 David Irving[Photo by David Gamble, for The Independent on
Sunday]
Private meeting with the Director
of
the Central Intelligence Agency, William J
Casey
[Diary entry, May 1, 1986]
From David
Irving's private diary |
|
Washington DC, May 1, 1986*10:30
A.M., ARRIVED at CIA complex for interview with William
Casey. His young man said I was down for 10 a.m. ( I feel
guilty, but my diary says 10:30). Sat in anteroom for an
hour observing the fauna and flora of the 7th floor at CIA
headquarters - three or four smart, crisp young well-coiffed
ladies carrying clipboards in impeccable suits; young men
ditto, with hairstyles by Vidal Sassoon but handshakes by
Rambo III.
Eventually around 11:30
a.m. I was ushered in. Casey is older (of course), his mouth
lolls open like a man after a stroke, and he speaks with
practised drawl. He said, "You look like you've been a few
places." Reference to the tan? I murmured something about
having come back from round the world. "Yes, yes, I know
that. Still got the brown Rolls Royce?" He smiled, and I
suspected he had just checked on my file. Then: "Still
living in that apartment on Davies Street?" He made the same
mistake last time we met. I said I'd just bought it, and
mentioned the financial troubles caused by abandoning work
on Churchill.
"What are you working on now?" I told him. He asked how well
Rommel did, and what I've been doing since then (I
mentioned Churchill). It came out that he has
[a] memoirs manuscript with William Morrow, but
embargoed until he retires, and that it does not include the
C.I.A. period. He doesn't know if he'll ever write that. I
recommend Tom Congdon as editor, and he wrote the name and
address down on a yellow legal pad, and added my hotel name
at his request as he wants to dine with me but is off to
Florida for the weekend and won't be back until Monday. He
might call, he'd like that.
I mentioned Libya, said I
thought the C.I.A. had not made its case for Libyan
involvement in recent terrorism. He said, "But you've got to
hit them some where. You've got to hit back!" I said, "At
the right target, and in Europe, if I may say, the United
States is not perceived as having correctly identified the
guilty parties."
He changed the subject,
asked about the Uprising book. I said I'd found a
good publisher to handle it, Veritas, in Australia and it is
now in print again in English. He said he'd be interested in
a copy. (But I sent him one three years ago.) He gave me a
signed copy of his memoirs, which he bought back off William
Morrow (remaindered.)
On the Churchill
troubles he asked, "How big is the manuscript?" Odd
question.
I told him I am not worried
about finding a publisher for that as I have magnificent
material from Moscow, etc; he got interested: "You speak
Russian?" (Yes, some.)
*
All of this was typed on the afternoon of the interview;
when I came to fill in the date later I couldn't as my
pocket diary had been stolen from me in Kennedy airport
on the return to the U.K.; but the parking ticket
confirms it was May 1, 1986. |
His eye was on the
clock, as I had upset his timetable for the morning. He
sprawled in an easy chair behind his desk, visitors sit at
an angle in an easy chair by the desk side. He has a private
lift to his floor, accessible by key. I asked if he doesn't
ever get tired, isn't he due for retirement, doesn't he feel
entitled? "No, hell, I love it here. I'm going to stay on as
long as I can." He mentioned how pleased he was when Ronnie
[Ronald Reagan] gave him the job, and when I said
Mrs Casey must be fed up to see so little of him he said he
gets home regular hours and doesn't take much back with
him.
Impression is that he likes
talking about the past, about war history, and is interested
in publishing; dismisses his tax textbooks in one line
(despite the huge income). Mind is probably still alert,
enjoys every moment of his job, probably never expected to
get it.
As I drove out of the
C.I.A. compound, unplucking the parking ticket that had been
affixed to my window despite the V.I.P. visitor permit
issued to me, I was followed out by a large black limousine
which trailed me some way down the George Washington
parkway; its license plate, which I read in my mirror, was:
KC N KC. |