A New Clandestine Service: The Case for ... - Hoover Institution

Hoover Press : Berkowitz/Intelligence hberai ch4 Mp_126_rev1_page 126
126 Reuel Marc Gerecht
States on a 9/11 scale. Terrorist strikes outside the United States,
on embassies, U.S. naval vessels, or American corporations, aren’t
likely to produce the heat necessary to change the status quo.
But Americans are Americans. If the CIA, or more likely outsiders
with authority over Langley, ruthlessly conducted internal
audits of recruitments and intelligence production, the system
might possibly change by exposing the fictions—principally the
recruitment myth—that have been used to support senior case officers
and enable them to silence internal questioning and critics.
Nobody really wanted to go there during the Cold War because both
Republicans and Democrats had more or less accepted the agency’s
version of its own role in the battle against Communism. Even after
the Cold War, a thoughtful, historically inclined, and intellectually
curious CIA director like James Woolsey couldn’t bring himself to
severely probe CIA failings since he viewed the agency, and the
Directorate of Operations in particular, as a national trust. This disposition
is a natural one in Washington, especially among the elite
of the foreign policy establishment. It combines well with a sense
of self-preservation: What CIA or national intelligence director
wants to publicly gut the organization that gives him pride of place
among other senior officials? Who wants to go to work, knowing
that he must fire hundreds of irremediably ineffective CIA employees
to resuscitate the institution and endure savage press criticism
for his actions? Confronted with policies they don’t like, CIA officers
will leak against CIA directors and presidents. Confronted with a
director determined to transform Langley, they will leak nonstop to
journalists always eager to find active-duty sources. (Those of us
who have served in the Clandestine Service know well how seldom
journalists actually have active-duty operational sources.)
The headlines are predictable: “New CIA Director Damages
National Security” or “Novice CIA Chief Destroying Spy Networks
Overseas” or, the worst, “Spy Professionals Defend CIA Against
Neoconservative Director.” And Langley always deploys a defense