by Jack Devine
As we march forward in this new century, espionage and “planting our flag” globally will be as important as ever. With limited diplomatic access to places such as Iran, the CIA may provide our best hope if we want to reliably protect global stability. Our ability to run spies inside Iran and other inaccessible countries who can tell us what is happening at the policy levels of the government may end up being the cornerstone for encouraging change in those places. And encouraging change—including regime change where required—is a critical piece of the CIA mission. While regime change is not always the goal of covert action, in cases where large portions of the population are genuinely behind a movement toward revolt, support from the CIA can be the straw that breaks the camel’s back, should the right conditions be met.
There is no reason to shy away from support to campaigns of regime change. In cases where regime change is a genuine goal of U.S. foreign policy, it must absolutely be in concert with efforts by indigenous forces. In most cases our activities will look more like support to allied actors, even in nondemocratic states. And if we do not like a government, the worst thing we can do is spark something we cannot finish. This has often led to disaster. We need to be strategic, use our assets as they were designed to be used, and ensure we have a feasible endgame supported by solid collection and analysis before we start stirring the hornet’s nest.
Even if the pointy end of these endeavors is covert action, we also need espionage, because we should not base our assessments on speculation. Drawing general conclusions about a regime’s plans and intentions simply isn’t good enough. We have to understand what makes the leadership tick in order to build effective international action, conduct strong American diplomacy, and create shrewd and prudent covert action plans. We also need to be able to protect our investments and assets abroad. The United States spends billions annually on counternarcotics programs in Mexico and Colombia. Without robust intelligence capabilities, how can we know whether our police and military contacts, which we rely on for information, are on the take and cooperating with our enemies? The United States needs to be able to answer these questions in order to smartly act on them.
Indeed, a smarter, leaner, proactive foreign policy with a robust covert action program will position the U.S. government best to anticipate and influence major political and security shifts and reduce any major foreign policy surprises. And this gets to the heart of where the intelligence enterprise as a whole is going in the future. After all, a smarter, leaner foreign policy rests on a smarter, leaner intelligence community and, more specifically, a robust and empowered CIA covert action strategy. To get to this point, the policy makers and the Agency will need to undertake a series of important initiatives, some of which will mark a return to its past activities, and some of which will break into new territory to keep up with advances in technology and a changing world order.
Postscript
Intelligence is about “hunting”—for information about our enemies as well as for ways to neutralize them. This has been the case in our pursuit of Kansi, Bin Laden, al-Qaeda, the Russians in Afghanistan, and kingpins such as Escobar and the Cali Cartel in Colombia, as well as Russian moles such as Ames and Hanssen within our own national security system. This account points to the CIA’s record in bringing these enemies to heel through covert action and in seeking accurate intelligence that protects our country and allows our leaders to make informed policy decisions.
Francis Thompson, the nineteenth-century poet, wrote lyrically in The Hound of Heaven about man’s seemingly perpetual flight from God. Thompson’s language applies to our relentless pursuit of our adversaries in this world: “I fled Him, down the nights and down the days … down the labyrinthine ways … Across the margent of the world…” But in the end, Thompson concludes that man cannot outrun his destiny. So, too, America’s enemies cannot outrun the CIA’s long reach.
People Consulted
Charles Allen, former assistant secretary for information analysis and chief of intelligence at the Department of Homeland Security
Frank Anderson, former head of the Afghan Task Force
Stanley Arkin, prominent New York attorney
Milton Bearden, former chief, Islamabad
Richard Betts, professor at Columbia University, School of International and Public Affairs
Vinx Blocker, former senior Latin America operations officer
Ed Boring, former senior Latin America operations officer
Brian Bramson, former chief of operations, Counter Narcotics Center
Jay Brant, former senior Latin America operations officer
John Breckenridge, former senior operations officer, Europe
Tim Burton, former chief of logistics for the Afghan Task Force
Morris Busby, former U.S. ambassador to Colombia
Richard Calder, former deputy director for administration
Richard Coffman, former senior CIA officer
Charles Cogan, former chief, Near East and South Asia Division; and associate, Harvard University Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs
David Cohen, former associate deputy director for intelligence
Claude Connelly, former senior Middle East operations officer
Jeffrey Davidow, former U.S. ambassador to Mexico, South Africa, Venezuela, and Zambia
Carol Rollie Flynn, former special assistant to the deputy director of operations
Randall Forte, former assistant secretary of state for intelligence and research
Norm Gardner, former chief of staff to deputy director of operations
Robert Gelbard, former U.S. ambassador to Bolivia and Indonesia and assistant secretary of state for international narcotics and law enforcement affairs
Barry Gibson, former senior Latin America operations officer
Mary Margaret Graham, former deputy director of national intelligence for collection, DNI
Sandra Grimes, former member of the Ames mole hunt team and author
Brad Handley, former senior support officer, Directorate of Administration
Dorothy Hanson, former special assistant to the CIA director
General Michael Hayden, former NSA and CIA director
John Helgerson, former CIA inspector general
John Hillen, former assistant secretary of state for political-military affairs
John Kambourian, former senior Latin America operations officer
Gerald Komisar, former director of Crime and Narcotics Center
Brian Latell, author and former senior CIA Latin America analyst
Kathy Lavinder, founder of Security and Investigative Placement Consultants
Michael Levien, cofounder of LexPro Research
William Luers, Colombia University professor and former U.S. ambassador to Czechoslovakia and Venezuela
David Manners, former senior Middle East operations officer
Lieutenant General Kenneth Minihan, former NSA and DIA director
Hugh Montgomery, former CIA national intelligence officer and former director, Bureau of Intelligence and Research, Department of State, and ambassador
Paul R. Pillar, Georgetown University professor and former deputy director of the CIA’s Counterterrorism Center and senior director of intelligence analysis
Thomas Polgar, former chief of station, Saigon
Ted Price, former deputy director of operations
Paul Redmond, former deputy chief of Counterintelligence Center and assistant secretary for information analysis at Department of Homeland Security
Martin Roeber, former deputy of Counter Narcotics Center and deputy chief of Latin America Division
Dr. Marc Sageman, terrorism expert, author, and forensic psychiatrist
Tom Sheridan, former analyst for Afghan imagery, Directorate of Intelligence
Jacqueline Shire, member, United Nations Panel of Experts (Iran)
Admiral William O. Studeman, former NSA director and CIA deputy director
Dr. Kerry Sulkowicz, psychiat
rist and founder, Boswell Group LLC
Gerald Svat, former deputy chief, Latin America Division
Robert Thomson, partner, Fortitude Partners
Thomas Twetten, former deputy director of operations
William Wagner, former senior officer, Latin America
Raymond Warren, former chief of station, Santiago
Winston Wiley, former deputy director for intelligence
Robert Williams, former Afghan Task Force military analyst and retired infantry officer
Vice Admiral (Ret.) Thomas Wilson, former director of Defense Intelligence Agency
Joseph Wippl, Boston University professor and former chief of Europe division
Frank Wisner, former U.S. ambassador to Egypt, India, and the Philippines
James Woolsey, former CIA director
Notes
INTRODUCTION
1. Bob Drogin, Curveball: Spies, Lies, and the Con Man Who Caused a War (New York: Random House, 2007).
1. INSIDE THE INVISIBLE GOVERNMENT
1. Thomas Powers, The Man Who Kept the Secrets: Richard Helms and the CIA (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1979), pp. 21–22.
2. “Covert Operations of the United States Government,” December 1, 1968, Franklin A. Lindsay et al., Nixon Presidential Library, White House Special Files Collection Box Number 1, Folder 1.
2. MULES, PICKUP TRUCKS, AND STINGER MISSILES
1. Steve Coll, Ghost Wars: The Secret History of the CIA, Afghanistan, and Bin Laden, from the Soviet Invasion to September 10, 2001 (New York: Penguin, 2004).
2. Endnote in George Crile, Charlie Wilson’s War (New York: Grove Press, 2003).
3. Interview with Frank Anderson, September 14, 2011.
4. Interview with Bob Williams, August 23, 2011.
5. Clifton Dempsey is a pseudonym. The officer is still serving undercover. He was interviewed on August 27, 2011.
6. Interview with Tim Burton, August 18, 2011.
7. Interview with Tom Twetten, February 13, 2012.
3. “YOUR FRIEND CALLED FROM THE AIRPORT”
1. The declassified documents from this era are collected in Peter Kornbluh, The Pinochet File (New York: The New Press, 2003). Kornbluh is director of the National Security Archive’s Chile Documentation Project.
2. Ibid., p. 112.
3. Staff Report of the Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations with Respect to Intelligence Activities, United States Senate, Washington, D.C., 1975.
4. Ibid.
5. Thomas Powers, The Man Who Kept the Secrets, p. 11.
6. Cables, Santiago Station to CIA headquarters, October 7, 1970.
7. Powers, The Man Who Kept the Secrets, p. 237.
8. Nathaniel Davis, The Last Two Years of Salvador Allende (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1985).
9. David Frost, Robert Melnick, and Richard Milhous Nixon, “I Gave Them a Sword”: Behind the Scenes of the Nixon Interviews (New York: William Morrow, 1978), p. 84.
10. Kornbluh, The Pinochet File, pp. 138–39.
11. Sergio Bitar, Chile: Experiment in Democracy (Philadelphia: Institute for the Study of Human Issues, 1986), p. 46.
12. Arturo Valenzuela, The Breakdown of Democratic Regimes, Chile (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1978), p. 121.
13. Eden Medina, “Designing Freedom, Regulating a Nation: Socialist Cybernetics in Allende’s Chile,” Journal of Latin American Studies 38 (2006): 571–606.
14. Davis, The Last Two Years of Salvador Allende, p. 48.
15. Time, December 13, 1971.
16. Peter Winn, Americas: The Changing Face of Latin America and the Caribbean (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2006), p. 338.
17. Time, October 30, 1972.
18. Davis, The Last Two Years of Salvador Allende, pp. 324–25.
19. Interview with Jeffrey Davidow, January 24, 2012.
20. Davis, The Last Two Years of Salvador Allende, p. 236.
21. Kornbluh, The Pinochet Files, p. 161.
4. “WE NEED TO POLYGRAPH HIM”
1. George Lardner, Jr., “Ex-CIA Official Clarridge Indicted in Iran Arms Case,” The Washington Post, November 27, 1991.
2. Interview with Charles Allen, September 16, 2011.
3. Pete Earley, Confessions of a Spy: The Real Story of Aldrich Ames (New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1997), pp. 173–203.
4. Interview with Charles Allen.
5. Walter Pincus, “CIA Aide Acts to Lift Reprimand; Veteran Officer Was First to Warn of Possible Diversion to Aid Contras,” The Washington Post, January 1, 1989, p. A6.
6. George Lardner Jr., “Eagleton Says George Hampered Senate Probe; CIA Aide Accused of Lying on Iran-Contra,” The Washington Post, August 8, 1992, p. A4.
5. “JACK, THIS CHANGES IT ALL, DOESN’T IT?”
1. Interview with Milt Bearden, September 30, 2011.
2. Interview with undercover field officer, August 23, 2011.
3. Interview with Frank Anderson, September 14, 2011.
6. DO I LIE TO THE POPE, OR BREAK COVER?
1. Earley, Confessions of a Spy, p. 242.
2. Interview with Hugh Montgomery, August 10, 2011.
3. Earley, Confessions of a Spy, p. 213.
4. Ibid., p. 246.
5. Interview with Hugh Montgomery.
7. SELLING THE LINEAR STRATEGY, ONE LUNCH AT A TIME
1. Mark Bowden, Killing Pablo: The Hunt for the World’s Greatest Outlaw (New York: Penguin Books, 2001), p. 63.
2. Interview with Jerry Svat, January 20, 2012.
3. Interview with Brian Bramson, January 6, 2012.
8. JOUSTING WITH THE SOVIETS: WHEN I KNEW IT WAS OVER
1. Powers, The Man Who Kept the Secrets, p. 54.
10. THE ROOSTER AND THE TRAIN
1. Interview with Jeffrey Davidow.
2. Interview with Brian Latell, February 13, 2012.
3. Interview with Ed Boring, February 23, 2012.
4. Interview with Marty Roeber, October 2011.
5. Interview with John Kambourian, February 13, 2012.
6. Interview with Vice Admiral (Ret.) Thomas Wilson, February 27, 2012.
7. Interview with Jay Brant, April 9, 2012.
8. Interview with Jerry Komisar, February 22, 2012.
9. Interview with Robert Gelbard, February 14, 2012.
10. Interview with Jerry Komisar, February 22, 2012.
11. Tim Weiner, “Two Senior C.I.A. Officials Lose Jobs in Spy Case Fallout,” The New York Times, October 13, 1994, p. 1.
11. RAISING THE BAR
1. Interview with Dick Calder, January 10, 2012.
2. Interview with Carol Rollie Flynn, January 6, 2012.
3. Ibid., February 24, 2012.
4. Ibid., January 6, 2012.
5. Interview with Dick Calder, February 24, 2012.
6. Interview with Admiral Bill Studeman, February 6, 2012.
7. Interview with a former senior Agency official, May 14, 2012.
8. Ibid.
9. Craig R. Whitney, “5 Americans Are Called Spies by France and Told to Leave,” The New York Times, February 23, 1995.
10. Tim Weiner, “C.I.A. Confirms Blunders During Economic Spying on France,” The New York Times, March 13, 1996.
11. Gregory L. Vistica and Evan Thomas, “The Man Who Spied Too Long,” Newsweek, April 29, 1996.
12. Interview with Admiral Bill Studeman.
13. Interview with Dick Calder, January 10, 2012.
14. Ibid.
15. Interview with Dick Coffman, January 11, 2012.
12. UNDISCLOSED
1. David Ignatius, “A Big Man to Watch in Baghdad,” The Washington Post, February 1, 2004.
2. According to a senior Middle East official.
3. “Bin Laden’s Fatwa,” PBS News Hour, August 23, 1996, www.pbs.org/newshour/terrorism/international/fatwa_1996.html.
14. GOOD HUNTING
1. Jack Devine and Whitney Kassel, “Afghanistan: Withdrawal Lessons,” World Policy Journ
al, Fall 2013.
2. Jack Devine, “The CIA Solution for Afghanistan,” The Wall Street Journal, July 29, 2010.
3. Fredrik Dahl, “Experts Argue over Iran Nuclear Bomb Timeline,” December 7, 2001, http://af.reuters.com/article/worldNews/idAFTRE7B620020111207?pageNumber=1&virtualBrandChannel=0.
4. Interview with Ken Minihan, February 7, 2012.
5. Interview with Richard Betts.
6. Interview with Tom Wilson.
7. www.fas.org/irp/offdocs/laws/usc50.html.
8. Interview with Mike Hayden, March 23, 2012.
9. Interview with Frank Wisner, March 29, 2012.
10. Interview with Bill Studeman.
11. Interview with James Woolsey.
12. Interview with Ken Minihan.
13. Interview with Randall Forte, December 12, 2011.
14. Interview with Frank Wisner.
15. Interview with Mike Hayden.
16. Interview with Paul Pillar.
Acknowledgments
This is the first book I have written, and I can say without hesitation that it has been a wonderful learning and life experience. That is not to say that there wasn’t frustration along the way. While I didn’t realize it at the outset, it provided a unique opportunity to reflect profoundly on my professional life and to make sense out of it.
Writing the book also afforded me the unexpected benefit of being able to thank many of my former Agency colleagues and bosses in a more robust way than I had when I worked inside CIA. In that regard, I decided early on to interview many of them and to list them in the book. There were only a very few who couldn’t be mentioned because of their cover situation. Sadly, several of these legendary spymasters have passed on since I started this project, three years ago. I’m deeply grateful to all of them for so graciously consenting to participate in the project and for their courageous service to our country.
