40 THE END OF THE COLD WAR
selling advanced technology to the USSR. At a National Security
Council he swept aside talk about the unease in NATO:
We must consider our Allies’ position, but we must consider
whether we wish to aid the Soviets or not, and we must not adopt
the attitude that if we don’t sell to them someone else will. This is
sometimes true, but our policy should be very restrictive. Almost
everything aids their military and helps their economy. We know
that they will only be satisfied by world domination, and we
cannot satisfy them by appeasing them.^33When Commerce Secretary Baldrige spoke in favour of allowing
the export of goods freely available in American retail stores, CIA
Director Casey pitched in on Weinberger’s side: ‘It is a mistake to help
the Soviets by exporting to them items they need.’ He reminded every-
one that America had sold scrap iron to Japan shortly before the
Second World War.^34
Casey was at one with Weinberger in believing that nothing good
could come from negotiating with the USSR. He believed in putting
the Kremlin under direct stress. Appointed CIA director at the start of
Reagan’s presidency, he was an intelligence agency veteran. In the
Second World War he had served in the Office of Strategic Services
under ‘Wild Bill’ Donovan and became head of its Secret Intelligence
Branch in Europe. He was a rumbustious Cold Warrior in the post-
war years. He was convinced that the Kremlin was the most fertile
ground of evil in the world. His Catholic faith sustained his determi-
nation to stem the expansion of atheistic communism. As a law
graduate, he became active in the Republican Party while working for
large corporations. President Nixon appointed him Chairman of the
Securities and Exchange Commission from 1971. Casey always hoped
for a President who would confront the USSR; he was sceptical about
the advantages of détente. He believed he’d found what he wanted in
Reagan and offered his services as his presidential campaign manager
in 1980. He saw the Soviet leadership as the centre of a global revolu-
tionary conspiracy that was responsible for most of the terrorist
outrages against America and its allies. He intended to turn the CIA
into an organization fit and capable of undermining Moscow’s pur-
poses.^35 He kept Reagan informed about his efforts to ‘revitalize the
clandestine services’ and introduce appointees whom he could trust.^36
Not all NATO leaders treated contact and trade with the Soviet
Union in the same way as Weinberger and Casey, who came together