‘NO ALDRICH AMESES AT THE WHITE HOUSE’: ARE YOU SURE? REAL CARE IN ORDER AS THE NSC REORGANIZES ‘C.I.’
(Washington, D.C.): As the Center for
Security Policy recently noted,(1)
one of the more chilling aspects of the
collapse of security procedures in the
Clinton Administration was an insouciant
statement made by the director of the
White House Office of Administration in
Congressional testimony last month.
According to the Wall Street Journal,
Patsy Thomasson — a political crony of
the Clintons from Arkansas who received a
security clearance only after being in
her sensitive position for thirteen
months — told members of the House
of Representatives: “We
don’t think we have any Aldrich Ameses at
the White House. But we certainly
could.”
If the far-reaching implications of
such a pronouncement did not precipitate
intense reviews within the Administration
and by the relevant committees on Capitol
Hill, remarks made Thursday by Rick Ames
should do so. They were made in federal
court, where he confessed to serving for
nine years as a highly placed agent for
Soviet and Russian intelligence in the
Central Intelligence Agency:
“I earnestly hope that an
enlightened view of our nation’s true
and enduring security interests can
emerge from a real debate on the
issues. Congress and the public have
sufficient information to begin this
discussion. Many current
and past government officials
have a realistic view of them.
Intelligence collection, including
espionage, is too important and
costly an undertaking to be left to
its traditional, self-serving
managers.”
The Gospel According to
Ames
Ames maintains that the
“realistic view” which he
shares with “many current government
officials” includes the following,
astounding tenets:
- “…I [have] come to believe
that the espionage
business, as carried out by the
CIA and a few other American
agencies, was and is a
self-serving sham,
carried out by careerist
bureaucrats who have managed to
deceive several generations of
American policy-makers and the
public about both the
necessity and the value of their
work.” - “There is and has
been no rational need for
thousands of case officers, and
tens of thousands of agents
working around the world,
primarily in and against friendly
countries. The
information our vast espionage
network acquires at considerable
human and ethical costs is generally
insignificant or irrelevant
to our policy makers’
needs.” - “Our espionage establishment
differs hardly at all from many
other Federal bureaucracies,
having transformed itself into a
self-serving interest group, immeasurably
aided by secrecy.” - “Now that the Cold
War is over and the
Communist tyrannies largely done
for, our country still awaits a
real national debate on the means
and ends — and costs — of our
national security policies….[W]e
need to question, as only a few
have done, our real needs for
intelligence collection,
including the highly suspect tool
of espionage.” - “…The CIA learned well
from its teachers and, despite
its difficulty in maintaining the
requisite secrecy, brought our
own American tendency toward
bureaucratic gigantism and
missionary zeal to the task. But
the longer we delay in
recognizing the truth — that espionage
is a desperate and limited
expedient, not a routine
bureaucratic practice — the more
dangerous we will be to ourselves
and our friends. Our enemies, as
in the past, need not
worry.”
The Gospel According to
Morton Halperin
Following President Clinton’s decision
to nominate a radical leftist, Morton
Halperin, to the post of Assistant
Secretary of Defense for Democracy and
Peacekeeping, the Center for Security
Policy exhaustively researched his past
writings and testimony. In the course of
preparing two lengthy “White
Papers” and a number of Decision
Briefs on this nomination,(2)
it came across myriad quotes(3)
that strongly suggest that Halperin could
be one of the sympathetic “current
government officials” to whom Ames
was referring:
- “You can never preclude
abuses by intelligence agencies
and, therefore, that is a risk
that you run if you decide to
have intelligence agencies. I
think there is a very real
tension between a clandestine
intelligence agency and a free
society. I think we accepted it
for the first time during the
Cold War period and I think in
light of the end of the Cold War
we need to assess a variety of
things at home, including secret
intelligence agencies, and make
sure that we end the Cold War at
home as we end it abroad.”
(“MacNeil/Lehrer
Newshour,” 23 July 1991) - “Secrecy…does not
serve national security….Covert
operations are incompatible with
constitutional government and
should be abolished.”
(“Just Say No: The Case
Against Covert Action,” The
Nation, 21 March 1987) - “The ‘successes’ of
covert action and espionage, of
which the CIA is so proud, have
taken place in countries that are
no threat to the security of the
United States.” (The
Lawless State: The Crimes of the
U.S. Intelligence Agencies,
1976) - “While the most flagrant
abuses of the rights of Americans
associated with the Cold War are
thankfully gone from the scene,
we have been left behind with a
legacy of secrecy that continues
to undermine democratic
principles.” (Boston
Globe, 26 July 1992) - “Millions of government
documents on critical policy
matters are needlessly
classified, preventing essential
information on foreign policy
from reaching the public domain, even
though disclosure would cause no
appreciable harm to the national
security.”
(“Ending the Cold War at
Home,” Foreign Policy,
Winter 1990-91, p.129) - “National security agencies
would prefer to expand their
domains to cover such matters as
international crime,
international economic problems,
overpopulation, AIDS, global
hunger and the environment.
Congress must understand,
therefore, that unless it enacts
a classification statue that
explicitly excludes such
information from the national
security secrecy system, there is
a substantial danger that the
intelligence agencies, the
President and ultimately the
courts will treat these issues by
the same unaccountable standards
as they now treat national
security matters. Whatever
is to remain of the secrecy
system after the Cold War, it
must not be permitted to expand
into new areas outside of its
narrow domain.” (First
Principles, March/April
1992, p. 6)
Halperin for the Defense?
So unmistakable are the parallels
between Rick Ames’s view of the U.S.
intelligence community — and the threat
that it poses to American citizens,
interests and allies — and Morton
Halperin’s longstanding sentiments that
one can not help but wonder: Had Halperin
not been a “current government
official,” might he have been
mounting over the past few months a
vigorous defense of this now-confessed
Soviet spy.
Such speculation is informed by
Halperin’s past efforts on behalf of
other prominent American traitors: CIA
turncoat Philip Agee, Vietnamese spy
David Truong and Pentagon Papers leaker
Daniel Ellsberg. The Senate Armed
Services Committee hearing on Morton
Halperin’s nomination last November — a
hearing that effectively ended any chance
he might be confirmed to a top Pentagon
post — established that the nominee had
routinely used his credentials as a
“former government official”
(in the McNamara Pentagon and Kissinger
National Security Council) on behalf of
such individuals to minimize the damage
inflicted by their treason.
For example, of Daniel Ellsberg’s
leaking of the Pentagon Papers to the New
York Times, Halperin averred:
“Having had administrative
responsibility for the production of the
Papers, I knew they contained
nothing which would cause serious injury
to national security.”
(“Where I’m At,” First
Principles, September 1975, p. 15)
The question thus occurs: Would the
prosecution of Rick Ames have succeeded
— and would his cooperation have been
secured in unravelling the real and
enormous damage caused by his
espionage — if it had been Morton
Halperin, Washington Director of the
American Civil Liberties Union and former
government official, rather than the
defendant who had made the following
case: “…I do not believe that our
nation’s interests have been noticeably
damaged by [Ames’] acts, or for that
matter, those of the Soviet Union or
Russia noticeably aided.” Would Ames
have “walked” like Daniel
Ellsberg and Philip Agee, or done time
like David Truong?
Uh-Oh: The
Counterintelligence Reorganization
Of course, far more consequential than
what Morton Halperin might have done had
he not been in government is what
he may now be doing from a top staff
position on the National Security Council.
According to press reports, the NSC is
playing a pivotal role in
“reorganizing” U.S.
counterintelligence (CI) activities. For
example, a front-page story in the Washington
Post on 26 April 1994 disclosed
that:
“The White House, mediating a
bitter dispute between the FBI and
CIA over control of
counterintelligence, is considering a
plan that would transfer key
spy-catching and policy-setting
responsibilities from the CIA to
senior FBI officials….A draft
proposal worked out by the National
Security Council staff…would
institute a series of reforms meant
to speed the early and efficient
detection of foreign spies who have
penetrated the U.S. government.”
The Wall Street Journal
reported three days later that the NSC’s
role would in the future go well beyond
simply brokering adjustments in the U.S.
government’s CI bureaucracy. Henceforth,
it will become an integral part of the
process:
“…The White House is
preparing reforms aimed at tightening
U.S. counter-intelligence efforts.
They include two new bureaucratic
structures, one within the CIA and the
other within the White House’s
National Security Council,
that are being designed to better
coordinate counterintelligence
efforts. Under an agreement between
the CIA and the FBI, both will be
headed by FBI experts.”
Could It Get Worse?
In the wake of the Ames case, a hard
look at improving U.S.
counterintelligence is clearly in order.
The need for such a review has only been
intensified by the subsequent revelation
by CIA Director James Woolsey that —
thanks to a post-Cold War windfall of
relevant information from the files of
former Warsaw Pact intelligence services
— a number of other possible
“moles” in the American
government are under investigation.
That said, there is a
considerable danger that, instead of
making improvements, a hasty
reorganization could actually make
matters worse. Increasing FBI
responsibility in the CI area seems to
have some obvious merits. It would,
however, be dangerous and highly
counterproductive if, in the process, the
reorganizers were to oblige the adoption
of the “criminal standard”
(i.e., reason to believe that a crime
is about to be committed) as the sole
basis for counterintelligence collection.
CI clearly involves much than just the
detection and prosecution of crimes. If
relegated to such a limited role, the
effectiveness of a reorganized U.S.
counterintelligence apparatus would be
greatly reduced both in bringing spies to
justice and in pursuing broader American
CI efforts.
The Halperin Factor
Unfortunately, given the evident
involvement of individuals of Morton
Halperin’s stripe in decision-making
about restructuring U.S. CI activities,
such an undesirable outcome seems
virtually guaranteed. After all, Halperin
and his allies have long championed
legislation and regulations designed to
hobble the FBI and other federal agencies
by, among other techniques, requiring
them to utilize a “criminal
standard” in targeting and
performing intelligence operations.
Arguably, the most notable success of
this “anti-intelligence”
campaign — in which Morton Halperin
played a pivotal role as head of the Campaign
to Stop Government Spying (later
called the Campaign for Political
Rights), the Center for
National Security Studies, the Project
on National Security and Civil Liberties
and the Washington office of the ACLU
— was the Justice Department’s adoption
of the 1976 “Levi guidelines for
Domestic Security Investigations.”
These guidelines dictated that:
“Domestic security investigations
are conducted when authorized…to
ascertain information on the activities
of individuals, or the activities of
groups, which involve or will involve the
use of force or violence and which
involve or will involve the violation of
federal law….”
Halperin was also a prime-mover behind
other major anti-intelligence
initiatives: a 1977 draft “Law to
Control the FBI”; a 1979
“Charter” for the FBI; and
concerted harassment of the intelligence
community through Freedom of Information
requests and private litigation. Of the
legislative gambit, W. Raymond Wannall —
a thirty-year veteran of the FBI who
served as Assistant Director responsible
for its Intelligence Division — once
said:
“Aside from outlawing or
drastically curtailing investigative
techniques utilized in
law-enforcement and/or intelligence
operations ever since day one, the
[“Law to Control the FBI”],
if adopted, would have eliminated
all domestic and some foreign
intelligence and counterintelligence
functions of the FBI.”
(Emphasis added.)(4)
Former FBI Director William Webster
was no less scathing in his testimony
before Congress in 1982 concerning the
effect of the harassment campaign against
U.S. intelligence long promoted by Morton
Halperin:
“My problem today is not
‘unleashing’ the FBI, my problem is
convincing those in the FBI that they
can work up to the level of our
authority. Too many people have been
sued, too many people have been
harassed and their families and life
savings tied up in litigation and
threat of prosecution. So
that we and others like us run the
risk that we will not do our full
duty in order to protect our
individual selves.”(5)
In short, a reorganization of U.S.
counterintelligence at the hands of the
likes of Morton Halperin may produce a
disastrous result for American security.
It may, on the other hand, meet with “enthusiastic
— if not jubilant — approval from
subversives, spies and terrorists,”
words used by Mr. Wannall to describe the
delight such individuals might have taken
in the Halperin-sponsored “Law to
Control the FBI.”(6)
The Bottom Line
The high correlation between the views
of a confessed traitor like Aldrich Ames
and those long held by Morton Halperin is
profoundly troubling. It appears that
Ames intends to use the pulpit afforded
by his unmasking to continue to wage war
against the national security in much the
same way that Morton Halperin did during
his years out of government. The widely
perceived need to prevent repetitions of
the Ames affair may, ironically, afford
“current government official”
Halperin an unprecedented opportunity to
advance this agenda.
At the very least, this correlation
establishes one fact beyond dispute: The
past anti-intelligence agitation and
related activities of people like Morton
Halperin has given aid and comfort to
Ames — and perhaps to other moles now
believed to be operating within the U.S.
government — in rationalizing acts of
betrayal and treason.
The stakes are much too high in the
needed reorganization of U.S.
counterintelligence for it to be
entrusted to the likes of Morton
Halperin. Rigorous congressional
oversight hearings into the Ames case and
its implications are in order — and
should be conducted before any
sweeping measures are taken that could
well compound, rather than ameliorate,
the present situation.
These hearings should examine not only
the relationship between the CI functions
of the FBI, the CIA, the military
services, NSA and other federal agencies
(e.g., how to institutionalize greater
cooperation and efficiency in the
exploitation of
counterintelligence-related data). They
should also explore ways to
promote a professional skepticism within
the U.S. government essential to
establishing and reestablishing
the bona fides of intelligence sources
and the information they relay.
Such an attitude and the ongoing
analytical effort it makes possible are
indispensable tools to any successful CI
apparatus. As amply demonstrated by the
Ames case — and other past and impending
counterintelligence debacles, they have
been virtually absent from American
intelligence for far too long.
– 30 –
1. See The
Clinton Security Melt-Down: ‘No-Gate’
Demonstrates ‘Its the People,
Stupid,” (
March 1994).
2. See, for
example, ‘New Democrat
Watch’: Bad Personnel is Bad Policy — If
You Liked Lani Guinier, You’ll Love Mort
Halperin, (
4 June 1993), The
Case Against the Halperin Nomination
(Second Edition): Expanded Readings from
Morton Halperin’s Collected Works and
Rebuttals to Halperin’s Defense,
(2 September 1993) and The
Tip of the Iceberg: U.S. Debacle in
Somalia Foreshadows Clinton Foreign
Policy Failures Beyond (
8 October 1993).
3. Emphasis added
throughout.
4. See, W. Raymond
Wannall, “The FBI: Perennial Target
of the Left,” The Journal of
Social, Political and Economic Studies,
Volume 13, No. 3, pp. 279-299.
5. From Judge
Webster’s testimony during an FBI
oversight hearing by the Senate
Subcommittee on Security and Terrorism, 4
February 1982, No.J-97-94, p.19.
6. Wannall, op.cit.,
p. 286.
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