Out in The Cold

As a spymaster with the Office of Strategic Services during World War II, William Casey was an action-oriented operator who dropped agents behind enemy lines. As Ronald Reagan's director of Central Intelligence 40 years later, Casey chafed at Washington's restrictive atmosphere. That, says a subordinate, & was one reason Casey brushed off warnings from top assistants and teamed up with Lieut. Colonel Oliver North to swap arms for hostages with Iran.

"Bill Casey was the last great buccaneer from OSS," said Clair George, the CIA's chief of covert operations. "He saw in Ollie North a part of that, and he liked Ollie." Transcripts of George's remarks, made in closed sessions with Congress's Iran-contra committees in early August, were released last week. Unnamed officials in the White House, said George, considered the CIA too timid on covert action. "The way to handle Bill Casey was to outflank him to the right . . . suggest that maybe he wasn't ready to take high risk."

Casey's reaction, reinforced by intense White House pressure to free American hostages in Lebanon, was to go along with what George called some "harebrained schemes." Casey ignored his aides' objections to using outsiders, such as retired Air Force Major General Richard Secord. The director also relied on Iranian Manucher Ghorbanifar as a middleman, despite CIA warnings that Ghorbanifar had been shown to be "dishonest and untruthful." When George learned that Casey nevertheless intended to seek Ghorbanifar's help, he took the rare step of telling his boss, "Bill, I'm not going to run this guy anymore . . . He is a bum."

George claimed that Casey wanted North and the National Security staff to handle the Iran initiative, because he knew that his own aides, including CIA Deputy Director John McMahon as well as George, were opposed.

Nor did some of Casey's men share their chief's admiration for North. Alan Fiers, who worked with North on the contra-resupply operation as chief of the CIA's Latin American Task Force, told the committees, "I never knew Colonel North to be an absolute liar, but I never took anything he said at face value."

The Iran-contra deals could lead to indictments against North, Secord and former National Security Adviser John Poindexter. Associates of Poindexter's said last week the admiral intends to retire Oct. 1, well before he might have to stand trial. North's magic, meanwhile, seems to have faded. A recent New York Times-CBS poll shows only 33% supporting U.S. aid to the Nicaragua contras, vs. 40% shortly after North's emotional testimony to Congress in July.