Bush Backs Webster, Aide Says, Amid Report He’ll Be Replaced

The White House declared Monday that President Bush has “complete confidence” in CIA Director William H. Webster, whose tenure has drawn an undercurrent of complaints in the intelligence community that he is an outsider who lacks the grasp of foreign policy issues needed to run the agency.

White House Press Secretary Marlin Fitzwater characterized as “outrageous” a Washington Post report that senior Administration officials are frustrated with Webster and are talking about replacing him.

However, one official acknowledged that within the “national security apparatus,” some would prefer a director with a long background in intelligence gathering.

This group’s disappointment is magnified because its highly secretive members believed that the election of Bush, a former CIA director himself, would bring about a revitalized role for the agency.

Instead, the agency has yet to become a major player in Bush Administration foreign policy and the President has complained publicly about the need for better intelligence in three central foreign policy events since June--the Chinese military’s violent crackdown on pro-democracy demonstrators in Beijing, the Middle East hostage crisis flare-up in midsummer, and the unsuccessful coup in Panama two weeks ago.

Fitzwater, who said that such comments were not intended to be critical of the CIA, said that Bush “has complete confidence in Director Webster and the leadership he is providing at the CIA.”

“The President has always supported Bill Webster. He still supports Bill Webster,” Fitzwater said. The spokesman said that his remarks were based on “a long discussion, in which he made his views very clearly known.”

In addition, said another senior White House official speaking on condition of anonymity, the critical comments about Webster do not reflect the thinking of National Security Adviser Brent Scowcroft, Secretary of State James A. Baker III or Defense Secretary Dick Cheney.

And Scowcroft took the highly unusual step of issuing a written statement in which he said that “rumors of White House displeasure (with Webster) are totally false.”

“The President is fully satisfied with the performance of the intelligence community, including during the Panama episode,” Scowcroft said.”

Such endorsements notwithstanding, Webster has become a highly visible target for those with complaints about the White House’s progress in the Third World.

“There are occasions when things don’t go the way we want and it is easy to pin the blame on intelligence,” one official said.

Webster’s tenure at the CIA has been rocky from the start. He took over after the death of William J. Casey in May, 1987, when the agency was in the depths of the Iran-Contra scandal.

A former U.S. attorney and federal judge, Webster gained high marks for his decade at the helm of the FBI. But when he moved to the headquarters of the spy agency across the Potomac River, in Langley, Va., intelligence community professionals began to complain that he did not grasp the jargon of their covert business. There also were complaints that he provided insufficient direction.

Eventually, he overcame the initial opposition, and any continued grumbling ran out of steam when Bush announced after his election that he would retain Webster.

Now, in the wake of the recent foreign policy crises, complaints have resurfaced. In the White House, officials have stated that during the China episode and at other times, they were initially learning more from Cable News Network than they were from U.S. officials on the scene.

And, when the coup in Panama began to unfold, Webster was in Europe. In an effort to defend his absence, one source also highlighted the agency’s lack of advance information about the coup. “If we had even the slightest inkling that something big was about to happen, Webster would not have left the country,” the source said.