‘But He Sent for Me,’ Woodward Claimed : Nurse Foils Newsman’s Bid to See Casey

Robert Woodward, whose investigative reporting on the Watergate scandal made him a national figure, tried last month to gain admittance to the hospital room of seriously ill CIA director William J. Casey, a CIA spokesman said today.

The spokesman said Woodward, now investigating the Iran- contra affair for the Washington Post, tried to enter Casey’s private room at Georgetown University Hospital on Jan. 22 but was rebuffed.

The attempt was first reported today by Wesley Pruden, managing editor of the Washington Times, who writes a column for the newspaper.

Casey, 73, whose resignation as intelligence chief was announced by the White House today, is recovering at the hospital from surgery Dec. 18 on a cancerous brain tumor.

Pruden said the 43-year-old Woodward “crept up to the door of Casey . . . and demanded to be let in.

“The nurse on the door shook her head,” the account continued. “She had her orders. The gravely ill director of the CIA . . . would have no visitors except his immediate family and any others specifically authorized by the family.

Woodward was reported to have replied: “But he sent for me. He wants to see me.”

“No visitors,” the nurse was said to have responded.

“Look,” Woodward said, according to the report, “let me just put my head through a crack in the door.”

A supervisor was called “to deal with the man’s impudent persistence,” Pruden said. “The supervisor demanded identification. Only then did the man say--reluctantly--that he was Bob Woodward of the Washington Post.”

A spokeswoman for the hospital said the newspaper story was “basically correct.”