NEW INSTITUTE LAUNCHED WITH TRIBUTE TO BILL CASEY AS STEVE FORBES PROVIDES SEMINAL SECURITY POLICY ADDRESS

(Washington, D.C.): The eighty-third anniversary of William J.
Casey’s birth was the occasion of the birth of a new institution
in Washington that bears his name. The William J. Casey
Institute of the Center for Security Policy has been
established with a generous grant by Mr. Casey’s family not only
to memorialize the legacy of this outstanding patriot, successful
financier, accomplished lawyer, dedicated public servant and
renaissance man. It is also intended, in important respects, to carry
on that legacy into a future when the discipline he created
— one specializing in the intersection of international
economic, finance, technology, trade and energy developments with
national security policy — will be more needed than ever before.

At an elegant luncheon on 13 March 1996 at Washington’s ANA
Hotel, the Center posthumously awarded the former Director of the
Central Intelligence Agency its “Freedom Flame.” This
tribute recognizes individuals who have made significant
contributions toward the realization of political liberty and
free-enterprise and to the defense of freedom around the world.
Previous recipients have been: former British Prime Minister Lady
Margaret Thatcher; Dr. Robert Krieble,
an accomplished industrialist whose generous philanthropy and
energetic personal efforts have done much to combat communism and
promote democratic capitalism in the former Soviet empire; and Dr.
Albert Wohlstetter, one of the Nation’s most brilliant
and influential military strategists over the past five decades.

In attendance on this occasion were over 200 leading security
policy practitioners including: Ed Meese, Malcolm Wallop,
Jack Kemp, Jeane Kirkpatrick and Richard Perle.
Former Attorney General Meese offered a moving testimonial to his
friend and fellow Reagan Cabinet member, Bill Casey. In it, he
recalled Mr. Casey’s distinguished war-time service in the Office
of Strategic Services, his remarkable career in business and
finance, his gifted authorship of numerous books and his loving
role as husband and father. Mr. Meese and all those present
remembered with great gratitude the Casey contribution to the
burgeoning of freedom made possible by the destruction of the
Soviet Union — and the strategies he skillfully employed to
bring about such an outcome.

Former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Kirkpatrick
presented Mr. Casey’s “Freedom Flame” award to his
widow, Sophia Casey, and her daughter, Mrs.
Bernadette Casey Smith. Senator Wallop concluded the
proceedings with an uplifting tribute to William Casey in the
form of an eloquent toast.

The highlight of this event occurred, however, when Malcolm
S. “Steve” Forbes, Jr. made a major address on
the global opportunities bequeathed by Bill Casey and his
colleagues to a new generation of Americans — and the challenges
that the successor generation will face as its predecessor passes
from the scene. Four pages of excerpts of
this extraordinary (and extemporaneously delivered) speech are
attached as a service to policy-makers and private citizens
alike, who are sure in the future to require the moral compass
and intuitive grasp of the nexus of international economic and
national security policy that Steve Forbes, like Bill Casey
before him, so clearly exhibits.