Nicaraguan covert program (Gates)

 
Robert M. Gates, From the shadows, 1996                             [ ]

p.248
     Throughout 1981-1982, there also were strains inside the Agency over the Nicaraguan covert program. The analysts consistently complained, with justification, that the DO shared virtually no operational traffic with them and therefore they had little information on what the Contras were up to. (Operational cables, for security purposes, were rarely shown to anyone outside the clandestine service. When CIA was involved in a covert action, this “compartmentation” often left the analysts in the dark.) The analysts believed that the DO was consistently overly optimistic about the prospects for their program in general and the Contras in particular, and that they overstated their accomplishments when briefing policymakers and the Congress.
     Both operations officer and Casey often felt that the analysts were too academic, too detached. In July 1982, for example, Casey sent Clarridge the briefing the Directorate of Intelligence had prepared for his use at an NSC meeting with the instruction, “See if you can add some ground feeling and currency into this draft intelligence briefing.” The Operational Directorate's Central American Task Force set up their own “war room” where their “analysts” tracked the course of the guerrilla struggle and reported to Dewey and to Casey. They claimed it was in support of the covert program and so, as Deputy Director for Intelligence, there wasn't much I could do about it. But occassionally I would learn that they briefed their views outside the Agency and I would raise hell with Casey about it. (This wasn't just a turf fight. The people staffing the “war-room” were advocates of the covert program and naturally inclined both to inflate the threat and the success of their efforts.) I also warned Casey that he ran a high risk of embarrassment if he only took operations officers--especially Dewey--to brief the Congress or his administration counterparts. As a result, he started also taking Bob Vickers of the National Intelligence Council as a sort of truth squad. Vickers was a career expert on military matters and had a calm, analytic approach that contrasted with the enthusiasms of his operational counterpart. 

p.304
     At the other end of the spectrum, in early July 1983, Casey dragged McMahon down to Central America with him to see for himself how things were working and to try to build John's enthusiasm. (McMahon was trying that summer to persuade the government to take the Central America program overt and turn it over to Defense. He saw a train wreck coming and knew CIA was tied to the rails.) When they returned, Casey sent a memo to McMahon, the DDO [Deputy Director for Operations], and me listing 23 actions for follow-up to the trip. This included such minutiae as instructions to get ponchos (raingear) and uniforms for the Contras made in El Salvador, to establish supply caches in the center of Nicaragua to draw the Contras down there, closer coordination of supply routes, and more. And woe be to the officer who thought Casey would let this stuff drop.


p.306
Mining the harbors: a study in bureaucratic suicide


pp.306-307
“Magnetic mines have been placed in the Pacific habor of Corinto and the Atlantic harbor of El Bluff as well as the oil terminal of Puerto Sandino.” According to the New York Times, the committee also was told on March 13 and the staff was briefed on April 2.
     In light of the furor in the Senate and then in the press that followed the mining, some context is needed to understand how a senator could be at a committee briefing and not hear or grasp what he or she had been told. First, maddening as it is for a witness, senators come and go all the time during a hearing or briefing. They often come late, step out to take calls, duck out for brief periods to attend hearings of their other committees, work on other business, interrupt the sessions to go vote, talk to staff, talk to each other, sleep, and so on. Their attentiveness while a witness reads a prepared statement or briefing is especially minimal, often because such statement have been provided in advanced or drone on endlessly, or the senators have heard most of it before, or they know they can get the text from the record. Add to these circumstances the fact that when Casey was the briefer, he was usually barely understandable or audible, and inclined to brush by potentially controversial parts of testimony. This set the stage for a terrible fight between CIA and the Senate committee over the mining.
     All hell broke loose on April 5.

p.307
However, on April 5 several senators, including Goldwater, learned that CIA had carried out the operation, not the Contras. After brooding over a weekend on what had happened, Goldwater wrote Casey a letter about the mining and how the Agency had handled it, concluding: “It gets down to one, little, simple phrase. I am pissed off.” He gave a copy of the letter to the press.

p.310
The result was the preparation by a contract employee of a little manual entitled Psychological Operations in Guerrilla Warfare. The “nom de plume” was “Tayacan,” a legendary Central American Indian warrior. Written in Spanish, the manual was never even seen by senior officials at CIA headquarters.
     Again, as controversial as the Central American program was, the lack of tight supervision led to disaster. The manual referred to “neutralizing” officials; talked about blackmail, terror, and the use of professional criminals; and was blatant about the objective of overthrowing the Sandinistas. The manual seemed to transgress the Boland Amendments, the prohibition against assassination, and more.
     Another firestorm and more hot water for Casey and the Agency. 


pp.312-313
     Despite a major effort by the administration, on October 10, 1984, the Congress passed the third Boland amendment, this one finally cutting off all U.S. funding to the Contras--and prohibiting solicitation from other countries. It was over, or so most of us thought. Little did we know.

     ( Gates, Robert Michael, From the shadows : the ultimate insider's story of five presidents and how they won the cold war / Robert M. Gates, 1. united states--foreign relations--soviet union, 2. soviet union--foreign relations--united states, 3. gates, robert michael, 4. intelligence service--united states--history--20th century, 327.7304  Gates, E183.8.S65G39  1996, copyright © 1996, )
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