Word: casey
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...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...
...explained his failure to take notes during meetings with many of the key figures in the scandal by claiming that he was engaging only in "casual conversations" and not trying to gain "great amounts of information." One such chat occurred at the home of Director of Central Intelligence William Casey, whom North has depicted as a sponsor of the diversion scheme, just hours after the incriminating memo was found. Meese insisted that he did not discuss the transfer of funds to the contras with Casey. The Attorney General described a laid-back talk about the diversion with Vice Admiral John...
...Shultz and Defense Secretary Caspar Weinberger, and sold U.S. weapons to Iran even though his Administration was loudly urging other nations not to do so. He did this on the advice of two far less assertive aides, first Robert McFarlane and then John Poindexter and, more significantly, William Casey, the late CIA director whose ghostly presence haunted the hearings as the one who may have masterminded the events...