‘In Lake We Trust’? Confirmation Make-Over Exacerbates Senate Concerns About D.C.I.-Designate’s Candor, Reliability

(Washington, D.C.): The phenomenon of
a presidential nominee feverishly trying
to recast long-held positions and obscure
his established record on the eve of his
consideration by the Senate is nothing
new. In fact, this sort of
“confirmation conversion” is
often a tell-tale sign that a candidacy
is in serious trouble. Frequently, it has
the opposite of the intended effect —
sinking a nomination, rather than saving
it.

This may be the case with President
Clinton’s latest candidate for the office
of Director of Central Intelligence
(DCI). The spectacle of Anthony Lake’s
attempted make-over is only reinforcing
Senators’ fears that the former National
Security Advisor is too political, too
facile, in short too untrustworthy to
hold what is, by definition, a position
of ultimate trust. After all, the DCI
works not just for the President but for
the legislative branch, as well. Congress
simply cannot afford to turn over the CIA
to a man in whose judgment, independence
or integrity it lacks confidence.

This has rarely been more true than at
the current moment. As the Center for
Security Policy noted on 16 December
1996:

“Even if the CIA
were in top form — with no
problems with moles, morale,
quality control or the
recruitment and retention of
qualified people — Tony Lake
would be an undesirable choice to
serve as DCI. Under the Agency’s
present dire circumstances,
however, his nomination is a
formula for disaster.” href=”97-T4.html#N_1_”>⁽¹⁾

A Bill of Particulars

Manifestations of Mr. Lake’s
confirmation conversion are not hard to
find. In backgrounding sympathetic press
outlets and damage-control conversations
with Senators, the DCI-designate and his
supporters have made, among others, the
following representations:

• Actually, Lake Believes
  Alger Hiss Was a Spy: In
  an appearance on NBC’s “Meet
  the Press” on 24 November
  1996, then-National Security
  Advisor Lake responded
  to a direct question about
  whether Alger Hiss was a Soviet
  spy by saying: “I’ve read a
  couple of books that certainly
  offered a lot of evidence that he
  may have been. I don’t
  think it’s conclusive.“ href=”97-T4.html#N_2_”>⁽²⁾
  When this astounding statement
  precipitated sharp criticism in
  the media, among U.S.
  intelligence and
  counter-intelligence operatives
  and on Capitol Hill, Mr. Lake put
  out the word that (according to
  the 30 December issue of U.S.
  News and World Report)
  “[he] does believe in the
  former diplomat’s guilt — but
  did not think that a television
  interview following Hiss’ recent
  death was the appropriate venue
  in which to express it.”
• It Was a ‘Mistake’ to
  Conceal the Iran-Bosnia Scandal
  From Congress: Tony
  Lake played a central role in
  preventing the responsible
  congressional committees from
  knowing about the
  Administration’s fateful decision
  to acquiesce in radical Islamic
  Iran’s effort to penetrate the
  European continent through arms
  shipments and military
  cooperation with the Bosnian
  government. So much so that he is
  cited by name in a criminal
  referral from the House select
  subcommittee seeking Janet Reno’s
  appointment of a special counsel
  to investigate the legality of
  Administration actions in the
  Iran-Bosnia affair. Not
  surprisingly, this episode
  engenders unease in the Senate
  about how forthcoming a DCI Lake
  would be with Congress regarding
  politically sensitive covert
  initiatives.

In a classic instance of
confirmation conversion, Tony
Lake has reportedly told Senators
that he now believes it was a
mistake to have withheld
information about the Clinton
role in Iran’s equip-and-train
program in Bosnia. Even President
Clinton has been brought into the
act, declaring on 16 December
that he “accepts” Mr.
Lake’s statement that “it
probably would have been better
to inform key members of Congress
on a confidential basis.”

• Lake Didn’t Mean to
  Suggest that Environmental
  ‘Intelligence’ will be a
  Priority: When
  challenged about his statement at
  the time he was nominated about
  the importance he attached to
  collecting
  “intelligence” on the
  environment, Mr. Lake has
  suggested that this was nothing
  more than a sop to Vice President
  Al Gore. In fact, as former
  Secretary of Defense Caspar
  Weinberger and Peter Schweizer
  recently noted in National
  Review — on Tony
  Lake’s watch, CIA resources have
  been massively diverted from
  monitoring military threats
  to addressing precisely the sorts
  of “global issues” so
  dear to the Vice President’s
  heart (e.g., the extent of
  ecological degradation taking
  place in Lake Victoria). This
  could prove to be an expensive
  “sop” — particularly
  if it were to continue at a Lake
  CIA so that Al Gore will not
  “get mad” at the
  Director.
• The Clinton
  Administration’s N.I.E. on
  Missile Threats was Fatally
  Flawed, After All: Over
  the past year, National Security
  Advisor Tony Lake has joined
  other Administration officials
  who professed confidence in the
  conclusions of a controversial
  1995 National Intelligence
  Estimate (NIE). This NIE arrived
  at the preposterous conclusion
  that there would be no threat of
  ballistic missile attack against
  the United States for at
  least fifteen years. This
  NIE became a cornerstone of the
  Clinton stonewall against prompt
  deployment of anti-missile
  systems to protect the American
  people. When combined with
  concerns about the NIE’s
  contents, the use to which this
  estimate was put reinforced the
  perception that the
  Administration was brazenly
  politicizing the U.S.
  intelligence community.

Mr. Lake now claims he agrees
with the findings of a special
panel commissioned by departing
DCI John Deutch and chaired by
former DCI Robert Gates. href=”97-T4.html#N_3_”>⁽³⁾
Presumably that is because the
Gates panel claimed the NIE was
not politicized. It nonetheless
found that the NIE’s methodology,
assumptions and conclusions were
sufficiently flawed as to make
the estimate deficient as a basis
for policy-making about deploying
missile defenses. Even by the
standards of past confirmation
conversions, it would be a
stunning reversal if Tony Lake
were actually to embrace this
critique.

The Bottom Line

Tony Lake’s make-over also involves
demurrals about his past associations
with the radical Left Institute for
Policy Studies, a “university”
it ran and one of its spin-off
organizations, the Center for National
Security Studies. Like other statements
made in a bid to shore up support for his
nomination, these demurrals — which bear
directly on the DCI-designate’s historic
views of, for example, covert operations
and counter-intelligence activities —
will have to be carefully evaluated by
the Senate Select Committee on
Intelligence.

One thing is clear already, however: A
man with a demonstrated reluctance to
tell the truth lest he, by so doing, hurt
others’ feelings, engender the anger of
his executive branch bosses or complicate
the President’s political and/or policy
agenda, should be considered wholly unfit
for the job of Director of Central
Intelligence.

– 30 –

1. See the
Center’s Transition Brief
entitled Why Tony Lake Is
Unfit — And Unlikely — To Be
the Next Director of Central Intelligence
(No. 96-T
129, 16 December 1996).

2. See the
Center’s Transition Brief
entitled No Go: Lake’s
Position on Russian Spying, Alger Hiss
Should Disqualify Him For Director of the
C.I.A. ( href=”96-T_118″>No. 96-T 118,
25 November 1996).

3. For particulars
on the Gates panel’s criticisms of the
NIE, see the Center’s Transition
Brief entitled It
Walks like a Duck…: Questions Persist
That Clinton C.I.A.’s Missile Threat
Estimate Was Politically Motivated
(No. 96-T
122, 4 December 1996).