The mysterious father of the 'October surprise'
Introducing our new podcast on the tense final weeks before an election, and a deeper look at the man who coined the phrase
William J. Casey was one of the most powerful figures in 1980s Washington, but he didn’t look the part.
“He slurred his words, and his speech was like a shortwave broadcast, fading in and out,” Bob Woodward wrote of Casey.
“The few strands of wiry white hair on the edges of his bald head each embarked on its own stubborn course, further contributing to the appearance of the absentminded professor. His ears were overlarge, even flappy. Deep facial wrinkles shot down from each end of his flat nose, passing his mouth on either side to fall beyond his chin and lose themselves in prominent jowls. He seemed in disarray.”
Woodward was describing Casey through the eyes of his predecessor as CIA chief, Admiral Stansfield Turner. But the portrait of the mumbling campaign operative and spymaster comports with most other accounts of Casey’s appearance.
One of Casey’s legacies, as Princeton historian Julian Zelizer pointed out in the first episode of my new “Now It’s History” podcast, is his coining of the phrase “October surprise.”
We are four weeks away from the counting of the ballots in the Kamala Harris-Donald Trump election and even though the vast majority of American voters have likely made up their minds, there is still the possibility of late-breaking developments that can shake up the race. That is what keeps the candidates and the campaign leaders awake at night.
The war in the Middle East, the hurricanes in the Southeast, economic factors such as gasoline prices and revelations about the candidates all are potential sources of October surprises.
In 2016, October saw the leak of the “Access Hollywood” tape featuring Trump and James Comey’s reopening of an investigation of Hillary Clinton’s emails. But as Zelizer points out, October surprises were common in 19th century elections as well.
Casey’s fear
Casey was a late addition to Ronald Reagan’s inner circle. The wealthy New York lawyer and financier who formerly headed the Securities and Exchange Commission was named to head the campaign during a shaky moment in the primaries, and after helping to secure the nomination for the former California governor, he feared Reagan might lose to President Jimmy Carter.
“Carter's in the middle of dealing with the Iran hostage crisis,” Zelizer said. “And Casey is very worried that in October, right before the election, that Carter is going to announce that the crisis had been resolved, the hostages are being released, and based on internal polling, that would probably have been enough to give Carter a victory, which ultimately he didn't have.”
Zelizer went on to describe what followed: “So in some ways the surprise is on Carter, meaning Carter does negotiate an end to this and he's working it out behind the scenes, but the negotiations go well after the election is over, which Reagan of course wins. And then before the inauguration, Carter is able to work out a deal [with Iran]. This is the issue most people in this country had been following day in and day out.”
“And the Iranians, though, won't release the hostages until after Reagan is officially president. In some ways, they want a bit more retribution against Carter, who they really dislike. So Carter resolves it behind the scenes … Reagan is inaugurated. And Americans literally watch a split screen as the inauguration is taking place, as it's announced the hostages are coming home. So Reagan gets the credit in the end for something that Carter did.”
Spy chief
Casey expected to be rewarded for his campaign work with a prestige post such as Secretary of State or Defense, but Reagan disappointed him by offering the lesser role of heading the Central Intelligence Agency, though the president agreed to elevate it to cabinet status.
The appointment made some sense since Casey had been a key aide to William (Wild Bill) Donovan, the head of the CIA’s wartime precursor, the Office of Strategic Services and played a major role in running spies in Nazi Germany.
The exploits of Casey’s youth — he was 31 when he was put in charge of intelligence in Europe — showed brainpower and cunning that served him well after the war as he became an expert in taxation, an accomplished lawyer and a venture capitalist. But it was Casey’s impulsive streak that made him stand out in the Reagan administration.
In the words of his biographer Joseph Persico, Casey was “a man of considerable achievement who was also capable of colossal blunders, a man possessed of vision and blindness.” His leadership of the CIA is a cautionary tale of the risks that go along with investing tremendous power in the hands of someone who can hide behind operational secrecy.
Along with other OSS veterans, Casey thought the Carter administration had neutered the CIA’s covert operations team, making it excessively cautious and bureaucratic. He presided over a vast increase in the agency’s budget and launched operations that would spark a rising tide of controversy.
‘Debategate’
Casey couldn’t shake one leftover aspect of the 1980 race. Rep. David Stockman had revealed in a little-noticed hometown talk that the campaign had obtained “a pilfered copy of the briefing book” prepared for President Carter to use in debating Reagan.
When Stockman’s admission came to wide public notice in a 1983 book and was described as a “dirty trick” against Carter, a Democratic congressman launched an investigation of what would become known as “Debategate.”
Reagan’s White House Chief of Staff James Baker said he recalled receiving the Carter debate briefing book from Casey. The CIA chief strenuously objected, saying he had nothing to do with it. As the biographer Persico would later write, an extraordinary public split between two key administration figures persisted.
The Congressional investigators issued a lengthy report which failed to provide a conclusive answer but said “the better evidence indicates that Carter debate briefing materials entered the 1980 Reagan-Bush campaign through its Director, William J. Casey, and that Casey provided Carter debate briefing materials to James A. Baker 3d, as stated by Baker, whose testimony is corroborated by a credible witness.”
At this point, though, bigger scandals were brewing in the Reagan administration’s covert operations. They are detailed in Bob Woodward’s “Veil,” which revealed astonishingly detailed accounts of secret espionage methods the US was using to keep tabs on its adversaries, especially the Soviet Union.
For someone dwelling in the covert world, Casey was remarkably accessible to the press. Woodward, one half of the reporting team that drove the Watergate scandal, said he conducted more than 48 interviews “or substantive discussions” with Casey from 1983 to 1987.
Casey was aware that almost nothing stays secret forever: “Everyone always says more than they’re supposed to.” But some revelations are more damaging than others.
Iran-Contra
The most controversial secret operation of the time became known as the Iran-Contra Affair. It revealed that the administration had sold missiles to Iran and illegally used the proceeds to fund the “contras,” who were fighting against the pro-Marxist Sandinista government of Nicaragua.
By the time this was uncovered, Casey was incapacitated by illnesses including a brain tumor and didn’t testify before Congress.
Joseph Persico concluded that it’s impossible to know whether Casey was the “mastermind” of the diversion scheme. Casey likely discussed the diversion with a key lieutenant but “Casey’s half of their private conversations went with him to the grave.”
“What is most damaging to Casey, however, regarding the diversion is that he nominated a reckless romantic, Oliver North, to run the covert contra operation in the first place,” Persico wrote.
There is a famous and much-disputed scene at the end of “Veil” in which Woodward describes visiting the critically ill Casey in a hospital room. (Casey’s family and others, including Reagan, insisted the visit never happened.)
“Scars from the craniotomy were still healing,” Woodward wrote. “I asked Casey how he was getting along.”
Woodward continued, “You knew, didn’t you, I said. The contra diversion had to be the first question: you knew all along.
His head jerked up hard. He stared, and finally nodded yes.
Why? I asked.
‘I believed.’
Then he was asleep, and I didn’t get to ask another question.”
Quite marvelous, Rich! You may not have known that one of the other g*dfathers of the OctSurprise involving IranContra was the co-author of my second book, the Count Alexandre de Marenches. Marenches, the longtime director of the French CIA (the DGSE: Directiion Generale du Surveillance Extérieur). It was Marenches who facilitated contacts between the Iranians and Casey in a safehouse location in Paris that enabled the Surprise to develop. Marenches would never talk openly about it and would not allow it to be a part of my book. Indeed, I was subpoenaed to testify before the Congressional committee investigating this! Anyway, I am still offering a copy of the book (autographed by Marenches' co-author...me!) to any of my annual paid or Founding subscribers! The book: The Fourth World War: Diplomacy and Espionage in the Age of Terrorism .....and it is still as frighteningly relevant today as it was when it was written more than 30 years ago!!