State Department Counterintelligence: Leaks, Spies, and Lies

by Robert David Booth

  In 2011, senior State Department analyst Matthew Ouimet, one of Kendall’s former colleagues, said, “When a friend of yours turns out to be one of the country’s few international spies, that really wakes you up to the reality of counterintelligence matters. What’s the worst sin at the bottom of Dante’s Inferno? Treachery. It is those who betray a trust.”

  Part 2

  Taiwanese Femme Fatale

  Somebody would have to be a complete moron not to know that when you work for the State Department you can’t take documents out and give them to anybody.

  —US DISTRICT JUDGE HAROLD H. GREENE

  (During the 1994 sentencing of State Department employee Geneva Jones to 37 months of federal incarceration for her unlawful communication of classified State Department information to a foreign power)

  Beware the official, who, to impress women, betrays state secrets.

  —ANONYMOUS

  (Chinese military journal recovered by Tibetan guerrillas in October 1961)

  Chapter Five

  DS special agent Kevin Warrener was livid. His foot stomped on the accelerator of his undercover Crown Vic as he sped away from Washington, DC, down the restricted Dulles Airport access highway. It was a beautiful late afternoon in September, the sun dipping lazily toward the horizon, but SA Warrener had other things on his mind. He was tempted to use the vehicle’s blue lights and siren, but he knew his quarry of almost two years had likely already left the airport. He might even have passed him on the opposite side of the road.

  SA Warrener raced down the seemingly endless stretch of highway that led to the airport’s main terminal where thousands of passengers arrived and departed daily. Its modern, sweeping form finally came into view. Named after the famed secretary of state, Dulles was one of a handful of civilian airports owned and operated by the federal government. Maybe that would make his job a little easier in dealing with the bureaucrats.

  He hastily parked in one of the airport’s official spaces and hurried into the terminal, heading for the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) office. As he approached a young ICE officer behind the counter, he displayed the badge and photo credentials that identified him as a special agent with the Diplomatic Security Service.

  Warrener knew that another opportunity to turn the corner on a two-year-old FBI–DS counterintelligence investigation was quickly slipping away. He was described by colleagues as “tenacious,” “patient,” and “gifted” with the perfect mind for counterintelligence operations, and his agents said that he was the kind of supervisor who gives credit when his subordinates do something right but takes the blame when something goes wrong. He was the consummate diplomat when working outside the office. Careful not to reveal too much about his visit, he asked “Chris,” the ICE officer, if he could review the 6059B Customs and Immigration forms for passengers recently arrived from Tokyo, Japan, aboard United Airlines Flight #8228.

  Chris immediately said “Yes,” and the two proceeded to the lower labyrinth of the airport building. After a long march through dimly lit corridors, Chris opened the door to a small, fluorescent lit, windowless room. Inside were approximately fifty cardboard storage boxes containing thousands of customs declarations processed for all passengers arriving at Dulles airport that day—September 7, 2003.

  All passengers were required to complete the form, which was distributed in flight, to allow the US Customs Service to protect the United States against the illegal importation of prohibited items and to ensure that all passengers were legally entitled to enter the country. When Chris offered to help search through the boxes containing the 6059B forms, Warrener accepted without hesitation, and they quickly divided the boxes between them.

  For the next ninety minutes, the two agents chatted casually to interrupt the boredom of flipping through hundreds of customs forms. Kevin liked his P228 Sig Sauer 9mm semi-automatic pistol; Chris was a fan of his Glock. Both had graduated from the basic criminal investigator’s course administered at the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center in Glynco, Georgia. Both had some friends at the FBI; they were not fans of their respective senior management.

  As their conversation and paper-flipping continued, Warrener spotted the customs declaration forms filled out by passengers who had deplaned just hours earlier from UA Flight #8228. Rapidly scanning the blue and white documents, he focused on the first question, calling for the passenger’s family name, and in short order had located his suspect’s declaration form.

  For a frustrating and grueling year of surveillance, DS and FBI special agents had followed every move of Donald Willis Keyser, the department’s principal deputy assistant secretary of state for East Asian and Pacific affairs (EAP). He had been involved in a covert relationship with a young, female, Taiwanese clandestine intelligence officer. Had Keyser finally committed his first overt federal crime—lying to his Uncle Sam?

  SA Warrener’s attention shifted to question eight where the traveler listed the countries he or she had visited while abroad. He noticed that his suspect had printed, in ink, “China and Japan.” Glancing at the back of the form, he noticed that his suspect had declared that he had purchased three gifts: one scroll and two wood block prints valued at $150. However, the most important part of the customs form was at the bottom of the page where travelers signed a statement that their declarations were truthful. To Warrener’s relief, the suspect had dutifully signed the name Donald W. Keyser and entered the date of September 7, 2003. SA Warrener let out the breath he had been holding. “We got him.”

  Born on July 17, 1943, Donald Willis Keyser grew up in Baltimore before enrolling in college in 1961. Between then and 1968, he earned a BA in political science with highest honors from the University of Maryland and pursued postgraduate work at George Washington University at various times. He was married to Beverly Louise Noell in 1963 and had several children in the ensuing years. From 1968 to 1970, he resided in Taipei, Taiwan, and studied the Chinese language through a Stanford University program designed to permit American college students to pursue graduate studies abroad. Keyser was expected to gain insight into Chinese culture and politics by working for local companies, where his immersion with Taiwanese citizens would enhance his Mandarin language skills. One would assume, given the final outcome of his career, that the fervent anti-communist sentiments shared among Taiwan’s citizens on the island at that time may have influenced Keyser’s pro-Taiwan, anti-Beijing orientation early in his life.

  Keyser returned to the United States, where his interests in foreign and Chinese affairs prompted him to seek employment with the State Department. After rigorous exams in December 1970 and May 1971 and a background investigation in September 1971, he was eligible for appointment to the Foreign Service. His first assignment was to the Office of Asian Communist Affairs, where he monitored US–Sino bilateral relations for eight months. From February 1973 to July 1975, he shifted to the Office of East Asia Research in the Bureau of Intelligence and Research, where he prepared reports on the nettlesome question of a China–Taiwan reunification and identified political trends inside the People’s Republic of China (PRC), still reeling from the aftermath of the Cultural Revolution. His analytical abilities and reports were of such quality that his work was quickly recognized by senior department China hands, and he was chosen for assignment to the newly opened United States Liaison Office (USLO) in Beijing.

  Prior to his arrival in Beijing, Keyser returned to Taiwan in July 1975 for one year, attending FSI’s Chinese (Mandarin) Interpreter Training class in Taichung in preparation for his USLO assignment. His final grades of 4/4 (fluent) in Chinese Mandarin and 2/2 (proficient) in Amoy (Taiwanese) were impressive accomplishments.

  Keyser arrived in Beijing in June 1976 to join twenty-two fellow State Department colleagues including me who were responsible for reporting on the nascent US–China diplomatic relations that had lain largely dormant since 1949. Brash, arrogant, and extraordinarily competent, Keyser immediately established a reputation within the
USLO for befriending diplomats, foreign journalists, and local nationals willing to share information detailing the intrigues and political machinations that characterized the secretive Chinese Communist Party. A number of his sources were foreign diplomats with extensive careers covering Asia.

  In late 1976, Stan Brooks and Charles Sylvester, fellow USLO political officers, and Keyser were key Beijing observers reporting back to Washington regarding Mao’s death, the purge of Mao’s wife and the “Gang of Four,” and the ongoing, internecine Communist party infighting. Sylvester was a favorite of the USLO security officers. His father had been a vice admiral who had been assigned to Shanghai before the war, and there a young Charles spent a period of his life. He was a US Navy pilot who eventually joined the Foreign Service in 1961. He was one of the good guys in my book.

  Brooks, Sylvester, and Keyser eventually became senior Asia hands for the department and during 1976 kept Washington informed of the succession of power from Mao to Deng Xiaoping. These reports were devoured by the White House and the foreign affairs community because of their candid political commentary—Keyser produced a significant number of humorous, colorful reports that were favorite topics of conversation among the USLO staff. Keyser’s skill at eliciting information from foreign diplomats and journalists would be critically important during his future assignments in both Washington and foreign cities.

  The embassy cocktail circuits around the world are important venues where diplomats and sometimes journalists meet and share information with their foreign counterparts; this information-sharing concerning a country’s political and social developments was the life blood of the profession. However, the potential for misinterpreting the nature of these relationships and reporting requirements was always an issue, so the department promulgated guidelines to ensure that all Foreign Service Officers (FSOs) understood the ground rules. Keyser’s failure to abide by these security rules would lead to his downfall.

  Following his tour in Beijing, Keyser was assigned as the political-military officer at the American embassy in Tokyo from 1979–1981. The main focus of his work was to monitor the issues arising from the US–Japan Mutual Security Treaty and the Status of Forces agreement. Our professional paths crossed once again when I was assigned to the regional security office in Tokyo from 1978 to 1980. Our contact was very limited as the embassy staff was quite large. The only unusual event concerning Keyser came to my attention in late 1979 when I was approached by a good friend of mine, Patricia, an FSO assigned to Tokyo.

  “Robert,” she said, “how well do you know Don Keyser?”

  “Why do you ask?”

  “You knew him in Beijing, right?”

  “Yeah,” I said. “He’s an excellent officer with superb writing skills.”

  “Fine, but what about him personally?”

  This was not what I wanted to discuss, but it was a fair question. “Well, there was some gossip about an extra-marital affair.”

  She looked me straight in the eye and for a couple of seconds said nothing. Finally she commented “He’s quirky around women, and I feel uncomfortable in social settings with him.”

  “Is there something you want me to do?”

  “Not now, but if I do, I’ll let you know.”

  Initially I thought it must have been her imagination. Regrettably I was dismissive of my colleague and her comments, but her keen observations would seem prescient twenty-five years later. To some of his colleagues, Keyser’s weakness for attractive, intelligent, and intriguing women was all too obvious. Frankly I did not see that aspect of his life at the time. My friend never brought up the subject again, and I departed Tokyo some eight months later.

  Keyser’s tour in Tokyo was followed by what is called an “out-of-department” assignment: he was detailed as a special assistant to the governor of Hawaii from May 1981 to June 1982. Upon his return to Main State, his career started to accelerate in terms of responsibility and professional accomplishments. To many of his admirers, he was a golden boy with a Midas touch. Assigned to Beijing in July 1982, he served as the embassy’s chief of the Political/Internal Affairs Unit where he was responsible for developing relationships with the country’s Ministry for Foreign Affairs, think tank scholars, journalists, and other officials involved in China’s political mix.

  Following Keyser’s highly successful tour in China, the department brought him back to Washington and appointed him the deputy director of the Office of Chinese and Mongolian Affairs. There he supervised a six-person staff that oversaw all aspects of Sino–US bilateral relations, including managing the political and diplomatic agenda for President Reagan’s 1984 official visit to mainland China.

  After he concluded his two-year tour in Washington, Keyser returned to our embassy in Tokyo and served from 1985 to 1988 as the chief of political/external affairs. Among other responsibilities, he coordinated our Japanese policy, which at the time was primarily focused on not disturbing Sino–US relations.

  At the conclusion of a successful tour in Tokyo, Keyser was chosen to be one of the State Department’s candidates to attend a ten-month training course at the prestigious National War College located at Fort McNair in Washington. The regimen was designed to bring together military officers from the three branches of service and an equivalent number of senior government officials to study national security issues. Students were required to submit a paper on a foreign affairs topic, and Keyser’s analytical report earned him the college’s “Certificate for Excellence in Writing.”

  From August 1989 to July 1992, Keyser served as Minister-Counselor for Political Affairs at our embassy in Beijing, where he headed the section responsible for the conduct of US–China bilateral relations. As such, he was the third highest-ranking member in the embassy, following the ambassador and deputy chief of mission, and was responsible for managing all aspects of Sino–US bilateral relations. His fluency in Mandarin was of such high quality and his contacts with Chinese officials so broad that he was assigned by US ambassador James Lilley to negotiate secretly with the Chinese for the departure of dissident physicist Dr. Fang Lizhi, who had been living inside the embassy compound for seven months as a political refugee.

  Ambassador Lilley was the former CIA station chief in Beijing (1973–1975) during a portion of Ambassador George Herbert Walker Bush’s tenure in Beijing before the future president’s departure from China to become the CIA director. In his book China Hands, Ambassador Lilley discusses his 1973–1975 covert assignment to the USLO that was “approved” by the Chinese government as long as the Chinese could have one of their intelligence officers similarly assigned to the Chinese Liaison office in Washington, DC. Lilley hastily left Beijing before I arrived, following an article in the October 30, 1974 edition of the Washington Post entitled “CIA Plant,” written by columnist Jack Anderson, which publicly exposed Lilley’s CIA affiliation while assigned to USLO.

  In Beijing, Keyser was promoted to counselor, the department’s personal, not diplomatic, rank equivalent to a one-star general. One fascinating aspect of Keyser’s tour was that he was the US embassy’s principal contact with Zhu en-Tao, who headed the PRC Interpol liaison office in Beijing. As it turned out, Zhu en-Tao was a Chinese MSS intelligence officer who was the handler of Larry Wu-Tai Chin, a CIA employee convicted of espionage in 1986. Keyser knew of Zhu’s MSS intelligence affiliation and alerted Dale “Chip” McElhattan, the embassy’s RSO, to that fact, just before the two had their first in a series of luncheons with Zhu to discuss matters of mutual interest. Keyser warned Dale to be careful what he revealed to the clandestine intelligence officer. At the luncheon, Zhu advised the two embassy officers that he knew he was persona non grata in the United States and that, during one Canadian trip to Niagara Falls, he had purposefully put one foot inside the United States just to have the satisfaction of “getting one over on the FBI.”

  Clearly Keyser was aware of foreign intelligence officers hiding behind a multitude of public titles and personas.

 
; Successful as the department’s political guru in China, Keyser returned to Washington to assume the directorship of the Office of Chinese and Mongolian Affairs, where he continued to work exclusively on Chinese–American issues, including helping Mongolia emerge into the new geopolitical environment.

  Keyser then left the world of China and was assigned for two years as the director of the Office of Asia/Africa/Europe & Multilateral Issues, where he helped coordinate the fight against narcotics and criminal issues. Shortly after his arrival, Keyser was promoted to minister-counselor, the State Department’s equivalent of a two-star general. This would be the end of the promotion rainbow for Keyser. He was fifty-three years old and running out of opportunities to serve in more substantive positions in the department.

  In 1997, he was seconded to the Office of Inspector General (OIG), where he led policy-based inspections of our embassies located in Russia, southern Africa, Singapore, and Malaysia. During Keyser’s tenure with the OIG, he partially revealed his negative attitude regarding DS security practices in an unclassified March 1998 Report of Inspection of our embassy in Moscow. During the inspection, Keyser served as the deputy team leader and finalized the formal Report of Inspection. There were no minority opinions or dissenting comments appended to the findings. On page two of the unclassified report, under the title “Russia Changing: Embassy Mired in the Past,” the following excerpt appears:

  There is a rather striking lack of congruence between, on the one hand, sweeping Russian changes and, on the other, an embassy structure—and mindset—harking back to the days of national struggle with an “Evil Empire.” Russian society is unprecedentedly accessible, its political institution and processes open and indeed freewheeling, and its receptivity to foreign ideas and foreign contacts simply unimaginable a decade ago. Yet Embassy Moscow’s current security standards and practices, support services and facilities are reflective of an enduring siege mentality more appropriate to Cold War days than the present. They represent a formidable symbolic and practical barrier to our ability to conduct an activist diplomacy suited to the new realities of the bilateral relationship. While security concerns have not dissipated and a need for vigilance surely endures, OIG is convinced that a high priority must be attached to rethinking, and adjusting as necessary, outmoded and counterproductive features of our Cold War regime.