PROLOGUE
2 “shape the future” et seq.: CIA contract language quoted in Greg Miller, “How a Modest Contract for ‘Applied Research’ Morphed into the CIA’s Brutal Interrogation Program,” Washington Post, July 13, 2016, p. A1.
2 Swigert/Mitchell’s previous experience: James E. Mitchell with Bill Harlow, Enhanced Interrogation: Inside the Minds and Motives of the Islamic Terrorists Trying to Destroy America (New York: Crown Forum, 2016), 46–47.
2–3 Terminology for CIA terms, techniques: Senate Select Committee on Intelligence (SSCI), Committee Study of the Central Intelligence Agency’s Detention and Interrogation Program (hereafter cited as Senate torture report).
3 CIA agents detained, date selected for number, etc.: Senate torture report, Executive Summary, Dec. 13, 2012, declassified Dec. 3, 2014, passim.
5 “Detention Site Green”: Ibid., p. 23.
6 “hard approach”: Ibid., p. 26, cf. pp. 19–21.
7 “We need to hustle to come up with a strategy” and later, Bush’s instructions to Tenet: Alberto Gonzales, True Faith and Allegiance: A Story of Service and Sacrifice in War and Peace (Nashville, TN: Nelson Books, 2016), 186–88, quoted p. 186.
7 “shift the dynamics”: John Rizzo, Company Man: Thirty Years of Controversy and Crisis in the CIA (New York: Scribner, 2014), 183.
7 “mostly because a lot of what they were telling me” et seq.: Rizzo, Company Man, 184–88, Tenet quoted at 188.
7 Thailand money: The Senate investigation confirms that the Thais received CIA support but text that might have identified what has been deleted.
8 Threats made to Abu Zubaydah: Senate torture report, pp. 27–28. Also see John Kiriakou and Michael Ruby, The Reluctant Spy: My Secret Life in CIA’s War on Terror (New York: Bantam, 2010).
10 Bybee and Yoo disavowals: Bybee cited in “Investigating the Interrogators,” Los Angeles Times editorial, July 21, 2010, p. A16. Yoo in Andy Sullivan, “Author of Interrogation Memo Says CIA Maybe Went too Far,” Reuters dispatch, Dec. 14, 2014.
10 “novel interrogation methods”: CIA, Operational Update Memorandum for CIA Leadership, July 3, 2002, 1630 Hours; Senate torture report, p. 32.
10 Psychologist Shumate on Mitchell aircraft: Mitchell and Harlow, Enhanced Interrogation, 21.
10 Meeting with Tenet: Ibid., 49–51.
11 Swigert instructions: Ali H. Soufan with Daniel Freedman, The Black Banners: The Inside Story of 9/11 and the War Against al-Qaeda (New York: Norton, 2011), 393–96.
11 “One month or a little over a month”: Abu Zubaida journal, Feb. [deleted], 2008, p. 3. Feb. [deleted], 2008, p. 14. Document released in discovery, December 20, 2016, in Salim v. Mitchell, U.S. District Court, Eastern District, Washington State, No. CV-15-0286-JLQ, Item 7B. (This bears a redacted date and was “declassified” although never secret—originated by a private individual with no classification authority. The document is marked “SECRET/NoForn” and the notations lined out, with “UNCLASSIFIED” substituted. Probably due to this odd handling it contains none of the usual declassification data.) Hereafter cited as Abu Zubaydah journal.
11 “CIA records do not support this assertion”: Senate torture report, p. 31.
12 “TO ESTABLISH A RELATIONSHIP”: CIA cable, EYES ONLY, “Interrogation Plan” (other details deleted), 120509Z, Apr. 2002 (declassified Dec. 20, 2016); Salim v. Mitchell Discovery, Bates numbers 001825–001829, quoted at 001825.
12 “DETAILED AND VERIFIABLE” and “HE HAD ALREADY PROVIDED”: CIA cable (details deleted), 041559Z, Aug. 2002, declassified Dec. 20, 2016, Bates numbers 001755–001759, quoted at 001755. This dispatch also introduces the CIA terms for the psychologists referred to in the text. Other interrogation reports appear in the discovery documents at 001803–001806 (Aug. 6), 001942–001944 (Aug. 7), 001945–001948 (Aug. 8), and 001949–001954 (Aug. 9). The order “You know what to do” appears at 001951 and elsewhere in these cables, as well as at 001807–001808 (Aug. 18).
14 “The hood was lifted”: Abu Zubaydah journal, p. 14
14 “HIGHLY UNLIKELY” to “STRONGLY URGE THAT ANY SPECULATIVE LANGUAGE”: Station Green and Jose Rodriguez e-mails, Aug. 12, 2002, reprinted in Senate torture report, p. 43. In December 2014, Rodriguez claimed through a spokesperson that he had had nothing to do with this message.
15 Soufan interrogation said to fail: Mitchell and Harlow, Enhanced Interrogation, 35–38.
15 “replacing our freedoms”: Ibid., 127.
16 “even totally legal techniques will look ‘ugly’” et. seq.: Joint Task Force 170, Notes, “Counter Resistance Strategy Meeting Minutes,” October 2, 2002, printed in Senate Armed Services Committee (110th Congress, 2nd Session), Hearings: The Treatment of Detainees in U.S. Custody (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 2009), pp. 215–18, quoted at 217. The meeting is further discussed in the committee’s Report: Inquiry into the Treatment of Detainees in U.S. Custody, released Nov. 20, 2008. The hearings and report make clear that Army Lieutenant Colonel Diane E. Beaver, who convened the meeting, by 2008 had no specific recollections of the discussion, including Mr. Fredman’s contributions. Guantánamo’s Interrogation Control Unit chief David Becker had written the notes while actively participating, so seems unlikely to have forgotten what transpired. As Jonathan Fredman insists, Becker’s notes specified that he had paraphrased the remarks of participants. Mr. Fredman’s overall denial appears as the enclosure to Office of the Director of National Intelligence, Letter, Kathleen Turner–Senator Carl Levin, November 17, 2008 (www.slideshare.net/guest93466b77/jonathan-fredman-to-the-senate-armed-services-committee). But the Fredman memorandum confirms he attended this meeting and, at a minimum, briefed the Guantánamo inquisitors on legal issues of interrogation.
17 Pavit instructions on tapes: CIA cable, Oct. 25, 2002, declassified Apr. 15, 2010, released by American Civil Liberties Union (hereafter cited as ACLU release), tranche no. 1.
17 Washington Post story: Dana Priest and Barton Gellman, “U.S. Decries Abuse but Defends Interrogations,” Washington Post, Dec. 26, 2002, p. A1.
18 read and understood instructions: CIA cable, CTC-Station Bangkok, EYES ONLY, Dec. 3, 2002, declassified Apr. 15, 2010, ACLU release, tranche no. 1.
18 CIA lawyer: CIA, Office of the Inspector General, “Special Review: Counterterrorism Detention and Interrogation Activities (September 2001–October 2003),” 2003-7123-IG, May 7, 2004, declassified 2008, 2015. Other evidence indicates the lawyer was John McPherson.
19 “Endgame Facility” to “Just hope our myopic view”: CIA, e-mail (details deleted), “RDG Tasking for IC Psychologists Jessen and Mitchell,” June 16, 2003, 4:54 p.m. (declassified Sept. 30, 2016; C06552085), in ACLU court case 1:15-CV-09317-AKH, document 53-4. Content and context make clear that this e-mail is from the CIA’s Office of Medical Services and was sent to either the Technical Services office, which controlled the psychologists’ contracts, or the CTC, where the RDG was located.
19 “our interest in these techniques”: CIA, e-mail (details deleted), “RDG Tasking for IC Psychologists Jessen and Mitchell,” June 20, 2003, 2:19 p.m. (declassified Sept. 30, 2016; C06552086); ACLU case 1:15-cv-09317-AKH, document 53-5. Context and content are identical to the previous citation. Also, this language bears on the dispute over CIA’s briefings to Congress. If in June 2003 the agency still held to its cover story that the waterboard was strictly a training device, that casts doubt on whether Congress had really been told of its use in interrogations during 2002.
19 “I learned early on”: Al Kamen, “In the Loop: In Washington and Beyond, Disclosing a Few of Cheney’s Locations,” Washington Post, Oct. 5, 2007, quoted p. A19. Mr. Cheney made this statement in Grand Rapids, Michigan, at a September 2007 event.
19–20 Events of July 29, 2003, including “forcefully reiterated the view of the Department of Justice”: Central Intelligence Agency, Scott W. Muller, “Review of Terrorist Program on 29 July 2003,” OGC-FO-2003-50078, Aug. 5, 2003, declassified Nov. 9, 2014, CIA CO6238939. The CIA’s PowerPoint briefing for that meeting has also been declassified. For the NSC meeting, see Gonzales, True Faith and Allegiance, 189–91, 202.
21 “recommended that CIA move”: CIA, e-mail, Scott M. Muller (OGC) to James L. Pavitt (DDO), “CIA Detainees at GITMO,” 2004/02 [redacted], declassified June 10, 2016.
21 “some of our rules might be described as”: CIA Office of Congressional Affairs, Memorandum for the Record, Nov. 30, 2004, declassified for Amnesty International et al. v. CIA, document 361, Feb. 22, 2010. Written retrospectively, the memo makes clear that it pertains to the May 10 briefing.
23 “I wanted to assure the people here”: White House text, “President Thanks CIA Employees,” Central Intelligence Agency, Langley, Virginia, Mar. 3, 2005, copy in author’s files.
23 “the false impression that US intelligence may have had a policy”: Central Intelligence Agency, press release, “Statement by CIA Director of Public Affairs Jennifer Millerwise,” Mar. 18, 2005, copy in author’s files.
23 “I got nowhere”: Rizzo, Company Man, quoted p. 242. Also see Paul Kane and Joby Warrick, “Cheney Led Briefings of Lawmakers to Defend Interrogation Techniques,” Washington Post, June 3, 2009, which quotes McCain saying, “Torture is torture” (p. A4).
25 “CIA HOLDS TERROR SUSPECTS IN SECRET PRISONS”: Dana Priest, Washington Post, Nov. 2, 2005, p. A1.
26 “I’d like to know if there is anything”: Robert L. Grenier, 88 Days to Kandahar: A CIA Diary (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2015), quoted p. 402.
29 “This is a train wreak [sic]”: CIA, CTC/RG e-mail, Jan. 22, 2003, 10:22 a.m., declassified June 10, 2016, C06541516, CIA Electronic Reading Room.
29 “We all knew it would”: David Ignatius, “Revolt of the Professionals,” Washington Post, Dec. 21, 2005, p. A31.
29 “We all knew the political wind would change”: David Ignatius, “Slow Roll Time at Langley,” Washington Post, Apr. 22, 2009, p. A25.
29 “The agency is glad to be out of it”: David Ignatius, “A Sigh of Relief at the CIA,” Washington Post, Aug. 26, 2009, p. A15.
1. THE HOUSE THAT ALLEN BUILT
33 “a pride of lions”: James Srodes, Allen Dulles: Master of Spies (Washington, DC: Regnery, 1999), 20.
41 “the Agency shall have no police, subpoena or law enforcement powers”: National Security Act of 1947, Section 103 (d) (1), in U.S. Congress, House of Representatives, Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, Compilation of Intelligence Laws and Related Laws and Executive Orders of Interest to the National Intelligence Community, as amended through Jan. 3, 1998. (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1998), 10. Hereafter this source will be cited as Compilation of Intelligence Laws 1998.
43 such other functions: Ibid., Sec. 103 (d) (5).
48 “subtly consultative and mutually enriching”: George R. Urban, Radio Free Europe and the Pursuit of Democracy: My War Within the Cold War (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1997), 47.
49 “writing reports for the government”: Allen Welch Dulles, The Craft of Intelligence (New York: New American Library, 1965), ix.
52 “Allen, you don’t know how to run anything!”: Burton Hersh, The Old Boys: The American Elite and the Origins of the CIA (New York: Macmillan, 1992), quoted pp. 314, 316.
52 “Allen isn’t a bad administrator”: Ludwell Lee Montague, General Walter Bedell Smith as Director of Central Intelligence, October 1950–February 1953 (University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1992), quoted p. 92.
52 “You gave it to Allen Dulles?”: Lincoln K. White oral history, in CIA, Studies in Intelligence, Winter 1999–2000, pp. 29–41, quoted p. 34.
53 “The General was in fine form”: Montague, General Walter Bedell Smith, 92.
60 Israeli historians: Yossi Melman and Dan Raviv, “The Journalist’s Connections: How Israel Got Russia’s Biggest Pre-Glasnost Secret,” International Journal of Intelligence and Counterintelligence, vol. 4, no. 2, 1990, pp. 219–25. Even Melman and Raviv cannot come down to a single source. By their account, the speech came from Ben or through Amos Manor of the internal security service Shin Bet, from an agent in the Soviet bloc. Either way, Israeli prime minister David Ben-Gurion personally approved the handover to the CIA, and that was done late in April 1956, which matches the chronology from the U.S. side.
61 “By golly, I’m going to make a policy decision”: Ray Cline, Secrets, Spies and Scholars: Blueprint of the Essential CIA (Washington, DC: Acropolis Books, 1976), quoted p. 164.
62 “scurrilous” and “He is in bad company”: CIA, Minutes, Deputies Meeting (DIM-519), Oct. 31, 1956, declassified May 6, 2003, CIA-RDP80B01676R002300200014-2.
62 “matter on the other side of the world”: Allen to John Foster Dulles phone notes, Jan. 16, 1958, Dwight D. Eisenhower Library (hereafter DDEL), Dulles Papers: Telephone Series, box 8, folder “Memoranda of Telephone Conversations, General, February 1–March 31, 1958.”
69 “We sometimes thought he was trying”: Richard Helms, “Address to CIA Retirees,” Central Intelligence Retirees Association Newsletter (hereafter cited as CIRA Newsletter), vol. 22, no. 3, (Winter 1997–1998): 8.
70 “Red, you have to have a cornerstone” et seq.: Lincoln K. White, “Naming the HQ Buildings,” CIRA Newsletter, Summer 1998, quoted p. 22.
71 “I believe we get the same reports”: Time, Sept. 28, 1959.
72 “the work of this agency demands”: CIA, “Presidential Reflections on U.S. Intelligence, President Eisenhower,” September 7, 2010.
73 “I was faced with a heads-he-wins, tails-I-lose proposition”: Richard Nixon, “Cuba, Castro and John F. Kennedy: Some Reflections on United States Foreign Policy,” Reader’s Digest, November 1964, p. 288.
75 “I have not commented” et seq.: Allen Dulles, The Craft of Intelligence, 157, 175. The account that Dulles dismissed was in Haynes Johnson’s book The Bay of Pigs: The Leaders’ Story of Brigade 2506 (New York: Dell, 1964).
2. ZEALOTS AND SCHEMERS
77 “The social side was very important to Allen”: Hersh, The Old Boys, 316.
79 “Park Avenue cowboys”: Hugh Wilford, The Mighty Wurlitzer: How the CIA Played America (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2008), 27.
82 “The operators are not going to decide”: Hersh, The Old Boys, 298.
82 “I don’t care if they are blabbing secrets or not”: Ibid., 301.
83 “Kindly do not bring in here any more”: Ibid.
90 “Present governmental policy does not provide”: CIA, Frank Wisner–Allen Dulles, Draft Memorandum, Policy Guidance for CIA Planning to “capitalize on and exploit new uprisings in the satellites,” Jan. 8, 1954, in Douglas Keane and Michael Warner, eds., Foreign Relations of the United States, 1950–1955: The Intelligence Community, 1950–1955 (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, repr. 2007, 469–71. Foreign Relations is the official historical documentary record of the U.S. government. Various volumes of this series will be quoted here. In subsequent citations, when a volume first appears, it will be given a full annotation so as to credit the editors, but in other appearances, only the form FRUS, with a brief volume identification and the relevant page number. Please note that within the FRUS, internal cross-references are to documents by number. Citations here, however, conform to publishing practice by referring to page numbers in all cases.
91 “I’d rather have Allen” et seq.: John Prados, Presidents’ Secret Wars: CIA and Pentagon Covert Operations from World War II through the Persian Gulf (Chicago: Ivan R. Dee/Rowman & Littlefield, 1996), quoted p. 111.
91 “aggressive covert psychological, political” et seq.: Report of the Special Study Group (Doolittle Committee), “Report on the Covert Activities of the Central Intelligence Agency,” n.d. (Oct. 19, 1954), FRUS: Intelligence Community, 1950–1955, p. 542.
93 “navigate, fly, drop the bomb”: Robert A. Lovett testimony, May 11, 1961, p. 4, Paramilitary Study Group (Taylor Committee), Memorandum for the Record, 14th Meeting, May 11, 1961, John F. Kennedy Library (JFKL), Kennedy Papers, National Security File, Country File, box 61A, folder “Cuba: Subjects, Paramilitary Study Group, Part II Meetings 13–15” (hereafter cited as Lovett testimony).
94 “demonstrate the Communist technique”: National Security Council, Operations Coordinating Board, Assistants Working Group, “List of Agreed Courses of Action to Implement NSC 174,” Aug. 25, 1954, FRUS, Intelligence Community 1950–1955, pp. 531–39, quoted p. 532.
94 “detaching” countries, “soft” policies: National Security Council, Operations Coordinating Board, Working Group Report, “Analysis of the Situation with Respect to Possible Detachment of a Major European Soviet Satellite,” Jan. 5, 1955 FRUS: Intelligence Community, 1950–1955, p. 592.
94 RFE paper: A. Ross Johnson, “Setting the Record Straight: Role of Radio Free Europe in the Hungarian Revolution of 1956,” Woodrow Wilson Center, 2006.
97 “it’s time we held Sukarno’s feet”: Joseph B. Smith, Portrait of a Cold Warrior (New York: Putnam’s, 1976), quoted p. 205.
98 “No one was listening to Wisner”: Thomas, The Very Best Men, quoted p. 152.
99 “disintegration” and “could not be described as an irrevocable revolt”: Robert McMahon et al., eds., Foreign Relations of the United States, 1955–1957, vol. 22, Southeast Asia 1955–1957 (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1989), 655.
100 “Some CIA men”: William Stevenson, Birds’ Nests in Their Beards (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1963), quoted p. 29.
102 “intelligence,” “crystally-clear facts” et seq.: Lovett testimony, 7.
104 leading CIA team to HPSCI briefing: Jose Rodriguez with Bill Harlow, Hard Measures: How Aggressive CIA Actions after 9/11 Saved American Lives (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2012), 64. At 2:52 p.m. on September 6, Rodriguez complimented a CIA lawyer on removing a sentence from the meeting record which noted congressional incumbents had legal doubts about the detention program. Senate torture report, p. 438 and fn. 2455.
105 “getting rid of some ugly visuals”: Rodriguez and Harlow, Hard Measures, 193.
105 “I understand your lawyers chopped on it”: Rizzo, Company Man, 18. “Chopped” is a term government officials use as slang for approving or approval.
106 “In my thirty-four years”: Ibid., 19.
106 “Actually, it would be he, PG, who took the heat”: CIA, e-mail to Executive Director Kyle D. Foggo, Nov. 10, 2005, 5:48 p.m., declassified, ACLU FOIA release, Apr. 15, 2010, part 3.
107 Walsh charges Adkins: U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, Division for the Purpose of Appointing Independent Counsel, Division no. 86-6, Lawrence E. Walsh, Final Report of the Independent Counsel for Iran/Contra Matters, vol. 1, Investigations and Prosecutions, Aug. 4, 1993, pp. 309–11. Also see John Prados, Safe for Democracy: The Secret Wars of the CIA (Chicago: Ivan R. Dee, 2006), 558–60. (Hereafter cited as Walsh Report with volume and page numbers.)
108 “The anti-CIA mood in government”: Christopher D. Costanzo, My CIA: Memories of a Secret Career (North Charleston, SC: Create Space Independent Publishing, 2013), 392.
109 Jose is “out on Business”: Mark Mazzetti and Scott Shane, “Tape Inquiry: Ex-Spymaster in the Middle,” New York Times, Feb. 20, 2008, quoted p. A12.
109 “We’ll find something for you”: Rodriguez and Harlow, Hard Measures, 30.
109 fifty-four nations that helped: Globalizing Torture: CIA Secret Detention and Extraordinary Rendition (Washington, DC: Open Society Foundation, Feb. 2013).
111 Vodaphone scandal: Greek investigators traced the purchase of telephones used in the surveillance to individuals at the U.S. embassy in Athens and later issued a warrant for the arrest of an individual said to have been employed by the NSA. The surveillance took place during the 2004 Olympics, when Rodriguez was point man for all U.S. agencies’ security efforts. Rodriguez and Harlow, Hard Measures, 127.
111 “could resurface . . . given press speculations”: Department of State, Memo, Robin Quinville–Ambassador Charles P. Ries, “Briefer for your Breakfast Meetings with John Bellinger,” Apr. 14, 2008, sensitive but unclassified, declassified Jan. 28, 2009, State Department FOIA Reading Room.
113 Project Cannonball: Mark Mazzetti and Scott Shane, “After 9/11, CIA had Plan to Kill Qaeda’s Leaders,” New York Times, July 14, 2009, pp. A1, A14; Joby Warrick and Ben Pershing, “CIA Had Program to Kill Al-Qaeda Leaders,” Washington Post, July 14, 2009, p. A2; David Ignatius, “The CIA’s ‘Hit Team’ Miss,” Washington Post, July 23, 2009, p. A21; Joby Warrick and R. Jeffrey Smith, “CIA Hired Firm for Assassin Program,” Washington Post, Aug. 20, 2009, pp. A1, A4; Joby Warrick, “Blackwater Founder Says He Aided Secret Programs,” Washington Post, Dec. 3, 2009, A6.
114 “Fuck you!” et seq.: Michael Morell with Bill Harlow, The Great War of Our Time: The CIA’s Fight Against Terrorism from Al Qaeda to ISIS (New York: Hachette, 2015), 144–45.
114 New York Police Department operation: As his deputy leading the Intelligence Division, NYPD commissioner Raymond W. Kelly appointed David Cohen. A long-service CIA veteran who had actually started as an analyst, Cohen had been the deputy director for operations when Jose Rodriguez took charge of DO’s Latin America Division in the 1990s. Now Rodriguez was CTC chief of operations. While Cohen had gone into retirement before the NYPD stint, he still needed the CIA for his security clearance and to facilitate NYPD activity. In April 2002, the CIA approved a concept for cooperation, and a couple of months later, agency analyst Lawrence Sanchez went to the NYPD as Director Tenet’s representative. Two years later, Rodriguez approved as the CIA put Sanchez on extended leave so he could work for Cohen and the NYPD directly, full-time. In a related move, an NYPD detective trained for more than a year with the CIA. That, at least, cannot be traced to Director Rodriguez; Jose left the CIA in September 2007, but the NYPD detective arrived only in October 2008. CIA, David B. Buckley (IG)–David H. Petraeus (DCIA), Memorandum Report, “Review of the CIANYPD Relationship,” Dec. 27, 2011, declassified June 24, 2013, C05999891, CIA Electronic Reading Room.
116 “although I knew he believed”: Morell and Harlow, The Great War of Our Time, 260.
3. STARS AND METEORS
123 “Don’t think that just by pressing a button”: Joby Warrick, “The Reluctant Martyr,” Washington Post, June 29, 2011, p. C3.
124 “There’s been an attack” and “This guy turned out to be a double agent” et seq.: Leon Panetta with Jim Newton, Worthy Fights: A Memoir of Leadership in War and Peace (New York: Penguin, 2014), 262, 263.
125–130 Robert Ames’s Accomplishments: The following discussion of CIA officer Bob Ames depends largely on Kai Bird’s fine biography, The Good Spy: The Life and Death of Robert Ames (New York: Crown Publishers, 2014), passim.
135 “You use my airfields, you take my orders”: Stephen Schlesinger and Stephen Kinzer, Bitter Fruit: The Untold Story of the American Coup in Guatemala (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1982), 193.
136 “a man of Allen Dulles’s imagination”: Richard Helms with William Hood, A Look Over My Shoulder: A Life in the Central Intelligence Agency (New York: Random House, 2003), 176.
138 “It’s none of your damn business”: Kenneth W. Thompson, ed., Portraits of the American Presidency, vol. 3, The Eisenhower Presidency: Eleven Intimate Perspectives of Dwight D. Eisenhower (Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 1984), 219.
140 “Don’t be too specific on briefing Adlai”: Thomas, The Very Best Men, 254.
142 “With Rip you could never be sure”: CIA, Official History of the Bay of Pigs Operation, vol. 3, Evolution of the CIA’s Anti-Castro Policies, 1959–January 1961 (Jack Pfeiffer history), TS-795052, Dec. 1979, declassified in Historical Review Program, 1998, p. 24.
4. CRISES
145 “I am the responsible officer”: New York Times, Apr. 22, 1961.
146 “Tears came to their eyes”: Grayston L. Lynch, Decision for Disaster: Betrayal at the Bay of Pigs (Washington, DC: Brassey’s, 1998), 148.
146 “The men in this force”: Operation Zapata: The Ultrasensitive Report and Testimony of the Board of Inquiry on the Bay of Pigs (Frederick, MD: Aletheia Books, 1981), 160. Grayston Lynch, in the book cited above, outlines testimony (pp. 149–50) that corresponds to what is recorded here in Taylor’s record. But the Taylor Committee recorded this statement on April 28 (Friday), and Lynch insists he testified on the Monday (May 1). According to its records, on May 1, the Taylor Committee took testimony from CIA mission chief Colonel Jack Hawkins. It heard Robertson and Lynch on April 28 and May 2. Nothing Lynch said on May 2 matches his written recollection, but the April 28 testimony does.
147 no “inquiry,” no “investigation”: Taylor Committee, Memorandum for the Record, Apr. 24, 1961. All references to Taylor Committee documents are to materials held at the JFKL, Kennedy Papers, National Security File, Country File, Cuba, box 19, folders: “Paramilitary Study Group” [with Annexes].
147 “I’m your man-eating shark”: Peter Wyden, Bay of Pigs: The Untold Story New York: Simon & Schuster, 1979), 95.
150 “a man of high character”: Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr., A Thousand Days: John F. Kennedy in the White House (Greenwich, CT: Fawcett, 1967), 226.
151 “It’s in the air now” et seq.: Richard M. Bissell Jr., Columbia University, Center for Oral History Archives, Rare Books Collection, Oral History No. 138, June 5, 1967, pp. 43–44.
154 “The planning for this operation”: Church Committee, Deposition of Richard M. Bissell, June 9, 1975, p. 21, quoted p. 23, National Archives and Records Administration, RG-246, Records of the Assassination Records Board, box 11.
155 “After the President” et seq.: Smith, Portrait of a Cold Warrior, pp. 323–24.
157 “Bissell’s View”: CIA, “Cuba,” Feb. 17, 1961, declassified Apr. 19, 1996, attached to memorandum, McGeorge Bundy–John F. Kennedy, Feb. 18, 1961, declassified Aug. 23, 1977, JFKL, Kennedy Papers, National Security File, Country File, box 35, folder “Cuba, General, 1/61–4/61.” In his memo, Bundy identifies the author of the CIA paper as Richard Bissell. He also appends a cover sheet to the paper with the title “Bissell’s View.”
157 “The Taylor Committee report was probably correct”: Richard M. Bissell, “Response to Lucien S. Vandenbroucke, ‘The “Confessions” of Allen Dulles: New Evidence on the Bay of Pigs,’” Diplomatic History 8, no. 4 (Fall 1984): 379. The Vandenbroucke paper, with that title, appears in the same journal issue at pp. 365–76.
158 “I know of no estimate”: Allen Dulles, The Craft of Intelligence, 157–58.
158 “attempt to set up an acceptable alternative”: Taylor Committee, Hearing Transcript, 19th Meeting, May 22, 1961, declassified Mar. 22, 2000, p. 2. JFKL, Kennedy Papers, National Security File, Country File, Cuba, box 19, folder “Paramilitary Study Group, Taylor Report, Part III, Annex 19.”
159 “splintering” et seq.: Taylor Branch and George Crile, “The Kennedy Vendetta,” Harper’s, Aug. 1975, p. 50.
160 persons interviewed for IG report: Some uncertainty attaches to the number the Kirkpatrick staff interviewed. The body of the IG report states “about 125.” In his cover letter of November 20, however, Kirkpatrick says 130 people plus the four named officials. I have used that figure because this cover letter addressed to the Director of Central Intelligence would have been most careful to be exact.
160 “one of the most painful episodes”: Lyman Kirkpatrick, The Real CIA, 184.
160 “Rather than receiving”: Ibid., 200.
162 “This was indeed part of the problem”: CIA, Memorandum Lyman Kirkpatrick–Director John McCone, May 24, 1964 (declassified Dec. 6, 2015, LBJ Library, Johnson Papers, National Security File, Agency File, box 8, folder: “CIA v. I [1 of 2]”). The magazine did indeed run the article, and Mario Lazo later published the book Dagger in the Heart: American Policy Failures in Cuba (New York: Funk & Wagnalls, 1968).
165 “Sticks and stones may break my bones” et seq.: Walsh Report, vol. 3, Comments and Materials Submitted by Individuals and Their Attorneys Responding to Volume I of the Final Report, Washington, DC, Dec. 3, 1993, p. 51.
169 “no basis has been found”: Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, “Report on the Casey Inquiry,” Dec. 3, 1981, p. 6. Copy in author’s files.
170 “Intelligence and counterintelligence capabilities”: U.S. Congress, 97th Congress, 1st Session, Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Hearing: Nomination of William J. Casey (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1981), 14.
170 “chronic inarticulateness”: Jonathan Alter and Nicolas Horrock, “A Most Unlikely Superspook,” Newsweek, Oct. 10, 1983, p. 40.
170 Flappy: Bob Woodward, Veil: The Secret Wars of the CIA, 1981–1987 (New York: Pocket Books, 1988), 228.
170 “It’s a tremendous advantage to Casey”: James Conaway, “Spymaster: The File on Bill Casey,” Washington Post, Sept. 7, 1983, p. B9.
172 I’M A CONTRA TOO: Personal observation.
173 “If the operation blew up”: Duane R. Clarridge, A Spy for All Seasons: My Life in the CIA (New York: Scribner, 2002), 206.
176 Casey admitted, “We are”: U.S. Congress, 98th Congress, 2nd Session, Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, Report: January 1, 1983 to December 31, 1984 (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1985), pp. 7–10.
176 “The CIA was directly involved”: Barry M. Goldwater with Jack Casserly, Goldwate (New York: Doubleday, 1988), quoted pp. 304, 306.
176 “I am pissed off” et seq.: SSCI Report, repr., p. 8.
176 “can only be described as a domestic disinformation campaign”: Robert Simmons as quoted by Daniel Patrick Moynihan, Congressional Record, Aug. 12, 1994, p. S11834.
177 “Moynihan was probably drunk” et seq.: Rizzo, Company Man, 84.
178 “grudging”: L. Britt Snider, The CIA and the Hill: CIA’s Relationship with Congress, 1946–2004 (Washington, DC: Central Intelligence Agency, Center for the Study of Intelligence, 2008), p. 61.
180 “a personal repudiation”: Rizzo, Company Man, 103.
181 “If such a story gets out”: National Security Planning Group, Meeting Record, June 25, 1984, reprinted in Peter Kornbluh and Malcolm A. Byrne, Iran-Contra Scandal: The Declassified History (New York: The New Press, 1993), 69–82.
183 “I didn’t even know”: Joseph E. Persico, Casey: The Lives and Secrets of William J. Casey: From the OSS to the CIA (New York: Viking, 1990), 410.
183 “I don’t want you operating in Central America” et seq.: Walsh Report, vol. 1, Investigations and Prosecutions, 204.
186 “We were transfixed”: James McCullough, “Coping with Iran-Contra: Personal Reflections on Bill Casey’s Last Month at CIA,” Studies in Intelligence 39, no. 2 (Summer 1995): 29.
187 “does have the authority to withhold prior notice” et seq. (all references to Casey testimony): House of Representatives, Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, “Iran Briefing,” stenographic transcript, Nov. 21, 1986, in U.S. Congress, 100th Congress, 1st Session, House Select Committee to Investigate Covert Arms Transactions with Iran and Senate Select Committee on Secret Military Assistance to Iran and the Nicaraguan Opposition, Joint Hearings: Iran-Contra Investigation, vol. 100–6 (Washington, DC: Government Printing office, 1988), 649–91, here quoted at pp. 659, 669–70, 674, 678. (Any reference to these hearings hereafter will be cited as Iran-Contra Hearings with the volume number.) Director Casey’s reference to “successor general counsels” and DCIs is another obfuscation: right through the time of the January 1985 finding, there had been just one CIA general counsel during the Reagan administration, Stanley Sporkin, and one DCI, Casey.
190 “Boys, this will blow over”: Jack Devine, Good Hunting: An American Spymaster’s Story (New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 2014), 85.
191 “Jim, I’ll look at it”: McCullough, “Coping with Iran-Contra,” 43.
5. THE CONSIGLIERI
195 “Don’t tell me it can’t be done legally”: Persico, Casey, 405.
196 “In a perfect world” et seq.: Iran-Contra Hearings, vol. 100–6, p. 124.
196 “partial non-notification” et seq.: Ibid., pp. 179–81.
196 “on the principle that notifying fewer”: Iran-Contra Report, House vol. 100-433/Senate vol. 100-216, p. 585.
198 “I hadn’t had my fill”: Iran-Contra Hearings, vol. 100–6, p. 175.
200 “We reached a point” et seq.: Persico, Casey, 405.
201 “strictly a technical matter”: Ronald Brownstein and Nina Easton, Reagan’s Ruling Class: Portraits of the President’s Top 100 Officials (Washington, DC: Presidential Acountability Group, 1982), 626.
202 Stanley Sporkin and Presidential Findings: U.S. Congress, 100th Congress, 1st Session, House Select Committee to Investigate Covert Arms Transactions with Iran and Senate Select Committee on Secret Military Assistance to Iran and the Nicaraguan Opposition, Joint Hearings: Iran-Contra Investigation, vol. 100-6, June 23–25, 1987 (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1987), 122–90. Justice Department lawyer Charles Cooper’s notes are in Joint Committee, Appendix B: Depositions, v. 7 (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1988), 610–13.
202 “prudential” and “this draft raises”: Theodore Draper, A Very Thin Line: The Iran-Contra Affairs (New York: Hill & Wang, 1991), 213.
202 “the best advice anybody ever gave me”: Persico, Casey, 410.
207 “pitchers should leak from the top”: Frank Snepp, Irreparable Harm (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2001), 72.
210 “Greaney’s eyes almost popped out”: Philip Agee, On the Run (Secaucus, NJ: Lyle Stuart, 1987), 77–78. For the incident with Agee’s father, see pp. 55–56.
212 “This has become . . . essentially a work of fiction”: CIA Memorandum, Information Management Staff–Office of General Counsel, “Galley Proofs of ‘Countercoup,’” Apr. 30, 1979, declassified July 31, 2013, MORI 6027365, National Security Archive, Electronic Briefing Book 468, May 12, 2014, item no. 17.
213 “advisable in the interests of the United States”: National Security Act of 1947, Section 102 (c), CIA, Office of General Counsel, Guide to Central Intelligence Agency Statutes and Law, vol. 1, Sept. 1970, p. 3.
215 “the absolute right to terminate any employee”: Ibid., 15, fn. 19.
215 “to keep the CIA free of the law”: Snepp, Irreparable Harm, 55.
215 father of intelligence law: Gary M. Brenneman, “Father of Intelligence Law: Lawrence R. Houston,” Studies in Intelligence, Summer 1974, pp. 37–41.
216 “OSS had all kinds of people”: U.S. Congress, 102nd Congress, 2nd Session, Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, Hearings: S.2198 and S.421 to Reorganize the United States Intelligence Community (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1992), 39.
216 “Italy was not a very good example”: Ibid., 92–93.
217 “Well, lieutenant, how to do you like your new assignment?” et seq.: Ibid., 93.
217 “He was a can-do lawyer”: Bart Barnes, “L. R. Houston Dies; CIA’s First General Counsel,” Washington Post, Aug. 17, 1995, p. B5.
219 “commando type functions” et seq.: Lawrence Houston, “CIA Authority to Perform Propaganda and Commando Type Functions,” OGC-1, Sept. 25, 1947, declassified July 1990, MORI 17739, author’s files.
219 “legal basis for Cold War activities” et seq.: CIA Memorandum, Houston–McCone, “Legal Basis for Cold-War Activities,” OGC 62-0083, Jan. 15, 1962, declassified June 14, 1976, author’s files.
219 “Russian subversive action” et seq.: Church Committee Transcripts, Testimony of Lawrence Houston, June 2, 1975, p. 78, NARA, RG-246, JFK Assassination Records Board Files, box 248-1.
220 “Over the years”: Church Committee Transcript, Testimony of Lawrence R. Houston, Mar. 17, 1975, declassified July 2, 1993, Bates number 1696, NARA, RG-246, JFK Assassination Records Board Files, box 11.
220 “many projects may have been discussed”: Church Committee Records, Timothy Hardy Memorandum for File, “Interview with John Warner, General Counsel of the CIA,” Mar. 17, 1975, declassified June 12, 1998, NARA, RG-246, JFK Assassination Records Board Files, box 10, folder “CC-H [ii-B] Clark Clifford Interview.”
220 “executive privilege”: Lawrence Houston, “Executive Privilege in the Field of Intelligence,” Studies in Intelligence, Fall 1958, pp. 61–74; Lawrence Houston, “CIA, the Courts and Executive Privilege,” Studies in Intelligence, Winter 1973, pp. 63–66.
221 discussion of Heine v. Raus: CIA, Office of General Counsel, Guide to Central Intelligence Agency Statutes and Law, Sept. 1970, vol. 1, pp. 16–18 and fn. 21; cf. Heine v. Raus, 261 F. Supp. 570, Dec. 8, 1966.
223 “If the CIA must defame someone”: U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit, Eerik Heine, Appellant v. Juri Raus, 399 F.2d 785 (1968), James Craven Jr. dissenting.
6. THE SHERIFFS
225 “There were plenty of women”: [Author’s name deleted], “The Blind Men and the Elephant,” declassified September 2, 2014, Studies in Intelligence, 36 (Winter 1992): 24.
226 “I think women have a very high place”: Jacqueline [deleted] R[deleted], The Petticoat Panel: A 1953 study of the Role of Woman in the CIA’s Career Service, Intelligence Monograph, CIA, Center for the Study of Intelligence, Mar. 2003, declassified Oct. 30, 2013, p. 1. Evidently women officers at the agency are not entitled to their full names even in declassified administrative histories of employment trends.
227 “No supervisor in this Agency” and “There is a constant inconvenience factor” et seq.: Ibid., 11.
227 “When I came in”: CIA, “Divine Secrets of the RYBAT Sisterhood: Four Senior Women of the Directorate of Operations Discuss their Careers,” declassified Oct. 30, 2014, p. 2. RYBAT is a cryptonym for the Directorate of Operations.
227 “Recruitment Division has had few specific directives”: CIA, Memorandum “On the States of Women,” July 6, 1971, declassified July 1, 2002, p. 1.
228 “I’m so sick of the deputization of women”: Abigail Jones, “Not Your Daddy’s CIA,” Newsweek, Sept. 30, 2016, quoted p. 28
233 “I doubt I would have reported it”: Paul Starobin, “Agent Provocateur,” George magazine, Oct. 1997, p. 88.
233 “She had a drive, a persistence”: Ibid.
234 “such functions as the Director of Central Intelligence may prescribe”: Central Intelligence Agency Act of 1949, Section 20 (50 U.S.C. 403t), Compilation of Intelligence Laws 1998, p. 67. With creation of the Director of National Intelligence post, this language will have changed today to say the OGC works at the instruction of the director of the CIA, not the director of central intelligence.
234 “There are few who would argue”: Scott Breckinridge, CIA and the Cold War: A Memoir (Westport, CT: Praeger, 1993), 94.
237 “appears not to have had the manpower, resources or tenacity”: Iran-Contra Report, p. 425.
239 “heavy seas upon which the legislation sailed”: U.S. Congress, 101st Congress, 2nd Session, Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, Hearing: Nomination of Frederick P. Hitz (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1991), 36.
7. THE HEADLESS HORSEMAN
250 “We have to face the fact” et seq.: Helms and Hood, A Look Over My Shoulder, 105.
251 “I am sure his reluctance” et seq.: Richard M. Bissell with Jonathan B. Lewis and Frances T. Pudlo, Reflections of a Cold Warrior: From Yalta to the Bay of Pigs (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1996), 177.
252 “The wonder is he didn’t throw me out”: James E. Flannery, “Bay of Pigs,” Intelligencer: Journal of U.S. Intelligence Studies, Fall–Winter 2006–2007, p. 52.
252 “In a parliamentary government”: Thomas, The Very Best Men, 266.
254 “You’re a natural”: Helms and Hood, A Look Over My Shoulder, 31.
255 “The heat absorbed by the tin roof”: Ibid., 73.
256 “In the preceding weeks”: Ibid., 196.
258 “I work for only one president at a time”: Powers, The Man Who Kept the Secrets, 201.
258 “just for the purpose of being briefed”: CIA, John McCone, Memorandum for the Record, Apr. 30, 1964, declassified Aug. 26, 1999, LBJ Library, Johnson Papers, National Security File, John McCone Memoranda series, box 1, folder “Meetings with the President, 3 April 1964–20 May 1964.
258 “ideal method” et seq.: Memorandum, McGeorge Bundy–Lyndon Johnson, May 1, 1964, LBJ Library, Johnson Papers, White House Central File, General File, FG 11-1, box 55, folder “FG 11-2: CIA.”
259 “I’m sick and tired of John McCone’s tugging”: Helms and Hood, A Look Over My Shoulder, 294.
259 “Dulles ran a happy ship”: Central Intelligence Agency, David Robarge, John McCone as Director of Central Intelligence, 1961–1965, declassified Apr. 10, 2015, CIA Center for the Study of Intelligence, 2005, p. 416.
260 “Miami cocktail party chatter”: Ibid., 98.
260 “I don’t recall anything about any plans”: Rockefeller Commission, Richard Helms Deposition, Apr. 23, 1975, declassified July 16, 1998, p. 151, NARA, RG-246, JFK Assassination Records Board Files, box 10, folder “S-M (IV-DD) Richard Helms.”
260 “The business about the assassination of Castro” et seq.: Ibid., p. 160. Subsequent quotes and references are taken from this text up through page 169. The “any specific plan” language occurs on page 169.
261 “nutty idea” et seq.: Church Committee Records, Richard Helms Testimony, July 18, 1975 (declassified May 31, 1994). NARA: RG-246, JFK Assassination Records Board Files, box 25, folder “Edwards, Helms, Lewis, et al.”
261 “There is something about the whole chain of episode”: Ibid.
263 “one of my darkest days”: Helms and Hood, A Look Over My Shoulder, 343.
265 “The pending exposé did not come as a total surprise”: Ibid., 344.
265 “Well, aren’t you the lucky one”: Douglass Cater, “What Did LBJ Know and When Did He Know It?” Washington Post, July 19, 1987, p. C7.
266 “It would have been difficult to imagine”: Helms and Hood, A Look Over My Shoulder, 345.
273 Senators Symington and Stennis: See, for example, Richard Helms, Luncheon Talk, May 1, 1995, CIRA Newsletter 20, no. 2 (Summer 1995): 5; Helms remarks at CIA 50th Anniversary, CIA, What’s News at CIA, Oct. 1997, p. 15; Loch Johnson, “Spymaster Richard Helms: An Interview with the Former US Director of Central Intelligence,” Intelligence and National Security, 18, no. 3 (Autumn 2003): 29.
273 “Because Senator Symington knew”: Helms and Hood, A Look Over My Shoulder, 415.
273 “Did you try in the Central Intelligence Agency?” et seq.: Powers, The Man Who Kept the Secrets, 232.
277 HUGE CIA OPERATION: New York Times, Dec. 22, 1974, p. 1.
278 “You and I have known each other a long time” et seq.: White House, Memorandum of Conversation, Prresident Ford–Richard Helms, Jan. 4, 1975, declassified May 5, 1999, Gerald R. Ford Library, Ford Papers, National Security Advisers’ Files, Memcon series, box 8, folder “January 4, 1975, Ford–Former CIA director Richard Helms.”
279 “blackmailing people”: Central Intelligence Agency, Cable Colby–Helms, 010332Z, Feb. 1975, declassified Mar. 2008, released in CIA, Center for the Study of Intelligence, The Richard Helms Collection, Washington, DC, 2012.
280 “ONE OF THE BASIC REASONS”: Central Intelligence Agency, Cable, Bush–Helms, Mar. 1976, declassified Mar. 2008, paragraph 5, released in CIA, Center for the Study of Intelligence, The Richard Helms Collection, Washington, DC, 2012.
281 “of total conflict” et seq.: Richard Helms, “Statement of Richard Helms, n.d. [Nov. 1, 1977], Georgetown University Library: Richard Helms Papers, Part 1, box 10, folder 10.
281 “to disobey and ignore the laws of our land” plus the Carter quote, “A public official”: Washington Post editorial, “No Right to Lie,” Nov. 11, 1977, p. A16.
281 “obviously very drained by his experience”: “Happiness Is Being with Friends,” CIRA Newsletter, 3, no. 1 (Jan.–Mar. 1978): 3.
282 Walter Mondale: Interview with author, Mar. 30, 2015.
282 “have effectively shredded”: Washington Post editorial, “No Right to Lie.”
8. A FAILED EXORCIST
289 “one of the most remarkable people I have known”: Tenet swearing-in remarks, July 31, 1997, copy in author’s files.
290 “We will honor always the trust”: U.S. Congress, 105th Congress, 1st Session, Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, Hearings: Nomination of George J. Tenet to be Director of Central Intelligence (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1997), 57.
290 “We’ve put in place a system of command alertness”: Ibid., p. 58.
292 “The ghost in the room”: Loch K. Johnson, “The Aspin-Brown Intelligence Inquiry: Behind the Closed Doors of a Blue Ribbon Commission,” Studies in Intelligence, v. 48, no. 3, 2004.
293 “the most down-to-earth” et seq.: Morell and Harlow, The Great War of Our Time, p. 7, quoted p. 10.
298 “risk-taking does not equate with recklessness”: Tenet Nomination Hearing, p. 56.
298 “It should never be the last resort of failed policy”: Ibid., p. 60
303 “It wasn’t the last time on my watch”: George Tenet with Bill Harlow, At the Center of the Storm: My Years at the CIA (New York: HarperCollins, 2007), 49.
303 “It is a delight to be away from Langley for a few hours” et seq.: John C. Gannon, “Remarks to the World Affairs Council, Washington, DC,” June 4, 1998, copy in author’s files.
309 “senior official”: The news conference transcript makes clear that this person dealt at the very highest level of government and had authority to handle intelligence issues. Internal evidence indicates that Andrew Card, White House chief of staff, is this person. We have seen in conjunction with the Greystone project that Mr. Card served as an operative there also, so this text names Card here and in this connection.
311 “I would make it clear as well” et seq.: CIA, Memo, James L. Pavitt–John Helgerson, “Comments to the Draft IG Special Review, ‘Counterterrorism Detention and Interrogation Program’ (2003-7123-IG),” Feb. 27, 2004, DDO-0031-04, declassified June 10, 2016, C06566541, CIA Electronic Reading Room (on p. 357 in this text).
311 “I think it is going to be very difficult to publish a book”: Quoted in the Associated Press story “New Rules to Govern Publications by CIA Officers,” USA Today, Nov. 1, 2005.
312 “Lying is not something that I will ever tolerate”: Tenet Nomination Hearing, p. 66.
9. JACOB MARLEY’S GHOSTS
314 “You have my word”: Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, Porter J. Goss Nomination Hearing, Sept. 20, 2004, author’s notes.
314 “I briefed both the HPSCI and the SSCI”: Porter Goss, “What Must Never Happen Again,” in Bill Harlow, ed., Rebuttal, p. 8.
314 “The truth is exactly what Director Goss said”: CIA, Public Affairs Office, “Statement by CIA Director of Public Affairs Jennifer Millerwise,” Mar. 18, 2005.
315 “We need to have the 7th Floor confront” et seq.: CIA, CTC/LGL e-mail, Apr. 25, 2005, 11:41 a.m., declassified June 10, 2016, CIA Electronic Reading Room.
315 “blue ribbon panel”: CIA, CTC Report, “Blue Ribbon Panel: Response to Request from the Director for Assessment of EIT Effectiveness,” Sept. 23, 2005, declassified June 10, 2016, C06541719, CIA Electronic Reading Room.
315 “This agency does not do torture”: John Diamond, “CIA Chief: Interrogation Methods ‘Unique’ but Legal,” USA Today, Nov. 21, 2005, p. 1-A.
315 “Successfully fighting”: Porter Goss contribution to the Rebuttal collection, p. 7.
316 “It is true that specific sources and methods”: Ibid., 8.
318 Gosslings, Kyle Foggo, Mary Graham: David Ignatius, How the CIA Came Unglued,” Washington Post, May 12, 2006, p. A21; Stephen F. Hayes, “The CIA 1, Bush 0,” Weekly Standard, May 22, 2006.
319 Goss versus Harman: Dafna Linzer, “A Year Later, Goss’s CIA Is Still in Turmoil,” Washington Post, Oct 19, 2005, p. A1.
319 “At CIA, we are improving how we do our business”: CIA, Public Affairs Office, “Statement by Director of the Central Intelligence Agency Porter J. Goss on the WMD Commission Recommendations,” June 29, 2005.
319 “After great consideration of this report”: CIA, “CIA Director Porter J. Goss Statement on CIA Office of the Inspector General Report, ‘CIA Accountability with Respect to the 9/11 Attacks,’” Oct. 5, 2005.
320 “field forward”: CIA, Office of Public Affairs, “Statement by CIA Director Porter Goss,” May 5, 2006.
321 “capture, detain and question” and “multiple pages in length”: Rizzo, Company Man, 173–74.
323 “drip by drip”: Ibid., 211.
324 “I have often wondered”: Ibid., 17.
324 “FOR THE REASONS CITED THEREIN”: CIA, Cable, Headquarters–Bangkok 081855Z Nov. 2005, declassified ACLU FOIA release, Apr. 15, 2010, part 3).
324 “It was an agency decision”: Joby Warrick and Walter Pincus, “Station Chief Made Appeal to Destroy CIA Tapes,” Washington Post, January 16, 2008, quoted p. A1.
327 “lethal force . . . is a concept” et seq.: Public Broadcasting System, WGBHTV, Frontline, “Looking for Answers,” p. 3, www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontiline/shows/terrorism/interviews/go.
328 “How many law professors have signed off?”: Tara McKelvey, “Inside the Killing Machine,” Newsweek, Feb. 13, 2011, quoted p. 3, www.newsweek.com/inside-killing-machine-68771.
328 “appointed from civilian life by the President”: Compilation of Intelligence Laws 1998, p. 67. The 2003 and 2012 editions of this contain identical language, so the 1949 act was not amended in this respect. From this legal standpoint, the selection of John Rizzo for general counsel of the CIA appears to have been illegal. No one seems to have paid any attention.
329 “CIA courts disaster”: U.S. Congress, 110th Congress, 1st Session, Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, Hearings: Nomination of John A. Rizzo to Be General Counsel of the Central Intelligence Agency (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 2008), 19.
329 “public flogging”: Rizzo, Company Man, 252.
329 “There are no other opinions”: Rizzo Nomination Hearing, p. 29.
330 Krongard airport incident: Luz Lazo and Greg Miller, “Former Top CIA Official Arrested at BWI for Allegedly Trying to Bring Gun Through Security,” Washington Post, Aug. 7, 2015, p. A12.
330 versions of NSA’s 9/11 story: General Michael V. Hayden, “Statement for the Record,” Oct. 17, 2002, SSCI/HPSCI Joint Inquiry, typescript, p. 1, copy in author’s files. The 2006 recitation is in General Michael V. Hayden, “What American Intelligence and Especially the NSA Have Been Doing to Defend the Nation,” Speech at National Press Club, Jan. 22, 2006, Office of Director of National Intelligence Release, copy in author’s files. The memoir version is in Michael Hayden, Playing to the Edge: American Intelligence in the Age of Terror (New York: Penguin, 2016), 29.
331 discussions of Trailblazer: This series of quotes, except where Hayden’s nomination hearings are introduced, moves back and forth through the same sources used above. Rather than breaking it into separate entries, it will be better to list the items sequentially: “Our effort to revolutionize”: SSCI/HPSCI Testimony, pp. 8–9; reporter about NSA whistleblowers: Press Club speech, p. 5; “Deltas” and “We overachieved” to “Moonshots”: U.S. Congress, 109th Congress, 1st Session, Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, Hearing: Nomination of Lieutenant General Michael V. Hayden, USAF, to Be Principal Deputy Director of National Intelligence (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 2006), 14, 21–22; “What my memory tells me I said”: p. 42. “We were also trying to do too much”: Hayden, Playing to the Edge, 20.
333 “I have an order whose lawfulness has been attested”: Hayden, National Press Club speech, p. 6.
333 discussion of NSA blanket eavesdropping: As above: “find the right balance”: SSCI/HPSCI Testimony, p. 9; “It is not a driftnet”: Press Club speech, p. 4; Wyden challenge: DCIA Nomination Hearing, pp. 40–41. Hayden noted under the congressional questioning—as a side example of his fabulism—that at the Press Club, in making his “Lackawanna-Fremont” remark, “I switched from the word ‘communications’ to the much more specific and unarguably accurate ‘conversations.’” Put differently, the general used the assertion that contents of conversations were not being recorded to imply that no widespread surveillance was under way.
333 “He didn’t answer any of the questions!”: Hayden CIA Nomination Hearing, May 18, 2006, author’s notes. This exclamation does not appear in the formal transcript, but it would have been on page 59 of that document.
333 “I’m sorry. I’m just not familiar”: Ibid., p. 94. For General Hayden to say he was not familiar with a law with which he dealt every day amounted to a slap at congressional oversight.
334 “This was getting to be pointless bantering”: Hayden, Playing to the Edge, 185. General Hayden’s recounting of this story makes out his action of snapping shut the briefing book and daring the senators to make a judgment on his character to be his response to Ron Wyden’s question posed below. But the hearing transcript shows that, far from issuing his challenge and clamming up, General Hayden went on for seventeen more paragraphs, more than a page of typeset text (pp. 40–41)—another example of Michael Hayden’s fabulism.
334 “What’s to say that, if you’re confirmed to head the CIA, we won’t go through exactly this kind of drill?”: Hayden CIA Nomination Hearing, p. 40.
335 “The main point”: Hayden, Playing to the Edge, p. 335. Italics in the original. Judging from U.S. drone strikes, which increased in 2007 but then multiplied by 700 percent in 2008, George W. Bush bought Hayden’s argument. But it wasn’t long until Leon Panetta, a successor, was saying that Al Qaeda had been reduced to a rump of just a few dozen individuals. What is disturbing in all this is Hayden’s tendency to globalize the threat. All the attacks that took place after 2001 (Bali, Madrid, London, Nairobi, Paris, etc.) were conducted by locals, some with their own networks, who aspired to be recognized, not by some corps of Al Qaeda international commandos. This did not add up to a direct Al Qaeda threat to the U.S. homeland. The claim is much more like the assertion that Saddam Hussein’s (nonexistent) nuclear weapons and drone aircraft were intended to attack the United States.
335 he “loved being a spymaster”: Rizzo, Company Man, 246.
335 al-Masri case: CIA, Office of the Inspector General Report, “The Rendition and Detention of German Citizen Khalid al-Masri,” 2004-7601-IG, July 16, 2007, declassified June 10, 2016, C06541725.
335 Bikowsky identified: Connie Bruck, “The Inside War,” New Yorker, June 22, 2015, pp. 51–52. Director Hayden writes of Bikowsky without naming her in Playing to the Edge, pp. 223–24.
336 Bikowsky and Khalid Sheik Mohammed: Senate torture report, p. 85. Although CIA censors have deleted Bikowsky’s name here, the text connects the incident to the deputy chief of Alec Station, which was Bikowsky’s post at the time.
336 “the American intelligence business”: Hayden CIA Nomination Hearing, p. 16.
336 “You should expect of me”: Hayden ODNI Nomination Hearing, p. 22.
337 “played a bit back from the line”: Hayden CIA Nomination Hearing, p. 88.
338 “If it is a fact”: Aki Peritz, “What Did the CIA tell LBJ? Not Much,” Washington Post, Feb. 21, 2016, p. C5.
338 “Here’s an informal yardstick I use”: General Hayden’s Remarks at SHAFR Conference, June 21, 1997, p. 1, copy in author’s files.
338 “The best way to strengthen the trust of the American people”: Hayden CIA Nomination Hearing, p. 17.
339 “It didn’t take long to realize”: Hayden, Playing to the Edge, 187.
340 Hayden instructions to find a day when detainees numbered ninety-eight: Senate torture report, p. 476, fn. 2598.
341 “numerous verbal requests”: Letter, Senator Jay Rockefeller (SSCI Chairman)–Director Michael Hayden, Oct. 29 2008, repr. CIA, Center for the Study of Intelligence, “Overview of CIA-Congress Interactions Concerning the Agency’s Rendition-Detention-Interrogation Program,” n.d., declassified Dec. 8, 2014, C06257473, p. 35.
341 “simply get a few things wrong”: Michael Hayden, “Analysis: Flawed, Politicized . . . and Rejected,” in Bill Harlow, ed., Rebuttal, 12.
342 “a more than adequate representation of the tapes”: Senate torture report, p. 8.
10. THE FLYING DUTCHMAN
346 “If this was just theater, we would happily give him” et seq.: Hayden, Playing to the Edge, quoted 365, 366, 367.
347 “Criticize the program”: Rizzo, Company Man, 281.
347 “It is my understanding that”: U.S. Congress, 111th Congress, 1st Session, Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, Hearings: Nomination of Leon Panetta to Be Director, Central Intelligence Agency (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 2009), 129.
348 “Come on in, fellas”: Panetta and Newton, Worthy Fights, p. 217.
350 “respect and subservience” et seq.: Ibid., 225.
350 Pelosi briefing controversy: I don’t wish to break the narrative line in the main text with comment on whether Pelosi was informed of waterboarding or not on September 4, 2002, but this question is intrinsically important. Panetta devotes almost two pages to it in his memoir (pp. 225–27), and the matter deserves a note. Panetta continues to believe he was right, and Nancy Pelosi certainly backed away from her original position, later saying that she had been told of waterboarding as one of a menu of options, not as a method being employed.
The matter is not so clear cut, however. First of all, the CIA briefing list prepared for Mr. Panetta contains numerous errors of fact. In one place, Senator Rockefeller is listed as receiving a briefing he remembers months later. Senator Bob Graham is listed at meetings he did not attend. In another place, Porter Goss is named as being briefed when he was actually leading the CIA. There are instances where CIA officials—for example, John Rizzo—attended an event and are not listed, others where congressional staff are listed though they are known to have been excluded, and there are a number of briefings that do not appear at all. One entry lists a staff person who was no longer employed by the SSCI. Another is listed who had merely helped accommodate members.
The list marks data as “Not Available” for every briefing Vice President Cheney attended, which results in practically no record of briefings by Porter Goss.
Equally significant is a different, more contemporaneous document, which was only declassified a year later, that records Representative Jane Harman, not Pelosi, as attending the September 4, 2002, briefing. This record lists Harman, not Pelosi, as the ranking minority member that day; see CIA, Memo, Christopher J. Walker–Michael V. Hayden, Apr. 11, 2007, OCA 2007-00193, declassified 2010 to the Center for Constitutional Rights, CIA MORI C05470331.
Declassified documents are suggestive in another way also. A set of memoranda recording some briefings—unfortunately not including that of September 2002—appeared as a result of the ACLU lawsuit that is mentioned in the main text. Markings on these documents indicate that the records were created on November 30, 2004. If this is true of the recording memorandum for September 2002, its status as an authentic record is doubtful.
It is worth noting that the Center for the Study of Intelligence paper on agency information to Congress in connection with the detainee program has this to say about the CIA’s own records: “We found gaps in the documentary record, particularly but not exclusively relating to briefings Agency officers gave to Congress in 2004 and 2005. The record . . . for the first two years is better, as it is for the period 2006 to 2008, but they are still only summaries of topics covered; we do not have anything approaching a verbatim record.” (See CIA/CSI, “Overview of CIA-Congress Interactions,” in “Scope Note” on page 1.)
Jose Rodriguez gave the September 4, 2002, briefing, and he insists that Pelosi attended and asked questions. He made these allegations about Pelosi’s attendance in 2009 and repeated them in the memoir Hard Measures. His connivance to destroy the torture videotapes inevitably casts doubt on other Rodriguez assertions, including this one. He was, in fact, later reprimanded by a CIA accountability review board on Leon Panetta’s watch.
Considering the liberties Dick Cheney took in dictating what Congress would and would not be informed of during this same period, it is impossible to reach a satisfactory conclusion on the Pelosi controversy.
Director Panetta was not a CIA professional, was not present—either at Langley or on Capitol Hill—at the events of 2002, and therefore has no special insight into these events.
351 “Feinstein’s staff had the requisite clearances”: Panetta and Newton, Worthy Fights, 233.
351 “to avoid protracted litigation”: CIA letter on restrictions for SSCI, in CIA, Office of the Inspector General, “Report of Investigation: Agency Access to the SSCI Shared Drive,” 2014-11718-IG, July 18, 2014, declassified Jan. 15, 2015, C06274838.
353 “The president wants to know” et seq.: Panetta and Newton, Worthy Fights, 233.
356 “ridding ourselves of a destructive relationship”: Ibid., 235.
358 “Our understanding of the agreement”: CIA, “Inspector General report on access to the SSCI Shared Drive,” quoted on unnumbered page under heading “Other Related RDINet Events.”
359 “The White House is not inclined”: CIA, e-mail, CIA Attorney–[Deleted], May 13, 2010, 5:36 p.m., in CIA, “Final Report of the Rendition, Detention, and Interrogation Network Agency Accountability Board Report,” n.d. (c. Nov. 24, 2014), declassified Jan. 14, 2015, quoted fn. p. 10.
359 “Occasionally in the course of the White Houses’s review”: CIA, e-mail, CIA Attorney–[Deleted], June 7, 2010, 10:53 a.m., in Ibid., quoted fn., p. 11.
363 “We were more than a little stunned”: Hayden, Playing to the Edge, 396.
364 “If even half of this is true”: Morrell and Harlow, The Great War of Our Time, 262.
366 bin Laden courier: The intelligence that led to the bin Laden raid became especially controversial after the movie Zero Dark Thirty, which received CIA help—including interviews with actual CTC personnel—and which implied strongly that the courier had been identified by means of torture. The Senate takedown of the CIA version of this story is in the Senate Intelligence Committee torture report, pp. 385–86, fn. 2182.
366 “I see the response not as a rebuttal” et seq.: U.S. Senate, 113th Congress, 1st Session, Armed Services Committee, Hearings: Nominations of . . . Stephen W. Preston [et al.] (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 2014). The hearing took place on July 25, 2013. This text is under “Questions for the Record for the Honorable Stephen W. Preston, CIA General Counsel, Nominated to be General Counsel of the Department of Defense,” Aug. 9, 2013.
367 CIA rebuttal of SSCI report: This discussion is too detailed for the main narrative, but it is nevertheless important. My best guess as to why the denizens of Langley scrambled the SSCI conclusions the way they did is so readers would not notice the CIA sneaking in extraneous material and failing to respond to the Senate’s points on national security and on presidential control. For example, one of the made-up conclusions (number 7) holds that the Senate objected that the CIA spent money and made cash payments. This enabled Langley to advance the general (and generic) proposition that it has the authority to make cash payments, special arrangements to do so, and does it all the time. This makes the SSCI look silly and its investigation unserious. The Senate did comment on the costs, as part of its conclusion no. 20, the main point of which was that the CIA program damaged the standing of the United States in the world. The CIA did not respond to that conclusion at all. And the Senate report made no specific complaint that the CIA spent money. Langley’s document pretends that SSCI conclusion number 20 accuses the agency of using interrogation techniques not reviewed by the Justice Department (that is actually the Senate’s conclusion number 14).
We could spend pages on an item-by-item comparison of the SSCI list and the CIA one that supposedly corresponds. Instead I will simply note that Langley avoided direct answers to Senate intelligence committee conclusions that: torture was not an effective means of gathering information (no. 1), that the CIA impeded White House oversight (no. 7), and that the torture program was “inherently unsustainable” (no. 19). In its direct answers to other SSCI conclusions or its deflection shots at purported Senate points that the CIA scrambled, the agency commented indirectly on some but not all of this, in particular avoiding the central argument that the torture program damaged America’s standing all over the globe.
It is a mystery why the CIA did not confront the proposition that the CIA impeded White House oversight, since the available documents there appear to show an agency eager to obtain formal presidential approval, which presupposes oversight. That may be because the records show that White House officials tried to avoid putting George W. Bush in the position of direct knowledge of the CIA program, presumably for purposes of plausible deniability.
One Senate “conclusion” that the CIA made up (number 11)—that the agency did not warn policymakers and others that detainees under torture fabricated information anyway—appears to have been crafted simply so the CIA could bedazzle the reader with a string of examples of specific reporting cables in which it did circulate such warnings. This is a dangerous game, however, since it invites the question of why, if EITs were “effective,” victims were able to fabricate at all. In addition, the “Note to Readers” of the CIA response, cited later, contains the admission that the CIA response falsely represented (in one instance due to a “sequencing error”) the knowledge claimed to have been gained from torture in its most important case and some others as well. That must affect the judgment on “effectiveness.”
368 “There is no objective way”: CIA, Memorandum, CTC–ODCIA, “Response to Request from Director for Assessment of EIT Effectiveness,” Sept. 23, 2005, declassified June 10, 2016, C06541719, CIA Electronic Reading Room.
368 “At least several hundred, possibly thousands”: CIA Memorandum, “Successes of CIA’s Counterterrorism Detention and Interrogation Activities,” Feb. 24, 2004, attached to Memorandum, James L. Pavitt–John Helgerson, “Comments to Draft IG Special Review, ‘Counterterrorism Detention and Interrogation Program’ (2003-7123-IG),” Feb. 27, 2004, declassified June 10, 2016, C066566541, CIA Electronic Reading Room.
369 “the longest period of sustained threat reporting” et seq.: Morrell and Harlow, The Great War of Our Time, 267.
369 Michael Morrell’s six points: Ibid., 265–74.
370 “In retrospect OMS thought”: CIA, “Summary and Reflections of Chief of Medical Services on OMS Participation in the RDI Program,” date and identifying information redacted, declassified June 10, 2016, MORI C06541727, p. 41.
372 “Eatinger”: A top general counsel lawyer provided the account on which the following narrative relies. While the author’s identity is deleted from the document, the internal evidence—of the author himself taking initiatives at the highest level of CIA, of phone calls at home from Director Brennan, of senior meetings—all points to this being Robert Eatinger. This individual is in the process of organizing the CIA’s criminal referral to the Justice Department, and Mr. Eatinger is on record as the attorney filing that paper. He will be so identified here. CIA, OGC Memorandum, “Memorandum for the Record re: Partial Timeline of Events Surrounding the Discovery of SRT Documents on RDI Net,” Jan. 15–27, 2014, declassified Jan. 14, 2015, C06274838, attached to CIA, David B. Buckley, Inspector General, “Report of Investigation: Agency Access to the SSCI Shared Drive on RDINet,” July 28, 2014, declassified January 14, 2015, C06274838, CIA Electronic Reading Room.
374 “If the WH were to order the inquiry stopped”: Ibid.
374 a “go” and “bad optic”: CIA, Accountability Board Report, 18–19. “Optic” is from the inspector general’s report at page 11. It also occurs in the OGC memorandum cited above. A comparison between the various reports and the OGC memo suggests that Robert Eatinger made this remark. Mr. Eatinger puts the date of these events as January 13.
375 “I think she knew, after that meeting”: Bruck, “The Inside War,” p. 46.
375 “may have been improperly obtained and/or retained”: CIA, Letter, John O. Brennan–Dianne Feinstein, Jan. 27, 2014, copy in author’s files.
376 “We have made mistakes” et seq.: John Brennan, Council on Foreign Relations Speech, Mar. 11, 2014, Washington Post transcript, www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/transcript-cia-director-john-brennan-says-his-agency-has-done-nothing-wrong/2014/03/11/21d1dde8-a944-11e3-8599-ce7295b6851c_story.html?utm_term=.b3cd53f78670.
377 “We also owe it to the women and men”: CIA, John Brennan, Message to the Workforce, Mar. 11, 2014, copy in author’s files.
382 “To be clear, although we did make a serious effort”: Adam Goldman, “Military Prosecutor: Interrogation Report Correct,” Washington Post, Feb. 11, 2016, quoted p. A9.
386 Hayden and Brennan observations on Trump: Matt Apuzzo and James Risen, “Plan to Revive Waterboarding Faces Obstacles,” New York Times, Nov. 29, 2016, p. A1; and Gordon Corera, “CIA Chief Warns Trump: Scrapping Iran Deal ‘Height of Folly,’” BBC News, Nov. 30, 2016, www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-38149088.