Jump to content
The Education Forum

How William Casey was Silenced


John Simkin

Recommended Posts

In May 1986 Gene Wheaton told William Casey, Director of the CIA, about what he knew about the Iran-Contra operation. Casey refused to take any action, claiming that the agency or the government were not involved in what later became known as Irangate.

Gene Wheaton now took his story to Daniel Sheehan, a left-wing lawyer. Wheaton also contacted Newt Royce and Mike Acoca, two journalists based in Washington. The first article on this scandal appeared in the San Francisco Examiner on 27th July, 1986. As a result of this story, Congressman Dante Facell wrote a letter to the Secretary of Defense, Casper Weinberger, asking him if it "true that foreign money, kickback money on programs, was being used to fund foreign covert operations." Two months later, Weinberger denied that the government knew about this illegal operation.

Charles Allen, a national intelligence officer for counter-terrorism, went to see Robert Gates on 1st October, 1986, and told him that he believed that the proceeds from the Iran arms sales may have been diverted to support the contras. Gates then passed this information onto Casey.

On 5th October a Sandinista patrol in Nicaragua shot down a C-123K cargo plane that was supplying the Contras. Eugene Hasenfus, an Air America veteran, survived the crash and told his captors that he thought the CIA was behind the operation. Two days later, Roy Furmark, who was currently working for Adnan Khashoggi, told Casey that his boss was owed $10 million for his role played in the arms-hostages deal. Furmark also claimed that the man behind the deal was Oliver North.

On 9th October, Casey and Robert Gates had lunch with Oliver North. It seems that the CIA wanted to see the paperwork for the delivery of arms to Iran. Gates told North: "If you think it's that sensitive we can put it in the director's personal safe. But we need our copy." That afternoon, Casey appeared before two Congressional oversight committees, where he maintained that the CIA had nothing to do with the supplying of contras.

On 15th October, leaflets were given out in Tehran stating that high-ranking advisers to President Ronald Reagan had been visiting Iran the previous month to negotiate a deal to release hostages for arms. Two days later, Charles Allen provided Casey with a seven-page assessment of the "arms-hostage machinations". Allen wrote: "The government of the United States, along with the government of Israel, acquired substantial profit from these transactions, some of which profit was redistributed to other projects of the U.S. and of Israel."

Meanwhile, Eugene Hasenfus was providing information to his captors on two Cuban-Americans running the operation in El Salvador. This information was made public and it was not long before journalists managed to identify Raphael Quintero and Felix Rodriguez as the two men described by Hasenfus.

At the beginning of November, newspapers in the United States began running stories about the Iran-Contra conspiracy. On 6th November, President Reagan told reporters that the story that Robert McFarlane had been negotiating an arms for hostages deal "has no foundation". He also argued that he would not carry out talks with Iran as its government was part of "a new international version of Murder Incorporated".

On 21st November, Casey appeared again before the House Select Committee on Intelligence (HSCI). By this time it was public knowledge about the arms-hostages deal. Casey was asked who was responsible for what one committee member described as this "misguided policy". Casey replied: "I think it was the President". Casey also claimed that this was a National Security Council operation. As Bernard McMahon pointed out, "we came out believing the CIA had acted only in a support role at the direction of the White House".

The following day, two investigators working for Attorney General Edwin Meese, discovered important documents while searching Oliver North's office. These documents revealed that the profits on the Iranian arms deals amounted to $16.1 million. However, the Contras had only received $4 million and at least another $12.1 million had gone missing. It was later established that Richard Secord and his partners had taken at least $6.6 million in profits and commissions.

Casey was now summoned to appear before the House Defense Appropriations Subcommittee. On Monday 8th December, he was questioned about the possibility of Iranian payments being diverted to Afghanistan. Two days later he appeared before the House Foreign Relations Committee (HFRC). He was questioned about when he first knew that money was being diverted from the profits of the hostage-arms deals. Casey claimed that he first heard about it from Edwin Meese. Members of the HFRC pointed out that Roy Furmark had already testified that he told casey about the deal as early as the 7th October. Casey was questioned for five and a half hours. One member said that "questioning Bill Casey was like punching a pillow". Another claimed: "He didn't seem to know what was going on in his own agency."

The following day Casey appeared before the House Select Committee on Intelligence (HSCI). Alan Fiers, a colleague at the CIA who also attended the session, remarked: He stumbled and fumbled. at times it seemed he couldn't talk. He had to be carried. He'd start to answer and wave to one of us to take over when his words or his facts failed him."

Casey was due to appear before the HSCI on 16th December. The day before, CIA physician, Dr. Arvel Tharp went to visit Casey in his office. According to Tharp, while he was being examined, Casey suffered a seizure. He was taken to Georgetown University Hospital and was not able to appear before the HSCI. Tharp told Casey he had a brain tumor and that he would have to endure an operation. Casey was not keen and asked if he could have radio therapy instead. However, Tharp was insistent that he needed surgery.

Casey entered the operating room on 18th December. The tumor was removed but during the operation, brain cells were damaged and Casey lost his ability to speak. As his biographer, Joseph E. Persico, points out (The Lives and Secrets of William J. Casey): "one school of rumors ran, the CIA or the NSC or the White House had arranged to have a piece of the brain removed from the man who knew the secrets".

Robert Gates now became acting director of the CIA. He claimed that he was not involved in the Iran-Contra operation. As Lawrence E. Walsh pointed out in Iran-Contra: The Final Report "Gates consistently testified that he first heard on October 1, 1986, from the national intelligence officer who was closest to the Iran initiative, Charles E. Allen, that proceeds from the Iran arms sales may have been diverted to support the contras. Other evidence proves, however, that Gates received a report on the diversion during the summer of 1986 from DDI Richard Kerr. The issue was whether Independent Counsel could prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Gates was deliberately not telling the truth when he later claimed not to have remembered any reference to the diversion before meeting with Allen in October."

http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/JFKcaseyW.htm

Link to comment
Share on other sites

It is interesting to compare the Jack Ruby case with that of William Casey, who was likely to tell the HSCI what he knew about what he knew about the Iran-Contra conspiracy.

Casey was due to appear before the HSCI on 16th December. The day before, CIA physician, Dr. Arvel Tharp went to visit Casey in his office. According to Tharp, while he was being examined, Casey suffered a seizure. He was taken to Georgetown University Hospital and was not able to appear before the HSCI. Tharp told Casey he had a brain tumor and that he would have to endure an operation. Casey was not keen and asked if he could have radio therapy instead. However, Tharp was insistent that he needed surgery.

Casey entered the operating room on 18th December. The tumor was removed but during the operation, brain cells were damaged and Casey lost his ability to speak. As his biographer, Joseph E. Persico, points out (The Lives and Secrets of William J. Casey): "one school of rumors ran, the CIA or the NSC or the White House had arranged to have a piece of the brain removed from the man who knew the secrets".

Robert Gates now became acting director of the CIA. He claimed that he was not involved in the Iran-Contra operation. As Lawrence E. Walsh pointed out in Iran-Contra: The Final Report (1993): "Gates consistently testified that he first heard on October 1, 1986, from the national intelligence officer who was closest to the Iran initiative, Charles E. Allen, that proceeds from the Iran arms sales may have been diverted to support the contras. Other evidence proves, however, that Gates received a report on the diversion during the summer of 1986 from DDI Richard Kerr. The issue was whether Independent Counsel could prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Gates was deliberately not telling the truth when he later claimed not to have remembered any reference to the diversion before meeting with Allen in October."

This is astounding information John. Is there a book or other source you recommended for further research?

Thanks.

The best source on the Iran-Contra scandal is Lawrence E. Walsh, the independent counsel in the Iran-Contra investigation. See the following: Final Report: Iran-Contra (1993) and Firewall: The Iran-Contra Conspiracy and Cover-Up (1997).

Robert Parry's Secrecy & Priviledge: Rise of the Bush Dynasty from Watergate to Iraq (2004) is also well worth reading.

The most detailed book I have seen on Casey is Joseph E. Persico's The Lives and Secrets of William J. Casey (1990). Persico is not a conspiracy theorist but he provides enough information to enable you to work it out yourself. Robert Gates' book, From the Shadows: The Ultimate Insider's Story of Five Presidents and How They Won the Cold War (1996), where he puts the blame on Casey is also worth reading. However, make sure you have a copy of Walsh's two books by your side so you can see how Gates lies about his involvement in the case.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 2 years later...

so did anyone get a picture of the brain tumor?

this strikes me as an extremely suspicious death.

i doubt casey ever would have blamed reagan or bush, would have been a good soldier and insisted all that iran contra cover op stuff was hatched without any explicit presidential involvement, north, secord and poindexter all said as much in the hearings. maybe the casey death was sending a strong message to everyone who was surely gonna be called to testify that they had better damn well not indict the top of the white house.

all these cia killings are such a tangled web

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I find it hard to believe that something like Iran/Contra could be going on without the CIA knowing all about it, without having to be told.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

This is what Lawrence Walsh had to say about William Casey in his "Final Report: Iran-Contra" that was published on 4th April, 1993:

As CIA director, Casey and President Reagan shared similar world views, at the center of which was their determination to roll back communism and bring about the collapse of the Soviet Union.

The Iran/contra investigations and prosecutions could not have been pursued without developing evidence on Casey's role, particularly guidance or authorization he may have provided in the commission of illegal acts. Because Casey did not have the opportunity to answer questions arising from the evidence, however, Independent Counsel did not conduct his investigation with an eye toward establishing Casey's guilt or innocence.

For example, North, at his trial, testified to conversations with Casey. By that time in his investigation, as indicated below, Independent Counsel did not use his resources just to check the truth of some of North's statements.

There is evidence that Casey played a role as a Cabinet-level advocate both in setting up the covert network to resupply the contras during the Boland funding cut-off, and in promoting the secret arms sales to Iran in 1985 and 1986. In both instances, Casey was acting in furtherance of broad policies established by President Reagan.

There is evidence that Casey, working with two national security advisers to President Reagan during the period 1984 through 1986 - Robert C. McFarlane and Vice Admiral John M. Poindexter - approved having these operations conducted out of the National Security Council staff with Lt. Col. Oliver L. North as the action officer, assisted by retired Air Force Maj. Gen. Richard V. Secord. And although Casey tried to insulate himself and the CIA from any illegal activities relating to the two secret operations, using there is evidence that he was involved in at least some of those activities and may have attempted to keep them concealed from Congress...

North testified that at Casey's direction in late summer 1984, he recruited Secord, a retired Air Force major general skilled at clandestine operations, to set up his contra-supply network.12 According to North, Secord's operation was modeled on prior CIA operations, using a series of organizations to obtain weapons and deliver them to the contras.

According to a North computer message, Casey also later approved Secord's involvement in the covert arms sales to Iran, designating him as a CIA agent to serve as an intermediary in 1986. (Note from North to Poindexter, 1/15/86) Under the January 17, 1986, Presidential Finding, which Casey and CIA General Counsel Stanley Sporkin helped North put together, the U.S. Army sold the TOW missiles to the CIA, who in turn passed them on to Secord, the unnamed "third party'' in the Finding, who then delivered them to Iranian agents.

In late July 1984, Casey took North to a meeting in a Central American location of all of the CIA's senior field officers in the region. "Director Casey told me he wanted me to see them eyeball-to-eyeball and them to see me, so we would know each other in the event, his words were, something went wrong,'' North said. North testified that Casey advised him to set up a secret account to accept foreign contributions to the contras so that arms and other purchases would be controlled by him rather than the contra leaders. North testified that at the end of 1984, he also set up an operational account in his office to provide funds for the contra and later the hostage-release operations. North said Casey gave him a ledger to keep an accurate account of the cash and traveler's checks disbursements from the fund. North said he destroyed the ledger in October or November 1986 at Casey's direction when it appeared that the secret contra-supply effort would be publicly exposed following the downing over Nicaragua of one of the operation's aircraft and the capture of crew-member Eugene Hasenfus.

Interestingly, if you do a Google search for William Casey it is clear he is not being protected by the CIA.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Please sign in to comment

You will be able to leave a comment after signing in



Sign In Now
×
×
  • Create New...