| by B.Raman
( November 11, 2012, Chennai, Sri Lanka
Guardian) In the history of the USA’s Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), there
have been three instances of Directors coming to grief because of their
perceived wrong-doings.
2.Richard M.Helms (1966-73) was removed
by President Richard Nixon from office because of his alleged disloyalty to the
President during the Watergate enquiry.
3. James Woolsey (1993-95) had to resign
following Congressional unhappiness over his reluctance to act against officers
who were considered guilty of slack supervision in the case relating to Aldrich
Ames, a Soviet/Russian mole in the CIA.
4.John Deutch ( 1995-96) had to resign
following suspicions/allegations of breach of security against him. He was
allegedly casual in handling classified information.
5.The resignation of Gen. David Petraeus
reported on November 10,2012, following the alleged discovery of an improper
personal relationship between him and his biographer Paula Broadwell, who was
also from the Army like Petraeus, is the first instance of a Director quitting
because of suspected moral turpitude. Both of them were married with children.
6.American society tolerates personal
relationships between unmarried individuals, but looks askance at relationships
between married persons from whom high standards of loyalty and faithfulness to the spouse are
expected. Both Petraeus and Paula deviated from these standards and he has had
to pay a price for this.
7. When such relationships between
married persons come to light they go down in the esteem of their near and dear
ones, friends and colleagues. They can no longer exercise effective leadership
of the organisation headed by them. Bill Clinton’s was a remarkable instance of
a President continuing and flourishing in office after his relationship with a
young girl was discovered and he had to face the humiliation of impeachment
proceedings, which were not successful. His was an exception to the rule.
8.The media has projected Petraeus’
resignation as voluntary. It is quite possible that the FBI brought his
relationship with Paula to the notice of President Barack Obama who advised him
to resign. The resignation was called for.
9. Gen.Petraeus was a highly
distinguished officer of the US Army who had done well in Iraq and Afghanistan
before he was selected by Mr.Obama to head the CIA in June 2011 when he decided
to appoint Mr.Leon Panetta, the highly
successful Director of the CIA who co-ordinated the covert action for the
elimination of Osama bin Laden, as Defence Secretary in place of Mr.Robert
Gates.
10. The Congressional Intelligence
Oversight Committees confirmed his posting after examining his credentials for
the post and he took over in September last year. He had such a brilliant
record and reputation as an Army officer in Iraq and Afghanistan that his
credentials appeared to have been assumed by the Congressional committees and
his case was cleared.
11. Normally, the FBI does a detailed
background check before the Congressional confirmation hearings, but nothing
negative about him that could have made him unsuitable for the post of
Director, CIA, appeared to have been discovered by the FBI.
12. It is now reported that during his
posting in Kabul as an Army officer, Paula was also in Kabul to interview him
for her biography and the two used to spend a lot of time together, often
jogging together. It did not appear to have struck either the
counter-intelligence division of the CIA or the FBI to question him about his
relationship with Paula and bring it to the notice of the Congressional
committees. They seemed to have assumed that it was purely a relationship
between a biographer and the object of her study and that there was nothing
personal about it.
13. It was only after he started
functioning as the Director that the FBI realised that there was more than met
the eye in his relationship with Paula and started checking his E-mails. The
personal nature of the relationship then came to notice.
14. The case brings out continuing
deficiencies in the functioning of the counter-intelligence divisions of the
CIA and the FBI. The Congressional Oversight Committees may now revisit the
checks that were made before he was confirmed in order to see how the personal
nature of the relationship was missed by both the CIA and the FBI.
15. The FBI will also go deeper into the
background of Paula to determine whether she has had any illegitimate contacts
with foreign intelligence agencies, how long she was having a personal
relationship with Petraeus and whether there could have been any breach of
security.
16. Despite the unfortunate
circumstances of his resignation, Petraeus will go down in history as an
outstanding Army officer and counter-insurgency expert. However, he headed the
CIA hardly for 13 months and did not have the time to impart his stamp on the
organisation.
17. Before him, another outstanding
military officer---Admiral Stansfield Turner of the Navy---had headed the CIA
under President Jimmy Carter. His tenure proved controversial because of his
packing senior staff positions in the CIA with his confidantes from the US
Navy. This caused demoralisation in the CIA and had a negative impact on the
CIA.
18. It was reported that keeping this in
view, Mr.Obama’s aides advised Petraeus, at the time of his appointment, to
resist the temptation to pack the senior posts in the CIA with his Army
buddies. He had to rely on senior career professionals of the CIA and he took
time to get to know them.
19.Between 9/11 and September 2011, for
nearly a decade, the CIA’s focus was turned to improving its HUMINT and covert
action capabilities required for security and counter-terrorism related tasks.
The time, efforts and resources required for improving its area expertise were
not forthcoming.
20. Petraeus was required to re-focus
the CIA’s HUMINT and covert action attention on acquiring area expertise in
respect of countries such as North Korea, China, Iran and the Arab countries. A
new operational strategy for this purpose was required. Before he could
formulate and implement such a strategy, his personal affection for and
relationship with Paula brought him down. He failed to distinguish himself in
Libya and Syria and he was unable to impart his stamp to the operations of the
CIA. He will not be remembered as a great intelligence officer.
(The
writer is Additional Secretary (retd), Cabinet Secretariat, Govt. of
India, New Delhi, and, presently, Director, Institute For Topical Studies,
Chennai, and Associate of the Chennai Centre For China Studies. E-mail:
seventyone2@gmail.com Twitter
@SORBONNE75)
 In the history of the USA’s Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), there...){kind=link}