Good News, Bad News For U.S. Intelligence: State I.G. Clears The Gatis; Rep. Solomon Asks FBI Investigation of John Huang
(Washington, D.C.): From its founding
in 1988, the Center for Security Policy
has argued that international
developments — notably, the unraveling
of the Soviet Union and the ensuing,
unstable post-Cold War environment —
required redoubled, not diminished,
U.S. intelligence capabilities. It has,
accordingly:
- made the case for preserving
investment in human and technical
collection capabilities;(1) - warned against sloppy personnel
security practices at the White
House and other agencies with
access to classified information;(2) - decried instances in which
intelligence analyses appeared to
be “dumbed down” or
altered to serve political
purposes; (3) - challenged the appointments of
individuals to senior posts in
the Intelligence Community whose
policy proclivities raised
serious questions concerning the
appointees’ independence,
judgment or agenda; (4)
and - been vigilant against notions or
initiatives that threatened to
compromise sensitive sources and
methods and/or undermine
ever-more-important U.S.
counter-intelligence efforts.(5)
Enter Tobi Gati
With respect to the last item, the
Center has been — and remains — deeply
concerned about the Clinton
Administration’s commitment to the
practice of “sharing
intelligence” with “consumers
in foreign governments and multilateral
organizations.” A prominent
proponent of this practice has been Dr.
Tobi Gati, the Assistant Secretary of
State for Intelligence and Research and a
former executive of the U.N. Association.
In a Decision Brief
issued in May 1996 and entitled Before
U.S. Intelligence Can Be Reformed, the
Clinton Administration Must Stop
Deforming It (
the Center recalled that:
“In May 1995, the State
Department’s senior intelligence
official — Assistant Secretary
of State Toby Gati — told
Congress that the United States
had to share intelligence with
the U.N. even when it is not in
U.S. interests to do so. Her
reasoning? Doing so might assure
that the United Nations would be
willing to make use of American
secret information when
Washington wanted it to.”
In that paper, the Center expressed
concern that these notions were being
translated into intelligence
community-wide policy. Dr. Gati was
credited with being a “prime-mover
behind Director of Central Intelligence
John Deutch’s reckless directive aimed at
revising ‘Security Controls on the
Dissemination of Intelligence
Information.’
“This directive turned
traditional practice on its head;
the burden of proof was shifted
from those who wished to share
intelligence with foreign
nationals (i.e., to demonstrate
that no harm will accrue to U.S.
interests) to those who opposed
such sharing (they were required
to demonstrate that such sharing
will cause ‘unreasonable’ harm to
those interests.)”
The Center put its concerns about this
directive and its proponents into
perspective by concluding that it
reflected:
“…The truly radical nature
of the Clinton Administration’s
agenda for U.S. national security
and foreign policy institutions.
Simply put, that agenda seems
designed to dismantle or
incapacitate such institutions or
otherwise to reduce their
effectiveness….This policy
seems rooted in a conviction that
potential adversaries who gain
access to U.S. secrets will not
use them to this country’s
detriment — not least by using
such information to neutralize
U.S. ‘sources and methods’ of
collecting such information and
exploiting the openness to
penetrate whatever secrets as are
still closely held….An
Intelligence Community still
reeling from the effects of one
Soviet/Russian mole, Aldrich
Ames, should be exhibiting more
care about facilitating the
burrowing of his
successors.”
The Gatis Investigation
In November 1996, the Washington
Times revealed that Mrs. Gati and
her husband, Charles, were the subjects
of a State Department Inspector General
(I.G.) investigation. It reportedly
involved allegations, as the Times
put it yesterday, of “questionable
foreign contacts and improperly seeking
top-secret documents linking her husband
[Dr. Charles Gati] and a family friend to
Hungary’s spy service.” In light of
its long-standing misgivings about Tobi
Gati’s judgment and practices with
respect to the substance and conduct of
intelligence, the Center questioned in
writing the prudence of her remaining in
her post in charge of an intelligence
agency, pending the resolution of this
investigation. (6)
The Center for Security Policy
welcomes the public announcement Monday
that Assistant Secretary of State Tobi
Gati and her husband, Dr. Charles Gati,
have now been cleared by the State
Department Inspector General of charges
involving, in the words of State
Department spokesman Nicholas Burns
illegal leaks of “classified
information” and “improperly
obtaining a security clearance.”
Assuming this finding is confirmed by
congressional committees that have been
conducting independent reviews of the
allegations concerning the Gatis and that
are expected to receive copies of the
I.G.’s classified report.(7)
it will be particularly well received by
those among the Center’s Board of
Advisors, friends and colleagues who hold
Dr. Charles Gati in high esteem.
Importantly, vindication of the Gatis
on these scores should also clear the way
for a renewed and unencumbered focus to
be placed on the Center’s abiding concern
about the dubious intelligence practices
that have been all too common in the
Clinton Administration’s first term —
practices with which Mrs. Gati has
generally been closely identified.
At Last, Attention to the
Security Implications of the Huang Affair
Speaking of such practices, the Center
for Security Policy takes heart from a 22
January 1997 initiative by the chairman
of the powerful House Rules Committee,
Rep. Gerald Solomon (R-NY). In a letter
to FBI Director Louis Freeh, Chairman
Solomon asked for an investigation into
the possible involvement of former Deputy
Assistant Secretary of Commerce and
Democratic fund-raiser John Huang
“focusing on, at a minium, economic
espionage against the United States by a
foreign corporation having direct ties to
The People’s Republic of China.”
The Center for Security Policy
applauds Rep. Solomon for his leadership
on this issue — as on so many other
matters vital to the national security
and foreign policy interests of the
United States. It fully shares the
concerns he has expressed, as evidenced
in two recent papers dealing with the
Huang affair specifically and as a
microcosm of the larger problem posed by
the Clinton Administration’s systematic
disregard for the most rudimentary
personnel and information security
practices. (8)
The Center reiterates the observation
made in the concluding paragraph of the
25 October 1996 Decision Brief:
“If units of the U.S.
military were conducting their
activities with such disregard,
not to say contempt, for the
first principles of personnel,
information and physical
security, there would be
courts-martials all around. The
Clinton Administration must be
held to no less stringent a
standard of accountability — in
the interest of mitigating the
damage that may yet occur, if not
of undoing that which has already
been inflicted.”
Such accountability is especially
important in light of the particulars of
the Huang affair. As is noted in a
plaintive op.ed. article published in
today’s Wall Street Journal by
Joel Kotkin:
“…Many of Mr. Huang’s
long-time acquaintances
increasingly doubt the efficacy
of the Clinton’s backing….
‘Some of us don’t understand why
Clinton has such a low profile on
this scandal and John is taking
all the responsibility,’ observes
Mr. Diau, [a Chinese-American
journalist now working as] a
business manager. ‘John says the
Clinton family supports him, but
nothing’s being done. Clinton’s
reputation in the community has
really suffered. Guanxi
[Chinese for politically and/or
commercially] useful connections
is supposed to work both
ways.'”
The Bottom Line
The Center calls on the President and those
elements of his new national security
team now in place to accord top priority
to the establishment of a real, rigorous
and accountable program of personnel and
information security — a cornerstone of
any effective intelligence and
counter-intelligence operation — to
govern the people and policies of the
second Clinton term. Should the executive
branch fail to take such steps
voluntarily, it behooves Congressman
Solomon and his colleagues in the
legislative branch to compel corrective
action.
– 30 –
1. See, for
example, the Center’s Decision
Brief entitled Chairman
Hyde Sounds An Urgent Warning About the
Need to Strengthen, Depoliticize U.S.
Intelligence (
22 January 1996).
2. See, for
example, the Center’s Decision
Brief entitled ‘No
Aldrich Ameses at the White House’: Are
You Sure? Real Care In Order As the NSC
Reorganizes ‘C.I.’ (
1 May 1994).
3. See, for
example, the Center’s Decision
Brief entitled ‘Say
It Ain’t So, Jim’: Impending
Reorganization of CIA Looks Like
Suppression, Politicizing of Intelligence
(No. 94-D
74, 15 July 1994).
4. See, for
example, the Center’s Transition
Briefs entitled Apres Woolsey,
Le Deluge? Congress Must Beware of
Actions, Appointments That Will Weaken
U.S. Intelligence (
30 December 1994) and Why
Tony Lake Is Unfit — And Unlikely
— To Be the Next Director of Central
Intelligence (
16 December 1996).
5. See, for
example, the Center’s Decision
Brief entitled Will
the CIA’s Guatemala Flap Throw Congress
Off the Scent of a Real Intelligence
Scandal — Clinton’s Reckless
Endangerment of U.S. Sources and Methods?
(No. 95-D
22, 5 April 1995).
6. See the Center’s
Transition Brief
entitled And Now,
The Gati Revelations: No
Further Delay Can Be Tolerated In Fixing
the Clinton Team’s Insecurity
Practices (
14 November 1996).
7. The Center has
learned that there is considerable
unhappiness in the I.G.’s office about
the fact that Mr. Burns — a former
subordinate of Mrs. Gati at the National
Security Council and personal friend —
announced the conclusions of part
of the investigation prior to the
completion of the examination of other
aspects. Evidently allegations concerning
possibly improper or illegal retaliatory
actions against an I&R employee are
still being explored by the Inspector
General’s office.
8. See the
Center’s Decision Briefs
entitled ‘High Crimes and
Misdemeanors’? The Huang Caper Reinforces
Concerns About Clinton Malfeasance On
Security Matters (
1 November 1996) and Clinton’s
National Insecurity Policies Are
A Ticking Time-Bomb (
25 October 1996).
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