viva el che
2nd February 2004, 16:38
Assassination Attempts
Thomas's account of various assassination attempts contains a plethora of additional examples. His research into the subject has left him uncertain as to exactly where responsibility lay. I suspect the lack of clarity in the records reflects--in varying degrees--a preoccupation with plausible denial, the obligation felt by senior Agency officers to protect higher levels of government, and uneasy consciences about involvement in such activities. In this connection, Thomas recounts a conversation between Bissell and Allen Dulles that reads more like an extract from one of the Get Smart! television parodies of secret agents popular in the 1960s than a discussion of matters of life and death by two senior officials.
In the account, Bissell is described as having "informed" [sic] his chief in a circumlocutory fashion of a plan to kill Castro, using alphabetical designations ("A," "B," and "C") instead of the names of the persons involved. Dulles presumably listened carefully but asked no questions, and yet--Bissell later insisted--understood he was authorizing an assassination attempt!(17) On a different occasion, Tracy Barnes, full of "can do" spirit, approved without appropriate authorization--and sought too late to cancel--an attempt against the lives of Fidel and Raul Castro and Ernesto "Che" Guevara. Fortunately, the foreign agent involved did not act on the approval he had received.
Thomas describes how, in the aftermath of the Bay of Pigs, when Dulles and Bissell had both departed the scene, the Agency, under heavy pressure from the White House, persisted in its efforts to have Castro assassinated. The new DCI, John McCone, was not informed, reportedly because of an assumption that his awareness of the efforts would have changed nothing, and because he was known not to want to be made aware of anything of the sort.(18) Looking back in less fevered circumstances, I believe it fair to say that this is an odd way for a responsible government to function.
A lesson to be drawn from all this is that, at least for an open society like the United States, secret intelligence operations, particularly covert paramilitary action and assassinations, are not a "great game" no matter how appealing a read Rudyard Kipling's Kim may make. A lack of explicitness in discussing such matters, whether motivated by the wish to preserve plausible denial, by a concern over security, or by gentlemanly reticence, heightens the chances of disaster by obstructing the necessary weighing of anticipated benefits against the risks to be incurred.
When the Agency's involvement in assassination attempts surfaced in the mid-1970s, a development that we now know the nature of the American government and of the society over which it presides made inevitable, thoughtful officers in the DDP not witting of what had been going on recognized immediately the questionable nature of the assumption that the United States would be strengthened by policies that led to the murder of foreign political leaders. They also recognized immediately the dangerous implications of an arm of the government turning to members of the Mafia for assistance under any circumstances, but especially in actions that the government wished never to come to the attention of the public. The fact that these judgments were made in more tranquil times and by persons subject to far less pressure than those directly involved does not invalidate them.
Negative Influence
In the introduction to The Very Best Men Thomas asserts of his four principals:
...the personal cost was high.... The careers of two were ruined; one killed himself; only one lived past the age of sixty-two. They could not see that the mortal enemy was within, that they were being slowly consumed by the moral ambiguities of a "life of secrets." (19)
One may argue legitimately that many other callings could have generated the pressures that led Frank Wisner, who suffered from manic depression, to commit suicide, and could have helped bring on the massive heart attack that caused the death of Desmond FitzGerald. But there is no doubt in my mind that the moral ambiguities of a life of secrets were a major factor in the misjudgments that ruined the careers of Richard Bissell and Tracy Barnes, just as they were later a factor in the multiple misjudgments that allowed Aldrich Ames so long a run for his money.
In making his assertion, Thomas raises an issue to which Agency, and more specifically DO, managers have so far paid too little attention: the fact that those who commit themselves to a life of secret intelligence activity run an unusually high risk of suffering from the job-induced loss of perspective that the French term déformation professionnelle. One factor contributing to their vulnerability is the social isolation brought on by the classified nature of the work and the difficulty of sustaining cover in an open society. Thus, a DO officer can only really relax with his colleagues. As the years pass, he runs an increasing risk of losing his perspective on reality, like the senior manager who fell into the habit of asserting, apparently in all seriousness, that the impatience with the State Department he detected as he moved about Washington on official business persuaded him that the abolition of that department was only a matter of time!
Another causative factor is the consuming nature of the work, arising out of its many unknowns and the high stakes involved, not only for the foreign agent who is risking his own and his family's welfare, if not his life, at the direction of his case officer, but also for the case officer. An error in judgment, or even blind chance, can damage his career, compromise the station, and embarrass the organization that furnishes him cover, the service to which he belongs, and even his country. More insidious over the long run are the lack of candor, disingenuousness, manipulation of the truth, and outright deceit that are all, in varying degrees depending on the specifics of a given case, necessary techniques in the recruitment, handling, and termination of agents.
This is not to say that unscrupulous individuals who misrepresent the facts and otherwise seek to deceive so as to advance their own interests or protect those of the organization to which they belong do not exist in every walk of life. What makes the problem specially acute for a secret intelligence service is that its members receive training in these techniques. Their effectiveness in recruiting and running agents depends on sound judgment in employing them to attain desired ends. But, unless service culture is firmly opposed to such a development, reliance on such techniques in one part of one's professional life can lead all too easily to an assumption on the part of those who have not thought through the consequences of their actions, or simply those who are easily influenced by others, that it is only professional to use the same techniques in other areas.
HERE IS A LITTLE CLIP FROM A FILE I SAW ON A GOV WEBSITE TOUGHT SOMEONE WOULD LIKE TO READ IT
Thomas's account of various assassination attempts contains a plethora of additional examples. His research into the subject has left him uncertain as to exactly where responsibility lay. I suspect the lack of clarity in the records reflects--in varying degrees--a preoccupation with plausible denial, the obligation felt by senior Agency officers to protect higher levels of government, and uneasy consciences about involvement in such activities. In this connection, Thomas recounts a conversation between Bissell and Allen Dulles that reads more like an extract from one of the Get Smart! television parodies of secret agents popular in the 1960s than a discussion of matters of life and death by two senior officials.
In the account, Bissell is described as having "informed" [sic] his chief in a circumlocutory fashion of a plan to kill Castro, using alphabetical designations ("A," "B," and "C") instead of the names of the persons involved. Dulles presumably listened carefully but asked no questions, and yet--Bissell later insisted--understood he was authorizing an assassination attempt!(17) On a different occasion, Tracy Barnes, full of "can do" spirit, approved without appropriate authorization--and sought too late to cancel--an attempt against the lives of Fidel and Raul Castro and Ernesto "Che" Guevara. Fortunately, the foreign agent involved did not act on the approval he had received.
Thomas describes how, in the aftermath of the Bay of Pigs, when Dulles and Bissell had both departed the scene, the Agency, under heavy pressure from the White House, persisted in its efforts to have Castro assassinated. The new DCI, John McCone, was not informed, reportedly because of an assumption that his awareness of the efforts would have changed nothing, and because he was known not to want to be made aware of anything of the sort.(18) Looking back in less fevered circumstances, I believe it fair to say that this is an odd way for a responsible government to function.
A lesson to be drawn from all this is that, at least for an open society like the United States, secret intelligence operations, particularly covert paramilitary action and assassinations, are not a "great game" no matter how appealing a read Rudyard Kipling's Kim may make. A lack of explicitness in discussing such matters, whether motivated by the wish to preserve plausible denial, by a concern over security, or by gentlemanly reticence, heightens the chances of disaster by obstructing the necessary weighing of anticipated benefits against the risks to be incurred.
When the Agency's involvement in assassination attempts surfaced in the mid-1970s, a development that we now know the nature of the American government and of the society over which it presides made inevitable, thoughtful officers in the DDP not witting of what had been going on recognized immediately the questionable nature of the assumption that the United States would be strengthened by policies that led to the murder of foreign political leaders. They also recognized immediately the dangerous implications of an arm of the government turning to members of the Mafia for assistance under any circumstances, but especially in actions that the government wished never to come to the attention of the public. The fact that these judgments were made in more tranquil times and by persons subject to far less pressure than those directly involved does not invalidate them.
Negative Influence
In the introduction to The Very Best Men Thomas asserts of his four principals:
...the personal cost was high.... The careers of two were ruined; one killed himself; only one lived past the age of sixty-two. They could not see that the mortal enemy was within, that they were being slowly consumed by the moral ambiguities of a "life of secrets." (19)
One may argue legitimately that many other callings could have generated the pressures that led Frank Wisner, who suffered from manic depression, to commit suicide, and could have helped bring on the massive heart attack that caused the death of Desmond FitzGerald. But there is no doubt in my mind that the moral ambiguities of a life of secrets were a major factor in the misjudgments that ruined the careers of Richard Bissell and Tracy Barnes, just as they were later a factor in the multiple misjudgments that allowed Aldrich Ames so long a run for his money.
In making his assertion, Thomas raises an issue to which Agency, and more specifically DO, managers have so far paid too little attention: the fact that those who commit themselves to a life of secret intelligence activity run an unusually high risk of suffering from the job-induced loss of perspective that the French term déformation professionnelle. One factor contributing to their vulnerability is the social isolation brought on by the classified nature of the work and the difficulty of sustaining cover in an open society. Thus, a DO officer can only really relax with his colleagues. As the years pass, he runs an increasing risk of losing his perspective on reality, like the senior manager who fell into the habit of asserting, apparently in all seriousness, that the impatience with the State Department he detected as he moved about Washington on official business persuaded him that the abolition of that department was only a matter of time!
Another causative factor is the consuming nature of the work, arising out of its many unknowns and the high stakes involved, not only for the foreign agent who is risking his own and his family's welfare, if not his life, at the direction of his case officer, but also for the case officer. An error in judgment, or even blind chance, can damage his career, compromise the station, and embarrass the organization that furnishes him cover, the service to which he belongs, and even his country. More insidious over the long run are the lack of candor, disingenuousness, manipulation of the truth, and outright deceit that are all, in varying degrees depending on the specifics of a given case, necessary techniques in the recruitment, handling, and termination of agents.
This is not to say that unscrupulous individuals who misrepresent the facts and otherwise seek to deceive so as to advance their own interests or protect those of the organization to which they belong do not exist in every walk of life. What makes the problem specially acute for a secret intelligence service is that its members receive training in these techniques. Their effectiveness in recruiting and running agents depends on sound judgment in employing them to attain desired ends. But, unless service culture is firmly opposed to such a development, reliance on such techniques in one part of one's professional life can lead all too easily to an assumption on the part of those who have not thought through the consequences of their actions, or simply those who are easily influenced by others, that it is only professional to use the same techniques in other areas.
HERE IS A LITTLE CLIP FROM A FILE I SAW ON A GOV WEBSITE TOUGHT SOMEONE WOULD LIKE TO READ IT