Casey’s Role Judged as a Last Service

Robert C. McFarlane suggested Saturday that a dying William J. Casey decided to “accept history’s judgment” and direct portions of the Iran- contra affair as a quiet service to President Reagan.

In an interview with National Public Radio, McFarlane, the former national security adviser who testified last week before congressional committees investigating the affair, said:

“There’s a real possibility the last testament for Bill Casey was a very, very driven one that some of us may not have fully understood.”

McFarlane told the committees he suspected that Casey, who was CIA director for six years, directed former National Security Council staff member Lt. Col. Oliver L. North in orchestrating U.S. arms sales to Iran and supplying the Nicaraguan rebels through a private network.

In the radio interview, McFarlane said that Casey, “a man of enormous self-confidence and conviction about right and wrong, may very well have recognized that he didn’t have very many years left as long as two years ago.

“And with that knowledge, he determined that he wanted to do one or two things for which he knew he would have to accept history’s judgment, but things that he believed were right and would benefit the country and his President. . . . “

McFarlane said that his beliefs about Casey were “surmised entirely.”

Casey died May 6, about 4 1/2 months after surgery for brain cancer. He had suffered earlier bouts with cancer and underwent radiation therapy in 1985.