Secret intelligence, the nation’s first line of defense

by Henry Hyde
The Washington Times, January 22, 1996

As we continue to reduce the size of our military
forces and their presence overseas, it is imperative that
intelligence – this nation’s early warning system – is
better than ever in this post-Cold War era.

As a combat veteran of World War II, I vividly
remember how an intelligence failure contributed to the
tragedy at Pearl Harbor in December 1941. Within the
Roosevelt administration there were scattered bits of
information as to what the Japanese might be
contemplating. But, there was no one pulling together and
analyzing them as part of a coordinated effort to furnish
the president with an intelligence estimate of Japan’s
intentions.

Indeed, it was the painful lesson of Pearl Harbor that
prompted then President Truman to establish, after World
War II, a centralized intelligence organization. We must,
therefore, resist efforts to dismantle or cripple U.S.
intelligence. U.S. intelligence capabilities are critical
instruments of our national power and an integral part of
our national security. With that historical background, I
would like to offer some observations and
recommendations.

THE DOWNSIDE OF DOWNSIZING.

I have been told that the downsizing of the
Intelligence Community’s work force has been especially
injurious in key areas. In some agencies, these
reductions have allegedly exceeded 80 percent.

For example, most of the seasoned analysts of the
Russian military, including those performing highly
complex analyses on strategic missile systems, are
reportedly moving on or taking job opportunities that
promise more advancement. Meanwhile, the intelligence
community is being tasked to address a wider range of
threats and policy needs, especially in the areas of
proliferation, economic competitiveness, environment,
drugs, terrorism and humanitarian relief. Currently,
warning of potential regional crises and providing
support to NATO and U.N. forces in the Balkans are
absorbing major resources. These rapidly increasing
demands do not include the day to day crises that consume
additional collection and research resources.

The upshot is a growing concern that intelligence is
being stretched to the breaking point. This could have
serious implications downstream. For example, if another
Russian crisis were to occur -such as Boris Yeltsin’s
attack on parliament in 1993 – the intelligence community
today would be less able to warn of military
mobilization. Informed sources claim, until recently,
analysis and collection on the deception and denial
activities of potential adversaries had dropped to
dangerously low levels. Purportedly, remedial action is
under way. This should be high priority, as interpreting
warnings of attack will become more difficult as
adversaries improve their denial and deceptions
techniques.

The idea that intelligence can stay abreast of new
technology, add new missions and still downsize its
personnel at a rate of 3 percent to 5 percent per year is
fantasy. At a minimum, intelligence programs should be
reinvigorated in three broad areas to minimize risks to
U.S. forces and insure our ability to maintain the
capability to act effectively in a major crisis.

First, new investment should be dedicated to
increasing access to high priority targets including
Russia, China, North Korea and the “rogue
states” of the Middle East. We must not forget that
Russia and China possess strategic nuclear forces and
that their long-term political orientation could turn
against the United States if hostile leaders were to gain
power again in these megastates.

Second, a robust investment program to counter denial
and deception should be built to embrace satellite, air
and ground base collection.

Third, programmatic and personnel policies must be
formed to ensure the brightest talent, with linguistic
and cultural expertise, is devoted to the most vital
issues that affect U.S. security in the long run, not
just to issues of the moment.

COMPETITIVE ANALYSIS – A CARDINAL PRINCIPLE THAT MUST
BE PRESERVED.

In this era of restructuring, the temptation may be
irresistible to eliminate perceived redundancies within
the intelligence community. That may be necessary in the
hardware and collection areas. But, some competitive
analysis must be preserved in the analytical realm,
especially in areas like strategic nuclear force analysis
where threats to the United States are potentially the
gravest. The nation’s well-being often pivots around
national security issues. Thus, the president and his key
advisors must have a variety of assessments before they
make critical decisions. Moreover, there should be an
established procedure and available resources for
pursuing comprehensive challenges to
“mainstream” opinion in any analytical area
significant to national security.

COMMUNICATIONS TECHNOLOGY.

The explosive pace of communications technology is
posing new challenges for the intelligence community.
Data move around the world in greater volumes and at
faster speeds than ever before. Maintaining our advantage
in understanding secret foreign communications will hinge
upon a strong and robust cryptological capability. I am
concerned, however, that adequate resources are not being
committed to sustaining this capability.

DIRECTORATE OF OPERATIONS/ COUNTER-INTELLIGENCE.

The incessant battering the CIA (and the DO in
particular is receiving in the wake of the Ames case) has
caused morale in the DO to plummet to an all-time low.
Much of the criticism is deserved. Nevertheless, there is
a real need to be sensitive to this debilitating morale
problem as Congress helps the DO remedy the problems
cited in the inspector general’s report on the Ames case.
I was struck by the serious lack of managerial
accountability with respect to the Ames case. Thus, it is
very important for the congressional intelligence
committees to engage in intensive oversight of the
counterintelligence area.

As far back as 1988, I can recall Dick Cheney joining
me in questioning the then-DCI, Judge Webster, and others
on why the Soviet, Chinese and Cuba Sections of the
Operations Directorate were exempted from the
Counterintelligence Center scrutiny applied to to other
areas of the world. In retrospect, it appears that this
exemption may have contributed to Mr. Ames’ going
undetected so long. (Reportedly, this inexplicable
anomaly has now been remedied.)

Until recently, there did not appear to be a
coordinated counterintelligence mission for the
government as a whole. No one determined what priorities
and resources should be given to each agency. I
understand a national counterintelligence strategy has
now been developed. If so, it should include the
following: 1) a system for identifying which secrets are
truly critical to the national security, 2) assessing
those secrets’ vulnerability to intelligence threats, 3)
mandatory counterintelligence training for all
intelligence officers and 4) establishing professional
counterintelligence services within all appropriate
agencies and departments.

It is my understanding that the DO is withdrawing to a
large extent from certain parts of the world. Budgetary
constraints may make this necessary, but it should be
very carefully watched. We do not want to repeat the
mistake of the late 1970s, when the CIA withdrew its
presence from key areas of the world only to find shortly
thereafter that it had to be reinstated. The DO must
maintain a surge capability to ensure it can rapidly
respond to emergencies. And for this to be possible, a
core network of agents must be sustained in those places
deemed momentarily quiescent and unimportant to U.S.
security interests.

Recently, there have been disturbing press accounts
indicating the CIA is considering new screening criteria
for recruiting foreign agents. The general impression
conveyed is that henceforth future foreign assets must
have the pedigree of Mother Teresa or Saint Francis of
Assisi. I hope that these are exaggerated stories. To
expect someone with the moral purity of a saint to
penetrate the Cali Cartel is wholly unrealistic. The
harsh reality is that the only way to infiltrate the
tightly controlled Colombian drug networks is to recruit
someone who has ties to them. The same holds true for
terrorist cells. We live in an imperfect world, and we
sometimes must join forces with individuals with less
than pristine personal histories. After all, during World
War II, we allied ourselves with Josef Stalin, one of
history’s all-time mass murderers, to defeat Adolf
Hitler.

In an experiment that bears watching, the Directorate
of Intelligence (DI) and the DO have begun to co-locate
their personnel. In other words, the operators and the
analysts are working side by side. Given the historical
antipathy between these two sharply contrasting cultures,
everyone is watching to see if they can work together
congenially. If they can, the overall intelligence effort
should benefit immeasurably, especially in the area of
counterintelligence where — as spy scandals in recent
years have demonstrated — there has been a crying need
for better analysis. It is crucial that the DI maintain
rigorous objectivity to prelude charges that intelligence
analysis is being politicized. This problem can only be
avoided through strong agency management.

COVERT ACTION.

Since the mid-1970’s covert action has been seen as an
atypical procedure for the conduct of foreign policy. It
is imperative to rebuild the consensus within the United
States that once saw covert action as a regular,
legitimate means of bolstering the realization of foreign
policy objectives. It must not be seen, nor used, as a
panacea or substitute for policy. Rather, covert action
should be employed as a normal tool of U.S. statecraft,
designed to work in support of and in conjunction with
government’s other diplomatic, military and economic
efforts.

CONGRESSIONAL OVERSIGHT OF INTELLIGENCE ACTIVITIES.

Congress obviously must play a very substantial role
in any proposal to restructure and oversee the U.S.
intelligence community. In this regard, I first
introduced a Joint Intelligence Committee bill in 1984
and a Congressional Oath of Secrecy proposal in 1987 that
was inspired by a similar oath taken by Ben Franklin and
four other members on the Committee of Secret
Correspondence of the Second Continental Congress. The
latter has now been adopted in the House, thanks to the
efforts of one of my congressional colleagues, Rep.
Porter Goss of Florida.

What prompted these confidence building measures was a
desire to make congressional oversight more secure and
effective. That can only be accomplished if the
membership of the congressional panels trust the
intelligence agencies and vice versa. Leaks destroy that
trust and do great damage to the whole oversight process.
Moreover, they can jeopardize lives, as well as vital
relationships with foreign agents and friendly
intelligence services.

A Joint Intelligence Committee, composed of a small
number of key members from both chambers of Congress,
would substantially reduce the risks of leaks. The fewer
people in the “loop,” the less likelihood of
damaging disclosures. Our forefathers clearly reorganized
this fact of life as they limited knowledge of
Revolutionary War secrets to only five members. Moreover,
each of these individuals took his oath of secrecy very
seriously. None other than Thomas Paine, the author of
“Common Sense,” was fired as a staffer of the
Secret Correspondence Committee for leaking information
concerning France’s covert help to our Revolutionary War
effort. We should not hesitate to emulate our forefathers
and punish those who betray the trust bestowed upon them.

INTELLIGENCE PURITY.

Periodically during my tenure on the House
Intelligence Committee, there were assertions that
intelligence assessments were “cooked” to
buttress certain foreign policy objectives. Immunizing
the integrity of intelligence is of paramount importance.
In this connection, two things come to mind.

First, is the proposal to abolish the CIA and fold its
functions into the Department of State, a recipe for
cooking intelligence if ever I saw one. Inevitably, there
will come a time when the diplomats will pressure their
intelligence colleagues to color an intelligence
assessment to justify a foreign policy initiative.
Moreover, the more controversial the policy, the greater
the risk of politicalized intelligence.

Second, and related to the question of
“cooked” intelligence, the DCI must not be
viewed as essentially a political operative. Clearly, it
is beneficial to the intelligence community if the DCI
has the president’s confidence, but he or she should not
be a policy-maker, as are Cabinet members. Rather, he or
she should be the president’s ultimate intelligence
advisor. In short, a fire wall must be erected between
intelligence and policy which often is driven by
political considerations.

INTELLIGENCE SUPPORT TO LAW ENFORCEMENT.

As chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, I am
cognizant of the significant role intelligence plays in
supporting law enforcement efforts. I am also very much
aware of the tension that often develops between
intelligence and law enforcement officials.

Protecting sources and methods is the trascendent
concern of every intelligence officer. Prosecutors,
however, are looking for information that can be used at
trial. If security reasons preclude the use of relevant
intelligence, then the prosecutor is left with something
that is, at best, of marginal utility. Moreover,
constitutional standards of due process and the right to
confront one’s accusers further complicate the
relationship between the intelligence community and law
enforcement.

How to reconcile the competing needs and concerns in a
deportation matter is a real challenge and one I have
attempted to address in the “Comprehensive
Antiterrorism Act of 1995.” In that bill, we address
the frustrating situation where the intelligence
community has identified an alien as engaging in
terrorist activities while in the United States, but
because of the current deportation laws, we cannot expel
the alien without disclosing sensitive information –
which could the security of this nation.

In response to this dilemma, a procedure has been
developed whereby the alien would get only a declassified
summary of the classified evidence against him. To ensure
fairness, however, the bill creates a special panel of
cleared attorneys who would be granted access to the
classified information supporting the terrorism charges
against a legal permanent resident alien. This would
allow defense attorneys to challenge the reliability of
the cleared evidence pertaining to their client.

In summary, the world remains a treacherous place in
this post-Cold War era. The increasing threat of
terrorism, especially against U.S. targets both home and
abroad, is just one very important reason for maintaining
a robust intelligence capability around the world. To do
less ignores the lessons of Pearl Harbor, and all that
implies for the security of this great nation.