MI6 failed to make clear to the foreign secretary that a “high risk agent” operating overseas had probably engaged in “serious criminality” until it was pointed out by an independent regulator last year.

The spy agency was asking the minister – either Dominic Raab or his predecessor, Jeremy Hunt – to renew authorisation of the agent’s activities despite the apparent criminality without being “expressly clear” as to what had happened.

Six months previously the agent, likely to be an undercover informant, had been sent some “red lines” by MI6. The agent was told if they were breached, it would “result in the termination” of the informant’s relationship with the spy agency.

But when renewal of the agent’s authorisation was sought from the foreign secretary, MI6 “did not make expressly clear” that the “‘red lines’ had probably been crossed” – until the ambiguity was noted by the Investigatory Powers Commissioner (Ipco).

Many details are withheld from the account, which is highlighted in 2019 annual report of the Commissioner, and it is not clear if approval was ultimately granted by the minister. All the report said was that MI6 responded to the concern about its authorisation request “by updating” the Foreign Office.

Human rights campaigners said disclosure and others in the report suggested that MI6’s agent running was in disarray. “While our intelligence agencies do a vital job, this report rings alarm bells in its account of agents run amok,” said Dan Dolan, the deputy director of Reprieve.

The spy agency had been seeking to authorise the agent’s activities under section 7 of the Intelligence Services Act, dubbed the “licence to kill”. It allows British agents operating abroad to break any law without fear of prosecution in the UK if they have the written permission of the foreign secretary of the day.

Ipco also criticised MI6 for the way it handles informants in the UK, although it runs only a few agents at home. Although it was satisfied that MI6 manages “all agent cases appropriately” there were questions about its handling of paperwork, including “inconsistent written evidence of oversight”.

Ministers are seeking to introduce a related law – the covert human intelligence sources (Chis) bill – which would allow MI5 and police informants working in the UK to commit crimes in pursuit of obtaining intelligence on terrorists or other serious criminals.

Reprieve said that the disclosures in the Ipco annual report demonstrated that the government “urgently needs to get a grip on unchecked lawbreaking by agents”. But, Dolan said, ministers are “rushing through legislation which places no clear limits on the crimes they can commit”.

MI6 also told the regulator it had been forced to suspend cooperation for a time with another country after joint anti-terror operations had led to individuals being subject to “unacceptable treatment” while in detention there.

However, since then, MI6 has restarted working with that country, saying further safeguards have been introduced.

Ministers were also asked by spy agencies or the military to approve two cases involving “a serious risk of torture” plus seven cases involving “serious risk of cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment” and a further 21 were there was a lack of due arrest or detention process. But the report does not record what was decided in these cases.

 

 

 

Preface

 Not so long ago, writing a documentary history of the Central Intelligence Agency would have been a futile endeavor. There were simply not enough documents available to be worth the effort. Histories and analyses—valuable as they are—have been compelled to rely heavily on self-serving leaks, faded memories of participants, or speculation. The situation is still far from ideal, yet the change has been tremendous. Eagerly or reluctantly, the CIA and other agencies have released a flood of information on the history of American intelli gence. The end of the Cold War and the active use of the Freedom of Informa tion Act by historians and civil libertarians contributed to this. Symbolic of the change was the declassification in 2007 of the ‘‘Family Jew els’’ file—the result of an internal CIA effort in 1973 to discover whether it had been violating its own charter—after thirty-four years. Although it may sound oxymoronic, this was surely the most famous set of secret documents in the agency’s history. Many gaps remain, of course. More documents remain hidden than have come to light. Many of those that have been revealed, including the ‘‘Family Jewels,’’ contain more than a few holes inasmuch as selected words, phrases, and pages have been deleted prior to release. Yet, a process has begun. The time has come to take a first, tentative step at putting some of these docu ments together in a more or less cohesive narrative. Any book on such a vast topic, even if it seems to be overly long, necessarily involves choices. In this case, some of those choices have been made for us. The CIA decides which records it will release to the public and which it will not. Clearly, the documentary record is not complete, although it is now probably fuller than that of any intelligence agency in history that was not attached to a defeated and occupied country. We cannot know all of the ways in which the record is skewed because, well, that would be giving away secrets. We do know, of course, that the CIA will be reluctant to reveal current operations, so releases are biased in favor of the past. (On the other hand, certain political leaders of both parties occasionally reveal selective portions of current secret evidence to bolster their positions. On occa sion, some in the CIA may do something similar, especially when they decide that the revelations already occurring are not only selective but inaccurate or designed to blame the agency for policy failures.) Obviously, certain weapons systems cannot be discussed. Documents pertaining to the design of nuclear weapons or formulas for nerve gas will not be released, at least not intention ally, and that is fine. The divulgence of intelligence sources and methods or of the names of certain CIA employees is prohibited by law. In a sense, this is unfortunate—the definition of ‘‘methods,’’ in particular, is elastic and can be stretched to cover many things—but we will probably have to live with it.

 

1 Pre sumably, a number of things have been kept secret because they are embarrass ing or politically damaging, even though that is expressly prohibited as a criterion. Many of these are, no doubt, categorized as sources and methods. We are also aware of another bias. The CIA is more reluctant to open its operational records, so the evidentiary base is skewed toward the analytical. In other words, the agency is generally more willing to discuss what it thought others were doing in the past than to disclose what it was doing. When it does release operational records, and it does on occasion, they are usually connected to an operation that is already fairly well known. This can be interesting, too, but it is clearly incomplete. It is possible that all the past operations are known and therefore the bias is specious, but this is not very likely. In this book we shall try to give a sampling of document excerpts from throughout the CIA’s history that will be necessarily incomplete even in relation to the documents that are now publicly available. Some periods will be more heavily represented and others less so. We will not cover some of the most fa mous operations, such as Iran (1953), Guatemala (1954), and the Bay of Pigs (1961), which have been thoroughly handled elsewhere. An unfortunate lacuna will be a lack of space devoted to the Soviet Union, which was the major focus of CIA attention for most of the agency’s existence. Perhaps, someday, that can be the subject of another book. An effort has been made to incorporate both analytical and operational reports as well as critical internal reviews. Several chapters rely heavily on the ‘‘Family Jewels’’ collection, which focuses primarily on activities of the late 1960s and early 1970s that could be considered domestic in nature. On occasion, documents from other agencies, such as the National Security Council, will be offered when they discuss the CIA, include CIA representatives, or contribute to understanding a given situation.

Chapters dealing with more recent events, for which fewer internal documents are available, make use of the declassified reports of Congressional oversight committees and official investigative com missions examining CIA and intelligence-related activities.

The chapter dealing with the Iraq War examines both the intelligence and the way it was used by the administration in its argument in support of war. The background for the estimate on Iran’s nuclear program released in December 2007 is provided through open testimony on Iran before the Senate Select Committee on Intelli gence. With luck, this book will contribute to an understanding of the CIA and what it does, and of the dilemmas associated with any secret organization in a free society. Like all researchers in this field, I owe an enormous debt of gratitude to the National Security Archive at George Washington University, which is

 responsible for making available most of the formerly classified documents pre sented here.

2 Other documents are available through two important programs of the Federation of American Scientists (the Intelligence Resource Program and the Project on Government Secrecy),

3 the general news media and various departments and agencies of the U.S. government, including the CIA itself.

4 I would like to express my gratitude to Dr. Mary Curry of the National Secu rity Archive and to Margaret M. Wood of the Law Library of Congress for help in finding resources and in explaining things. I extend my appreciation to Sandy Towers of Greenwood Press for her consistent enthusiasm and encour agement.

I especially thank my wife, Audrey, and our daughter, Patricia, for their patience and understanding through the many months as I huddled over the computer and grumbled.

 

NOTES

1. On the flexibility of the concept of ‘‘methods’’ as a reason for classifying things, and also for the reasons that some publicly known facts may be subject to classification, see Joseph Weisberg, ‘‘The CIA’s Open Secrets,’’ New York Times (27 August 2007).

Weis berg was formerly with the CIA Directorate of Operations.

2. See http://www.gwu.edu/ nsarchiv.

3. See http://www.fas.org. 4.

See http://www.cia.gov.

 

It was an unusual event for an academic meeting, one marked by a certain degree of irony. On 21 June 2007, Gen. Michael V. Hayden, Director of the Cen tral Intelligence Agency, addressed the annual conference of the Society for His torians of American Foreign Relations (SHAFR). As a professional association, SHAFR had long championed ready access to historical government documents, whereas the CIA was the very embodiment of government secrecy. Yet Hayden—who had earned a master’s degree in history at Duquesne University in 1969—noted that he both respected and enjoyed the historian’s task. He allowed that the CIA had a social contract with the American people to explain to them, to the best of its ability, the things that it did on their behalf. In doing so, he also boasted of his agency’s openness: ‘‘No other intelligence agency in the world rivals our record on declassification.’’1 Over the years, he noted, the CIA had reviewed and released some 31 million pages of previously classified documents, and it continued to receive 3,000 new requests each year for declas sifications under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) of 1967. The very nature of intelligence activities, however, creates problems in this regard. For a democratic society to hold its government accountable, it must know what the government is doing. This should be all the more important with regard to vital issues such as national security, which concerns questions of war and peace, life and death. Yet the very nature of intelligence activity requires that it remain secret. The CIA’s charter, the National Security Act of 1947, makes the Director of Central Intelligence responsible for ‘‘protecting intelligence sources and methods from unauthorized disclosure.’’ Thus, ‘‘a se cret organization serving an open and free society,’’ as Hayden put it, faces a perpetual dilemma. It must ‘‘wrestle constantly with the twin imperatives of essential openness and essential secrecy.’’ We must balance our responsibility to the public, and to history, to explain our actions and their impact, with our obligation to protect sources, methods, and ongoing intelligence relationships. These are not simple, cut-and-dried issues. They spark vigorous internal debates that ultimately require informed, yet subjective, judgments. We have those debates and make those judgments knowing that mis takes can jeopardize American security, and, in some cases, place lives at risk. An intelligence organization that fails to protect those who work with it—foreign intel services and individuals—will eventually see sources dry up and cooperation di minish. So, as you can see, this is an existential question for us. Hayden was correct, of course; the dilemma of a secret organization in an open society is a very real one. Real as the predicament may be, however, it also provides endless opportunities and temptations for abuse. The public must sim ply accept that the CIA will review the appropriate documents, make the proper determination regarding what can and cannot be revealed, and then fol low that determination fully and without distortion. This may be problematic when the information proves embarrassing to the agency, its director, or the pres ident of the United States—even when the law forbids such considerations— or when revelations threaten to complicate diplomatic relations with other countries. Despite the enormous number of documents released by the CIA in recent years, the agency’s history of declassification has been more uneven than Hay den implied. While the agency had just released some 31 million pages, it had reportedly reviewed and declined to release about 70 million others.2 These pre sumably included some of the most sensitive and, therefore, most interesting. Moreover, most documents that are released are first ‘‘redacted.’’ That is to say, they are edited and left with gaping holes, usually without any indication of what information was removed or why. In some cases, it is clearly the name of an individual or a foreign intelligence service. In others, whole paragraphs or entire pages may simply fail to appear. Hayden himself personifies the irony here. In his speech to the SHAFR con ference, he noted: ‘‘Of course, we cannot tell the American people everything we do to protect them without damaging our ability to protect them. When it comes to secret intelligence, public sovereignty and oversight reside in the Con gress.’’ The careful reader will note that he never specifically said that the Con gress is told either, although he clearly meant to leave his audience with that impression. Sometimes, consulting Congress has meant informing the two rank ing members of the intelligence committee of each house and then telling them that the matter is secret; they cannot effectively act upon the information or even discuss it with their colleagues or staffs. That takes much of the meaning out of ‘‘consultation.’’ Before coming to the CIA, Hayden had been the director of the National Se curity Agency, where he initiated the warrantless wiretapping of communica tions between the United States and foreign countries following the terrorist attacks of 11 September 2001 (‘‘9/11’’). Most members of Congress learned of this program in late 2005, four years after it began. They discovered only in April 2007 that legal questions surrounding an earlier version of the program had nearly provoked the resignation of the attorney general, the deputy attor ney general, and the director of the FBI in 2004. The week after Hayden’s speech at the SHAFR conference, the Senate Judiciary Committee found it nec essary to issue subpoenas to the White House in its years-long effort to learn xii Introduction the details of the program and the reasoning behind it. (The subpoenas were ignored.) Even Congress, the repository of ‘‘public sovereignty and oversight,’’ is not guaranteed timely and effective access to information. The early beginnings of the CIA’s declassification program came in the 1970s, when the agency released some of the analytic records of its World War II pred ecessor, the Office of Strategic Services (OSS). Operational records of the OSS followed in the early 1980s. With this precedent in mind, the agency established its own voluntary Historical Review Program in 1985, as part of a deal with Congress exempting CIA operational records from FOIA requests. The agency’s various subdivisions, however, were reluctant to cooperate with the program, and its initial releases consisted not of documents but of previously classified internal histories written by the agency’s own staff historians.3 The heyday of CIA declassification came in the 1990s, in the immediate after math of the Cold War’s end. Director of Central Intelligence (later, Secretary of Defense) Robert M. Gates convened the Task Force on Greater CIA Openness, which in December 1991 recommended that the agency declassify and release certain historical documents that had been withheld from the public. Although the CIA’s initial reaction was to classify the task force’s recommendations as se cret, it soon repented, published the recommendation, and began releasing documents. Notable was the publication of CIA Documents on the Cuban Missile Crisis, 1962, for a conference commemorating the thirtieth anniversary of that event.4 The Center for the Study of Intelligence, which had been established in 1974, was expanded at this time. Then, President Bill Clinton, on 17 April 1995, signed Executive Order 12958, ‘‘Classified National Security Information,’’ which called on all government agencies to declassify historical records automatically if they were more than twenty-five years old. This was radical new thinking for the government in gen eral, and especially for the CIA. But, as is so often the case, it came with some substantial qualifications. The main point, paragraph (a) in this instance, was followed by a lengthy list of exceptions in paragraph (b), several of which had direct and significant implications for the CIA. While all of them were under standable, and probably even necessary, they meant that significant gaps in the published record would remain. In part, the executive order reads: Sec. 3.4. Automatic Declassification. (a) Subject to paragraph (b), below, within 5 years from the date of this order, all classified information contained in records that (1) are more than 25 years old, and (2) have been determined to have permanent historical value under title 44, United States Code, shall be automatically declassified whether or not the records have been reviewed. Subsequently, all classified information in such records shall be automatically declassified no longer than 25 years from the date of its original classification, except as provided in paragraph (b), below. (b) An agency head may exempt from automatic declassification under para graph (a), above, specific information, the release of which should be expected to: (1) reveal the identity of a confidential human source, or reveal informa tion about the application of an intelligence source or method, or reveal the identity of a human intelligence source when the unauthorized Introduction xiii disclosure of that source would clearly and demonstrably damage the national security interests of the United States; (2) reveal information that would assist in the development or use of weapons of mass destruction; (3) reveal information that would impair U.S. cryptologic systems or activities; (4) reveal information that would impair the application of state of the art technology within a U.S. weapon system; (5) reveal actual U.S. military war plans that remain in effect; (6) reveal information that would seriously and demonstrably impair rela tions between the United States and a foreign government, or seriously and demonstrably undermine ongoing diplomatic activities of the United States; (7) reveal information that would clearly and demonstrably impair the current ability of United States Government officials to protect the President, Vice President, and other officials for whom protection serv ices, in the interest of national security, are authorized; (8) reveal information that would seriously and demonstrably impair cur rent national security emergency preparedness; or (9) violate a statute, treaty, or international agreement. While some information was excluded from automatic declassification, it was still subject to a process of systematic declassification review to determine whether declassification might be permissible in individual cases. There was also the mandatory review of items specifically requested under FOIA. (Manda tory review, of course, does not mean mandatory declassification and release.) It is noteworthy that the lengthy executive order also specified the following among the limitations on the government’s ability to classify information: Sec. 1.8. Classification Prohibitions and Limitations. (a) In no case shall information be classified in order to: (1) conceal violations of law, inefficiency, or administrative error; (2) prevent embarrassment to a person, organization, or agency; (3) restrain competition; or (4) prevent or delay the release of information that does not require protection in the interest of national security. The initial enthusiasm for declassification at the CIA, such as it existed, faded quickly. Through the early and mid-1990s, successive directors pledged to declassify and release the documentary record of eleven major covert operations in France and Italy (1940s–1950s), North Korea (1950s), Iran (1953), Guatemala (1954), Indonesia (1958), Tibet (1950s–1960s), the Congo (1960s), the Dominican Republic (1960s), Laos (1960s), and Cuba (1960s). Yet only documents related to Guatemala and the Bay of Pigs operation in Cuba were released officially, while Iran documents were leaked unofficially. In mid-1998, it was announced that, while a declassification program would continue, budgetary limitations would not permit the review and declassification of documents for the remaining cov ert operations.5 At the same time, while the Department of State and the Department of Energy were aggressively releasing documents, the CIA and the Department of Defense were openly resisting pressure to broaden their declassification xiv Introduction programs.6 At no time did the agency promise to release information about any operation whose existence was not already known to the public. Indeed, when records were released, they concerned operations (such as Guatemala and the Bay of Pigs) on which wide-reaching details were already available through leaks, Congressional investigations, or previous FOIA releases.7 The official mood regarding openness began to shift during the Clinton administration, in 1998–1999, owing to concerns that the Department of Energy had inadvertently released some documents related to the design of nuclear weapons. This concern was then made salient by accusations of possible espio nage by Wen Ho Lee, a U.S. government scientist at the Los Alamos National Laboratory who occasionally visited the People’s Republic of China.8 In October 1998, Congress passed the Kyl-Lott Amendment (officially titled ‘‘Protection against Inadvertent Release of Restricted Data or Formerly Restricted Data’’), permitting the Energy Department to remove sensitive weapons-related mate rial from public repositories. Under this program, 5,508 pages of documents were reclassified and removed from public shelves.9 Quite aside from the issue of arms-related information, however, by 1999 the CIA was increasingly less cooperative in turning over papers for publication in the State Department’s regular documentary series Foreign Relations of the United States (FRUS). That autumn the CIA, the Justice Department, the Defense Department, and the three military services complained that State was releasing material in which they had ‘‘equity’’ (by virtue of the interdepartmental nature of the intelligence process) without their permission. These agencies, although lacking any specific Congressional authorization, then began reviewing released documents and withdrawing them from public shelves. The process of reclassification apparently accelerated under the administra tion of President George W. Bush and in the wake of the terrorist attacks of 11 September 2001. In October 2001, the process was formalized in a secret memo randum of understanding (MOU) signed by the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) and the CIA. The MOU was made public in 2006. MEMORANDUM OF UNDERSTANDING BETWEEN THE NATIONAL ARCHIVES AND RECORDS ADMINISTRATION AND THE CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE AGENCY The purpose of this Memorandum of Understanding is to establish standard procedures to handle instances where classified or sensitive information containing possible Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) equities may have been inadvertently or improperly released. The goal should be to protect CIA equities while resolving the issue as expeditiously as possible in a way that will not draw unnecessary pub lic attention to the steps taken to correct the problem. It is in the interests of both the CIA and the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) to avoid the kind of public notice and researcher complaints that may arise from removing from the open shelves for extended periods of time records that had been publicly available. 1. When NARA is notified by CIA or another agency, or otherwise becomes aware that CIA documents containing classified or sensitive information, or other government agency documents containing sensitive or classified CIA equities may have been inadvertently or improperly released in records that were reviewed for declassification by NARA or another agency and made available to the public, NARA will notify CIA immediately and hold those Introduction xv records off the open shelf for a period of 30 days following CIA receipt of notification to give CIA an opportunity to investigate the extent of the problem. 2. CIA will attempt to resolve the exposure within 30 days after it receives no tification from NARA. If CIA informs NARA that it cannot resolve the issue within 30 days, NARA and the CIA will agree upon a date by which the CIA will resolve the exposure. 3. If CIA has not resolved its concerns by the agreed upon date, NARA can require an explanation of the CIA’s inability to resolve the issue within the agreed upon time limit. NARA can further require an update on CIA’s pro gress monthly until resolution is reached. If a final determination is not reached within six months, NARA will withdraw the documents in question and return the rest of the files to the open shelves. CIA may review such documents that are returned to the open shelves, for additional with drawals, on a box-by-box basis. 4. If after examining the records, CIA finds that there has been no improper release of classified or still sensitive information, CIA will promptly inform NARA that the records can be returned to the open shelf. 5. If CIA finds that information containing classified or still sensitive CIA equi ties has been improperly released, CIA will tab these documents. The tabs will include the justification for continued classification or withholding. 6. NARA will withhold the tabbed documents in accordance with the justifica tion cited on the tab. The place markers inserted for withheld documents will not contain any reference to CIA removal of the documents or any rea son for the withholding of the documents. The common generic descriptor ‘‘intelligence document’’ shall also not be used. 7. NARA will not attribute to CIA any part of the review or the withholding of documents from this exposed collection. Researcher requests for withheld documents shall be accepted for processing by NARA and researchers shall not be directed to CIA for response. NARA will contact CIA regarding such requests, and will act as a surrogate for CIA in dealing with requestors of these withheld documents. 8. When examining documents at NARA, whether for declassification pur poses or investigation of an inadvertent release, CIA personnel will follow NARA requirements for the handling of archival records and will take care to preserve the integrity of the records. 9. NARA staff will provide training for CIA personnel and contractors in NARA requirements and procedures for the handling and preservation of archival documents. 10. NARA will inform CIA immediately if CIA personnel or contractors are mishandling or rearranging archival records. CIA will take prompt action to correct such problems including, if NARA deems necessary, requiring personnel to take refresher training in handling and preserving archival records. 11. NARA will inform CIA immediately if NARA personnel or contractors have mishandled classified information. NARA will take prompt action to correct such problems including, if CIA deems necessary, requiring personnel or contractors to take refresher training in handling classified information. This Memorandum of Understanding is subject to amendment by agreement of both parties. In August 2001, the Bush administration initiated a review of the 1995 execu tive order mandating automatic declassification, although the newly revised xvi Introduction order was not issued until 25 March 2003.10 A great deal of the document— perhaps a surprising amount, given the administration’s reported penchant for secrecy—remained unchanged, including all the prohibitions listed in section 1.8 against classifying embarrassing information. One change was delaying the dead line for clearing the backlog of classified material to the end of 2006. (It already had been delayed from 2000 to 2003 by Executive Order 13142 of 1999.) The release of documents by the tens of millions did, in fact, commence at the end of 2006.11 Another key difference pertained to the issue of reclassification. The Clin ton document said, ‘‘Information may not be reclassified after it has been declas sified and released to the public under proper authority.’’ The new version said: Information may be reclassified after declassification and release to the public under proper authority only in accordance with the following conditions: (1) the reclassification action is taken under the personal authority of the agency head or deputy agency head, who determines in writing that the reclassification of the information is necessary in the interest of the national security; (2) the information may be reasonably recovered; and (3) the reclassification action is reported promptly to the Director of the Infor mation Security Oversight Office. The revised executive order reconfirmed the role of the Interagency Security Classification Appeals Panel (ISCAP) in the declassification process. Nonethe less, it granted the director of central intelligence the authority and responsibility to protect information regarding sources and methods by vetoing ISCAP deci sions in those areas. In addition, the revised order gives certain officials the right, in an emergency, to ‘‘share’’ classified information with unauthorized individu als without that information then being considered declassified. According to NARA, this is to permit unhindered cooperation with state and local authorities in the context of homeland security.12 Interestingly, all the powers of classifica tion and declassification granted to the president in the original order are also explicitly extended to the vice president in the revised order, no doubt reflecting the unusually prominent policy role of Vice President Dick Cheney. Between 2001 and 2006, the CIA and five other agencies reclassified some 9,500 documents (totaling more than 55,500 pages) that had already been made available to the public. At least eight of the documents had already been pub lished, either in print or on microfiche, as part of the State Department’s FRUS series.13 The clandestine reclassification project went unnoticed until December 2005, when Matthew Aid, a visiting fellow at the National Security Archive (a nongov ernmental research center at George Washington University) found that docu ments he had already used were no longer available in collections of NARA, the official government archives. Researchers familiar with the documents deemed some of them mundane, while others were conceivably embarrassing to the agency. Still available on the public shelves, however, were various man uals explaining how to engage in sabotage or assemble explosives as well as technical documents regarding chemical and biological weapons.14 The revela tion by Aid prompted a review of the declassification standards by NARA’s Interagency Security Oversight Office (ISOO).15 Introduction xvii THE ‘‘FAMILY JEWELS’’ With that background, many were surprised by the announcement at the June 2007 SHAFR conference that the CIA was releasing the ‘‘Family Jewels’’ in response to a FOIA request made by the National Security Archive fifteen years earlier. The ‘‘Family Jewels’’ file was easily the most famous and most sought after collection of secret documents in U.S. intelligence history, even though many of its secrets had long been public knowledge. The 693-page collection had been assembled in the era of Vietnam and Watergate, and it eventually triggered the era of the Congressional intelligence investigations. The order to collect the documents was given on 9 May 1973 by James R. Schlesinger during the seventeen weeks he served as DCI before being named secretary of defense.16 It came in response to a newspaper report about the trial of Daniel Ellsberg, which revealed that a former CIA operative, E. Howard Hunt, had burglarized the office of Ellsberg’s psychiatrist with CIA equipment on behalf of the Nixon White House. David Robarge, chief historian at the CIA, believes that William Colby himself contributed to misconceptions about the nature of the documents with exagger ated descriptions in his memoirs.17 If the gravity of the misdeeds was in fact exaggerated, and people may differ on that, that raises another potential ques tion. Did the exaggeration—in some minds, glorification—of the CIA’s past mis deeds contribute to public and official acceptance of later, larger-scale misdeeds as merely more of the same? The test of this, however, has been compromised. The terrorist attacks of 9/11 bequeathed such an atmosphere of menace that the public call has been for even more direct action, for the unleashing of the CIA. Controversies focused not on unauthorized or illegal deeds, but on deeds incom petently or insufficiently done. Indeed, whereas in the 1970s Congress was out raged to discover that the CIA had engaged in assassination plots, after 9/11 Congress derided the agency for not having sought authority to assassinate Usama bin Ladin or, barring that, for not ‘‘taking advantage of ambiguities’’ in the authorization it did receive to do it anyhow. The CIA Office of Inspector Gen eral found itself explaining to Congress that ‘‘CIA managers refused to take advantage of ambiguities’’ and that ‘‘this position was reasonable and correct.’’18 Now, at least, the public can see firsthand what is in the ‘‘Family Jewels,’’ or almost. Like many declassified documents, this collection has been heavily redacted. In this case, the entire first document, approximately two and a half pages, has been redacted. Not even a title appears. Well, not completely blanked out: Each page has been marked ‘‘Secret: Eyes Only,’’ and on each page this designation has been crossed out in ink because, after all, the document has been ‘‘declassified.’’ Likewise, page 260 of the file consists of a letter to Schlesinger, dated 29 May 1973, from House Armed Services Committee chairman F. Edward Hebert. It reads: Dear Mr. Schlesinger: Attached is correspondence from [—about half a line deleted—] which is for warded for information and whatever action might be appropriate. With best regards. Sincerely, /signed/ F. Edw. Hebert Chairman xviii Introduction What follows, pages 261–265 of the file, is completely blank. Yet this docu ment, too, is presumably listed as having been released in redacted form. One further question comes to many minds: Why did the CIA choose to release the package at this time, thirty-four years after it was assembled and fif teen years after the National Security Archive submitted its FOIA request? The reason could be related to the fact that the automatic declassification program that President Clinton put in place in 1995 finally came into effect at the end of 2006, although the agency has rejected the declassification of tens of millions of pages of other documents and is, generally speaking, within its legal rights to do so. Some commentators have called the release of the ‘‘Family Jewels’’ a dis traction, an effort to draw attention to the controversies of past decades at a time when the CIA and other intelligence agencies are accused of engaging in similar activities again, on a far larger scale. It was noted that the agency had still not released the results of its internal review of intelligence failures related to the terrorist attacks of 2001, which had been completed in 2005, even in an unclassified summary or redacted form. As a result, in the following month, July 2007, Congress mandated the release of a declassified summary of that report, and the CIA complied in August. THE FUNCTION OF INTELLIGENCE The purpose of intelligence, simply put, is to provide necessary information to government decision makers. Since much information can be gathered by con ventional means, ranging from diplomacy to journalism, the focus of intelli gence activities is usually on information related to national security that other governments are trying to conceal. It is then integrated with information from open sources to create a more complete picture of the capabilities and intentions of foreign governments or other entities, such as revolutionary movements or terrorist organizations. The information passes through a set of steps identified as the intelligence cycle.19 The normal procession is planning and direction, collection, processing, analysis, and dissemination. Planning and direction take account of policy mak ers’ information requirements, given a particular set of threats, concerns, or objectives. Collection is the gathering of information, whether by means of clan destine agents, electronic eavesdropping, satellite photography, or the careful perusal of public sources. Naturally, different means may be more or less appropriate to a given task. Satellite photos will reveal a great deal about mis sile silos or large-scale troop movements but very little about the intentions of political leaders or the actions of small groups of terrorists. For the latter, spies and informers inside the target organization (‘‘human intelligence’’) are more useful. During the Cold War, U.S. intelligence tended to rely most heavily on the technical means, leaving a notable gap in human intelligence capabilities in the post–Cold War environment. Once gathered, the bits of information must be processed. Film must be developed, intercepted messages must be translated, and codes must be deci phered. Next, the processed information must be analyzed. Expert analysts examine the disparate bits of information, calculate the value and reliability of the sources, try to distinguish the relevant (‘‘signals’’) from the distractions (‘‘noise’’), see how the relevant parts fit together, and attempt to decipher Introduction xix whether there is a hidden message and, if so, what it is.20 Finally, the result is disseminated to policy makers, who, many analysts insist, too often simply ignore it or ‘‘cherry-pick’’ the parts they like to support their preferred policies. In addition to revealing ‘‘secrets,’’ of course, intelligence agencies are also expected to resolve ‘‘mysteries.’’ A secret is information that others are trying to keep from you. The task is to find out what they already know. Mysteries are questions to which there are no real answers: What will a given dictator decide to do when he finally makes up his mind? Will a certain government fall? How will a particular leader react to a range of likely or unlikely events? Will an insur gency grow stronger or weaker with time? No one really knows; no amount of wiretapping or satellite photos will disclose the truth. This task calls for a some what different set of analytical talents, using both public and clandestine infor mation and relying heavily on the analysis of trends and the laws of probability. Error may be introduced at any stage of the intelligence cycle. Even the rela tively straightforward opening stage of laying out the goals rarely seems to hap pen in a clear, concise, and useful manner. The key point to remember is that intelligence always deals with uncertainties. This is more obvious in cases involving mysteries, but it is also true of secrets. Much evidence is ambiguous and subject to multiple interpretations. True signals are often indistinguishable from noise until after the fact. Thus, the preconceived notions or preferences of analysts may easily shape the interpretation that emerges. The way an analyst ‘‘connects the dots,’’ to use a phrase much in vogue these days, may in fact tell us more about the analyst than about the dots. Human intelligence is the most valuable resource when analysts are trying to determine the intentions of a for eign leader, but sometimes sources are mistaken, vague, unreliable, self interested, or downright deceitful; and sometimes they are truthful and accurate but unconvincing. Perhaps the best that can be said of the intelligence task is that trying is likely to produce better results than not trying. As noted earlier, the main purpose of intelligence agencies is to provide infor mation to decision makers, but that is not all that intelligence agencies do. Although the role was not spelled out in its founding legislation, the CIA, early in its existence, assumed the task of running covert operations, or ‘‘special activ ities.’’ Imbued with a spirit of gung-ho enthusiasm for fighting the Cold War and equipped with a network of clandestine agents stationed around the world, the CIA was the place to go when government leaders decided they needed an option ‘‘between doing nothing and sending in the Marines.’’

 

The agency involved itself in the postwar electoral politics of Italy and France in order to prevent a Commu nist victory and then went on to organize and support a series of attempted coups, revolutions, civil wars, insurgencies, and counterinsurgencies.21 Calculating a realistic balance of successes and failures among covert opera tions is difficult to do given the veil of secrecy that still obscures so much of the history.

 

It is customary for agency officials to claim that everyone knows about their failures but no one knows about their successes, because these remain se cret. It appears that it is, in fact, a history replete with failure, possibly because presidents who do not really understand the nature of covert operations turn to the CIA for a miracle when everything else has failed. Impossible tasks are unlikely to fare well. Even known successes have sometimes proved counter productive in the long run, including the successful overthrow of the Mossa degh government in Iran in 1953 (contributing to animosity toward the xx Introduction ‘‘American shah’’ and the Islamic revolution of 1979), the successful overthrow of the Arbenz government in Guatemala in 1954 (which contributed to decades of civil war in that country and stoked anti-Americanism throughout Latin America), or the successful arming of anti-Soviet Islamic militants in Afghani stan in the 1980s (which contributed to the rise of the Taliban and al-Qa’ida). When political leaders initiated covert action, only to see it fail spectacularly, they often avoided responsibility afterward by allowing the CIA to be depicted as a ‘‘rogue agency’’ operating on its own.

 

 

It is worth noting that the CIA is only one piece of the overall United States Intelligence Community (IC). Moreover, it is far from the largest agency in terms of budget or personnel. Most intelligence agencies, and an estimated 80 percent of the overall intelligence budget, are subordinated to the Department of Defense, and of all the departments of the executive branch, that department has generated the most resistance to institutional reform. In all, sixteen agencies are considered members of the IC, the oldest being the Office of Naval Intelli gence (ONI, 1882) and the youngest being the Coast Guard Intelligence and Criminal Investigations Program (CGICIP, 2001). The Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) was separated from the IC in 1981 to avoid risking the improper mixing of intelligence and law enforcement functions, only to be read mitted in 2006 to deal with the growing overlap among drug-trafficking, revolu tionary, and terrorist organizations. (See Appendix B for a list of IC members.) The CIA is perhaps the most comprehensive member of the community, in terms of its range of interests, intelligence collection, and analysis. The CIA and the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) are experienced in conducting all-source analysis. On the other hand, the three largest agencies in terms of budget and personnel—the National Security Agency (NSA), the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO), and the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA), all part of the Pentagon—are highly specialized. The NSA is concerned with signals intelligence (SIGINT), the exploitation of foreign communications for intelli gence and counterintelligence purposes. The NRO deals with satellite reconnais sance. Spy satellites were once considered so controversial that the mere existence of the NRO was officially acknowledged only in 1992, more than thirty years after its establishment in 1961. Also making use of satellites, the NGA concerns itself with imagery and mapping. Beyond the official IC, there are offices that primarily keep track of the community’s intelligence products in search of information relevant to their parent organizations’ concerns, such as the Office of Intelligence, Security, and Emergency Response within the Depart ment of Transportation. Prior to 2004, the CIA had an especially central role in the community; the Director of Central Intelligence (DCI) was both the administrative leader of the CIA and the nominal leader of the IC as a whole. In a commonly used corporate analogy, the DCI was both the chief executive officer of the CIA and the chair man of the board of the IC. This meant that he (or, theoretically, she) was expected to coordinate intelligence functions across agencies, but the position was given little real authority outside the CIA itself. Introduction xxi One way in which the DCI could perform an interagency role was through the National Intelligence Council (NIC), an entity formed in 1973 and subordi nated directly to the office of the DCI. The NIC brought together representatives of all intelligence agencies to produce consensus-based assessments known as National Intelligence Estimates (NIEs). An unclassified summary of an NIE released in July 2007 gives an idea of how the system is supposed to operate. The Estimate, Terrorist Threats to the US Homeland, followed the standard process for producing National Intelligence Estimates (NIEs), including a thorough review of sourcing, in-depth Community coordination, the use of alternative analysis, and review by outside experts. Starting in October 2006, the NIC organized a series of roundtables with IC experts to scope out terms of reference (TOR) for the Estimate. Drafters from throughout the Community contributed to the draft. In May, a draft was submitted to the IC officers in advance of a series of coordination meetings that spanned several days. The National Clandestine Service, FBI, and other IC collection officers reviewed the text for the reliability and proper use of sourcing. As part of the normal coordination process, analysts had the opportunity—and were encouraged— to register ‘‘dissents’’ and provide alternative analysis. Reactions by the two outside experts who read the final product were highlighted in the text. The National Intelli gence Board, composed of the heads of the 16 IC agencies and chaired by the ODNI, reviewed and approved the Estimate on 21 June. As with other NIEs, it is being dis tributed to senior Administration officials and Members of Congress. Just how many NIEs go through so complete a process—and how many of them have eight or nine months available to do so—is difficult to say. The DCI’s coordinating function, however, extended little beyond the production of these occasional joint estimates. After the terrorist attacks of 2001, the Intelligence Community was blamed for not predicting the incident, and a bipartisan board was established to con duct a thorough investigation. Officially called the National Commission on the Terrorist Attacks upon the United States—but almost universally referred to as the 9/11 Commission—it proposed changes in the structure of the IC.22 Prior to the attacks, the community had failed to put together disparate bits of relevant information that might have become meaningful clues in juxtaposition. Thus, the recommendations focused on the lack of real coordination and intelligence sharing among the various entities of the Intelligence Community, especially the ‘‘firewall’’ between foreign intelligence and domestic law enforcement. Con gress, responding with customary hyperbole, passed the Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act (IRTPA) of 2004, instituting the largest reorgan ization of the intelligence community since its creation in 1947. That achieve ment was all the more notable when one considers that between 1989 and 2001, no fewer than six independent commissions and three government reviews had attempted to address the need for intelligence reform, without results.23 The task of increasing coordination and information sharing is a difficult one, given the variety of agency mandates, interests, procedures, competencies, cul tures, mythologies, and incompatible computer systems. The key to this reform was the creation of a new focal point, the Director of National Intelligence (DNI).24 The former Director of Central Intelligence was downgraded to Director of the Central Intelligence Agency (DCIA). The idea was to create a new and stronger ‘‘intelligence czar.’’ Although the DNI may have been new, after the xxii Introduction customary bureaucratic infighting and legislative wrangling—which uncustoma rily pitted a bipartisan group of senators against the more skeptical House Repub licans—one could question how much stronger the new position really was. The DNI replaced the DCI as the president’s principal intelligence adviser. The NIC was transferred to the Office of the DNI (ODNI), as was the recently formed analytic, interagency National Counterterrorism Center (NCTC; not to be confused with the CIA’s more operationally oriented Counterterrorist Center, CTC, which retained responsibility for disrupting terrorist activities). The DNI now had responsibility for coordinating, guiding, and focusing the community as a whole without the biases that might derive from being attached to one of the community members. The new leader was also granted official budgetary authority over the country’s civilian intelligence program, although—at the in sistence of House Republicans—he was limited to participating with the secre tary of defense in drawing up the budget for military intelligence programs. On paper, the DNI also has authority to shift funds and personnel among agencies. Nevertheless, the new office lacked the clout of an agency leader; the DNI was, in other words, a bureaucrat without a bureaucracy (despite the fact that the ODNI staff quickly grew to 1,500). Congressional responsibilities for intelli gence and intelligence-budget matters remained totally unreformed and highly fragmented, which also complicates life at the ODNI. Despite proposals for an open and unified intelligence budget, the community’s budget remained secret and hidden in multiple ‘‘black accounts’’ throughout the government. The pecu liar combination of extensive responsibilities with relatively few and vaguely defined powers actually made it difficult to fill the new leadership position; sev eral potential candidates turned down the offer. Exercising authority over Defense Department agencies proved particularly difficult, especially while they were under the strong-willed leadership of Don ald Rumsfeld (2001–2006). The CIA was granted communitywide responsibility for the management of overseas human intelligence (HUMINT), but then the Defense Intelligence Agency created its own Defense HUMINT Management Office in 2005, the year after the reform law was enacted. Despite the coordinat ing role of ODNI, the DIA took on new intelligence management responsibilities among the military intelligence agencies.25 In April 2007, Mike McConnell, already the second person to hold the posi tion of DNI, responded to a question as to whether the Intelligence Community had finally found the proper organizational structure. We don’t have it right yet. The part of the debate earlier was to create a depart ment of intelligence, and that was not warmly embraced in some circles, I would say. So now, as DNI, I’m responsible for basically two things if you just sort of reduce it to the bottom line: the budget for the 16 components of the community and ensuring that no one breaks the law. Now, 15 of those agencies work for another Cabinet official, so I would submit that’s a challenge. If you’re going to dictate someone else’s budget in another department and worry about compliance with the law and the regulations where you don’t have direct line management responsibility, you cannot hire or fire, it puts you in a challenging management condition.26 As important as improved coordination and information sharing may be, however, there are limits to what can be accomplished through reorganization. Introduction xxiii A more efficient structure will not make up for the lack of a human source inside a targeted government or organization. Furthermore, institutional changes designed to offset one problem may very well exacerbate another. Like the National Security Act of 1947, which created the CIA, the IRTPA focused on a particular array of problems highlighted by a given set of recent events. Whether or not the act adequately resolves those problems, other issues— unhighlighted and therefore unaddressed—may cause different problems in the future. For instance, the emphasis placed on coordination, guidance, and focus would seem to promise a homogenized intelligence product without regard for the different, and even competing, needs of various intelligence users. Focusing on the priorities imposed by political leaders might mean overlooking clues to other, unexpected events, which would seem to be the very definition of intelli gence failure. Finally, increased centralization and control raise the prospect of ‘‘groupthink,’’ an aspect of group dynamics whereby unorthodox, innovative, and other dissident ideas are suppressed by formal or informal pressures to conform to the group consensus.27 In the past, the Intelligence Community has always prided itself on a sloppy and cantankerous process that gave rise to a variety of views, interpretations, and explanations, as well as dissents. As Thomas Fingar, deputy director of national intelligence for analysis, put it: ‘‘The basic idea is to avoid a premature rush to an artificial consensus. ... The interesting thing is not when analysts agree. It’s when they disagree.’’28 Political leaders, on the other hand, chafe at the caveats and ambiguities that sometimes seem to predict everything and nothing. They generally prefer a single, consensus-based, ‘‘correct’’ answer— even when no one can possibly know what the ‘‘correct’’ answer is. The debate over which approach is superior will be with us for some time.

 

 

The CIA is subdivided into four directorates. This basic structure has been fairly stable since it was innovated by DCI Walter Bedell Smith in the early 1950s. It is functional and not inherently complicated, but over the years there have been so many nominal reorganizations and name changes that keeping track of whether one is discussing the same directorate over time or a series of different directorates can be highly taxing. One formality that we shall forgo in this discussion is the shift to ‘‘Direc torates.’’ At one time they were called ‘‘Deputy Directorates’’ because they usu ally were—until the most recent reform, led by the agency’s Deputy Directors. Thereafter, the divisions were called ‘‘Directorates,’’ although the division heads were still called ‘‘Deputy Directors.’’ Here, the term ‘‘Directorate’’ will be used throughout. The essential but routine administrative issues are handled by the Directorate of Support (DS), which deals with human resources, financial and logistical operations, and other housekeeping matters. Originally, the DS was called the Directorate of Administration, but the name was changed to Directorate of Sup port in 1955, then to Directorate of Management and Services in 1973, and then back to Directorate of Administration in 1974. DCI George Tenet abolished the Directorate of Administration, although its component parts lived on, and DCI Porter Goss reconstituted it as the Directorate of Support. xxiv Introduction The branch that stations officers around the world, collects and disseminates foreign intelligence, and conducts ‘‘special activities’’ (covert operations) is cur rently called the National Clandestine Service (NCS). It began life as the Direc torate of Operations, but by the time its first Deputy Director assumed his post, it had taken on a more euphemistic name, Directorate of Plans. In 1973, its name was changed back to the Directorate of Operations, and it remained such until it was given its current designation in 2005. It is led by the Director of the National Clandestine Service (before 2004, by the Deputy Director for Opera tions, and so forth). In addition to the CIA’s clandestine operations, under the 2004 reform the Director of the NCS has overall management responsibility for human intelligence (HUMINT) operations throughout the intelligence commu nity. This includes the development of common standards for all aspects of clandestine human intelligence operations, ‘‘including human-enabled technical operations,’’ and the ‘‘integration, coordination, de-confliction, and evaluation of clandestine HUMINT operations.’’29 Those readers who wish to be correct should note that full-time CIA employees are not called ‘‘agents.’’ American officials in the employ of the National Clandestine Service (or, previously, the Directorate of Operations, etc.) are called ‘‘case officers.’’ Individuals, usually foreign nationals, whom the case officers recruit, are called ‘‘agents.’’ Individu als who are sources of information are ‘‘assets.’’ Case officers are assigned over seas to a ‘‘station’’ or a ‘‘base.’’ A base is subordinate to a station, whether or not it is located near one. Thus, a Chief of Station (COS) ranks higher than a Chief of Base (COB). The Directorate of Intelligence (DI) is the analytical branch, generating com prehensive ‘‘all-source’’ intelligence assessments, combining clandestine and open sources of information. It concerns itself with both functional and regional issues, and its output includes quickly produced responses to recent events, long-term research studies, and projections of future trends. As such, it is the branch of the CIA that interacts most with the intelligence users situated in other parts of the government, and it is expected to learn their specific intelli gence requirements so that intelligence products can be kept relevant. It has almost always been called the Directorate of Intelligence, except between 1977 and 1982, when it was the National Foreign Assessment Center. Its leader is the Director of Intelligence, formerly the Deputy Director for Intelligence (or Direc tor of the National Foreign Assessment Center). The key employees of the Di rectorate of Intelligence are called ‘‘analysts.’’ The final major branch is the Directorate of Science and Technology (DS&T), which was formed as the Directorate of Research in 1962 but took its current name the following year. It supports the National Clandestine Service and the Directorate of Intelligence with scientific, engineering, and technical solutions to intelligence problems, devising ways to gain access to information, support clandestine operations, and so forth. The Director of (formerly, Deputy Director for) Science and Technology is the senior scientific and technical adviser to the DCIA. It also maintains the capacity to gather outside experts in many fields on short notice in case of fast-breaking needs. As an innovation in response to the changing business environment, DS&T founded In-Q-Tel in 1999. In-Q-Tel is a nonprofit venture-capital firm intended to keep the Intelligence Community in contact with innovators of emerging technologies in the private sector and to give financial support to promising Introduction xxv projects. As an independent legal entity, it has a board of directors drawn from among former cabinet secretaries, military and intelligence officials, and figures from business and finance.