William Casey was a Cold War warrior who worked for OSS during WWII, the precursor to the CIA. After the war, he returned to his law practice where he remained until he joined the Nixon Administration.
In 1980 he joined the Reagan campaign. When he took office President Reagan named Casey the Director of the CIA, America’s chief spymaster. He served from 1981-87.
During his CIA tenure, Casey took office at age 68 and lived until age 74. President Reagan was two years his senior. But Casey’s appearance and especially his mumbling voice gave the impression he was a bit of a doddering fool. Some said that was for effect; most people, however, knew the truth.
Although Casey had a brilliant mind, he was an inveterate mumbler and most people couldn’t comprehend what he said.
As a young man, he took a punch to the throat while boxing. That altered his speaking ability for the rest of his life.
According to Steve Coll’s book Ghost Wars, a chronicle of the CIA’s involvement in Afghanistan, Casey’s secretaries often shied away from taking dictation from their boss “because they couldn’t understand what he was saying.”
Also, Casey was quick to snap at people. He fit the stereotype of a grumbling, bumbling old man.
International translators on foreign trips found Casey impossible to comprehend. Their interpretations of his words were often guesswork.
In 1984 in an appearance before the Senate Intelligence Committee, no one could figure out what the CIA director meant - had or hadn’t the US mined a Nicaraguan harbor? In the end, no one was quite sure of the answer.
The President of the United States couldn’t understand Casey, either. Steve Coll’s book described a high level cabinet meeting regarding national security matters. At one point, Reagan passed a handwritten message to Vice President Bush that read “Did you understand a word he said?”
Years later, Reagan later confessed that he rarely heard what his CIA director was mumbling about. The President asked Casey to repeat himself but after multiple tries gave up.
Regan joked that Casey never needed a voice scrambling device on his telephone.
To make matter worse, while President Reagan began the early onset of Alzheimer's disease toward the end of his presidency, Casey developed a brain tumor.
On the day before he was called to testify before Congress regarding the Iran-Contra scandal, Casey suffered seizures. He died in the hospital. But testimony by others revealed that Casey had authorized illegal activities in Nicaragua in the infamous arms-for-hostages deal.
God only knows what vital worldly security information failed to get through because William Casey lied about them but also because he was so absurdly incomprehensible.
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