
storm center since 1981, accused of
all manner of deviltry having to do
with everything except what kind
of director of Central Intelligence
he has been and how has intelli-
gence. fared under his direction.
This short report, based on an
informal study, will argue that Mr.
Casey has done the best job of any
CIA director in, the past decade. In
one sense, he took on the job at a
time when the prestige of the CIA
was so low there was no way to go
but up. Mr. Casey's predecessor,
Admiral Stansfield Turner, rightly
or wrongly, had a low opinion of the
agency he was assigned to adminis-
ter by President Carter. The United
States and its allies paid the price
of poor intelligence and,'most im-
portant, insufficient and even unre-
liable national estimates so essen-
tial for decision-making policy
executives. In addition, before Mr.
'Iltrner's appointment, there had
been a revolving door sequence of
CIA directors - William Colby,
James Schlesinger and finally
George Bush, now vice president,
all in one year, an event hardly cal-
culated to restore confidence
within the organization.
Under Mr. Casey, a number of im-
ARNOLD BEIC AVIAN
portant steps to rebuild U.S. intelli-
gence have been undertaken under
the continuing scrutiny of two con-
gressional select committees on in-
telligence to which Mr. Casey must
report regularly, particularly about
any proposed covert actions ap-
proved by the president. In other
words, CIA secrets must be shared
with some 30 congressmen in both
houses and their congressional
staffs, a risky but now legalized
procedure. Thus far, congressional
oversight has worked fairly well,
according to all reports. Whether
the accountability system will con-
tinue to work in future congresses
as the composition of the Select
Committees changes, is another
matter.
Under Mr. Casey, the intelligence
budget "has gone way the hell up;'
as one knowledgeable source puts
it. In fact, the overall total for intel-
ligence is at the highest level it has
ever been, having risen steadily
each of the past three years. Since
the budgetary totals are classified,
no statistical comparisons can be
made. However, to have been able to
obtain increased appropriations
means that the congressional com-
mittees are sufficiently satisfied
with CIA activities.
Second, the CIA is back in the
covert-action business, an area
from which it had virtually with-
drawn during the Turner
directorship. Covert action is a
form of intelligence activity in-
tended to effectuate by secret
means the aims of U.S. foreign
policy. Overt action encompasses
diplomatic activity' and negoti-
ations and, when these break down,
war itself. An example of covert ac-
tion would occur if Britain, tar-
geted by Libyan terrorists, were to
seek out and support Libyan exile
dissidents in order to help over-
throw the directing genius of con-
temporary terrorism, Libya's dicta-
tor, Col. Muammar Qadaffi.
Third, there has been a large
increase in the number of national
estimates sent to intelligence con-
sumers, from the president on
down. The whole point of
intelligence-gathering - clandes-
tine collection and covert action -
is to put together the information
collected in some logical order so
that recommendations for actions
can be made and meaningful policy
decisions undertaken. Analysis and
estimates are the third - and per-
haps most crucial - ingredient of
an intelligence system.
Fourth, there has been a massive
attempt to rebuild human intelli-
gence - HUMINT - resources. In
the pre-Casey period, great reli-
ance was placed on ELINT - elec-
tronic intelligence-gathering by
"spy-in-the-sky" technology. While
much of the instrumentation is in-
genious and even startling in its
capabilities, the instruments them-
selves lack one essential attribute:
They cannot look inside a man's
head - say, a member of the Soviet
Politburo - to determine what. So-
viet policymakers plan to do.
HUMINT was once part of the an-
swer and it is now being restored to
its essential place in the intelli-
gence panoply.
Fifth, an attempt has been made
to rebuild the last and perhaps the
most important ingredient in the in-
telligence schema - counterintel-
ligence. This ingredient is the
guard set up by any intelligence
agency to prevent the enemy
"mole" or even the double agent,
from penetrating the inner sanc-
tum. _
Kim Philby, the British-born So-
viet agent, ran British counter-
intelligence until he became
suspect and resigned. Therefore,
during the time he was in charge of
British CI, British intelligence ex-
isted only in name. The various con-
gressional investigations of CIA
and their repercussions within CIA
during the mid-1970s led to a
? wholesale dismantling of Cl a dec-
ade ago. Whether or not CI has been
successfully rebuilt, no one can
Conbnuso
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really know - probably not even
Mr. Casey himself - but at least Cl
reconstruction is under way.
So despite the attacks on Mr.
Casey, he has by all accounts done
a remarkable job. Whether Mr.
Casey will ultimately succeed in
leaving his imprint on the CIA is
questionable. Except for Mr. Casey
and a few others he himself brought
in, there have been few changes at
the top of the intelligence hierar-
chy. Mr. Casey got burnt when,
early in his administration, he tried
to make some personnel changes,
and he hasn't tried again since.
Arnold Beichman, visiting
scholar at the Hoover Institution, is
author of the essay, U.S. Intelli-
gence and Its Discontents in the
forthcoming volume To Build a
Peace. (Hoover Institution Press.)
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 Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2011/12/28: CIA-RDP90-00965R000100440060-0
William J. Casey
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2011/12/28: CIA-RDP90-00965R000100440060-0