State Department Counterintelligence: Leaks, Spies, and Lies

by Robert David Booth

  His answer to my final question still sticks in my mind. I was confident that Mr. Penn was responsible for at least two other leaks, so I wanted to take advantage of his presence in the room to clear up some of my other unauthorized disclosure investigations. I said to Mr. Penn, “Let’s talk about two other newspaper articles in which department cables were disclosed to the press.”

  Mr. Penn looked at me without blinking. “Upon the advice of my attorney, I will not answer the question.” He then dropped a bombshell. He smiled, leaned back in his chair, and said, “I have been specifically advised by the staff of the department’s legal advisor not to discuss any additional disclosures with you or your office.”

  This was the first time that I discovered that L had been working a “plea agreement” with the subject of our investigation without a single consultation with my office or the Department of Justice. It was a sleazy, unprofessional, and cowardly act. But Mr. Penn had provided me with what I already knew and confessed to what I had previously confirmed about L.

  The secretary of state was screaming about punishing leakers, but the State Department’s legal office, supposedly representing the organization’s core governance values, wanted no more publicity and certainly no more investigations. I badly wanted Mr. Penn to give me more information about who else was leaking in S/P and elsewhere. I was terribly disappointed I could not pursue those other characters. The interview was over, so I stood up but did not offer my hand to either Messrs. Penn or Glanzer. I would have liked to offer another part of my hand to L.

  I submitted my final report of the investigation to Director Dittmer and went about my other inquiries involving other department employees suspected of misconduct or criminal activities. Spokesperson Redman should have been commended for withholding the identity of Mr. Penn during his May 16 grueling by the press corps, who were relentless in their attempts to discover the name of the poor soul. It was the right thing for Redman to do.

  However, the next day, May 17, the Baltimore Sun-Times reported in an article written by Jerome R. Watson and entitled “Employee fired by State Dept. for News Leak”:

  “As part of its new campaign against unauthorized news leaks, the State department yesterday fired a speechwriter for disclosing the contents of a classified cable from the U.S. Ambassador to Argentina. Department spokesman Charles E. Redman said the fired employee, a political appointee, had apologized to Secretary of State George P. Shultz and would not be prosecuted. But he said ‘criminal prosecution will be undertaken in future cases if appropriate.’ He said the leaked material in this case did not involve military secrets.

  “Redman declined to name the employee, the news agency that received the leak or the nature of the material. But administration and congressional sources speaking on condition of anonymity identified the speechwriter as Spencer C. Warren of the State Department’s policy planning office.

  “Redman said only that an internal investigation had fingered the culprit. The announcement of the firing apparently was intended to dramatize Shultz’s determination to stem leaks.”

  If I was asked then, or were to be asked now, to comment on the validity of the identity provided in that Baltimore Sun-Times article, I would have to respond that “I can neither confirm nor deny the accuracy of the newspaper’s story.”

  Chapter Eleven

  I readily admit that the BA 2888 unauthorized disclosure investigation resulted in a satisfying conclusion despite the lack of a prosecution by DOJ, and Mark and I were pleased to have witnessed a rare victory over those government officials who choose to ignore their sworn pledge to safeguard classified information. And Director Dittmer’s reason for selecting me to lead the BA 2888 inquiry was clear because one year before the Novak article, I had managed to identify the Foreign Service employee who had leaked sensitive information to a Los Angeles Times reporter assigned to Africa.

  In 1984, thousands of Ethiopian Jews, called Falashas, from the region of Gondar, trekked out of Ethiopia, which at the time was under the brutal rule of pro-Moscow leader Mengistu Haile Mariam. To escape starvation and political repression, refugees formed camps in Sudan, filled with half-starved women and children claiming to be one part of the Jewish Diaspora. Tel Aviv took notice. Operation Moses was Israel’s solution for repatriating many thousands of African Jews to the promised land of Judea. It was a clandestine effort, spearheaded by the Israeli government but financed and facilitated by Washington, to transport the Falashas, or black Jews, from Africa to Israel. While eight thousand were ultimately saved, over four thousand perished during the march from Ethiopia into Sudan.

  The nuts and bolts of the operation consisted of moving the Falashas from Ethiopia across the border into Sudan and quietly transporting them aboard unmarked C-130 aircraft to Israel.

  This effort could not have been achieved without the direct knowledge and cooperation of a number of Sudanese government officials. As in any such tricky scenario, success depended on money and silence, and the Israeli government was prepared to provide one in order to gain the other. Because the Israelis did not have any diplomatic representation in Sudan, it fell to “unofficial” Israeli citizens to work with whoever might be available in Khartoum to handle the logistical arrangements.

  By March 1984, a USAID employee, on assignment to the American embassy in Khartoum as a refugee programs officer, was fully involved in Operation Moses. While “Mr. Reaves’s” local Arabic language skills were nil, he had been in Sudan so long that some of his embassy colleagues believed he had gone native. What the embassy eventually realized was that Mr. Reaves was working intimately with Sudanese and Israelis in keeping the Falashas airlift alive, without the knowledge or approval of the US ambassador.

  The embassy had its first inkling that Mr. Reaves was the point man in this operation when he approached the embassy’s RSO, Peter Gallant, and asked that the combination to his office’s US government-supplied Mosler security repository be changed, a routine request that occurs every six months or when an officer with knowledge of the safe combination leaves the embassy on permanent rotation. When RSO Gallant arrived at Mr. Reaves’s office and opened the security repository’s fourth drawer to access the safe’s Sargent and Greenleaf lock mechanism to change the combination, he noticed what appeared to be in excess of one-half million dollars in US cash, neatly stacked in rows. When questioned about the purpose for having such a significant amount of cash inside his office safe, Mr. Reaves replied, “This is an operational issue that I am dealing with.” That was a diplomatic way of saying the discussion was over. While uncomfortable with the quantity of cash, RSO Gallant had no further responsibility in the matter. He changed the combination, and there were no further conversations about the bundles of twenty- and fifty-dollar bills in Mr. Reaves’s safe. RSO Gallant went about his duties and Mr. Reaves went about his—both official and unofficial.

  Mr. Reaves was involved in the part of Operation Moses that would move one to three thousand Falashas from holding camps in Sudan to a secluded airport where operatives would prepare the way for the final trip to Israel. In order to keep the Sudanese camps supplied with food, water, and security, money was needed. Someone to coordinate the airlift operation was also needed, and that person was Mr. Reaves.

  At the start of Operation Moses, Sudanese president Jaafar Nimeiri and his vice president and chief of state security, Omar Tayeb, were described as being staunchly pro-American. But the extent of their knowledge or involvement or support of Operation Moses remains an open question. As it turned out, it did not matter. In April 1986, while President Nimeiri was visiting Egypt, his sixteen-year reign of corruption and civil rights abuses came to an end in a military coup.

  One must ask the question whether Los Angeles Times reporter Charles T. Powers’s two articles, “U.S. Evacuates Ethiopian Jews. Last Group of Falashas Secretly Airlifted from Sudan to Israel,” published on March 25, 1985, and “Ethiopian Rescue: An All U.S. Operation Airlift Plan Came from Officer in Sudan, no
t Israel,” published on March 27, 1985, helped precipitate the coup against President Nimeiri by neoconservative Islamists. Perhaps it was just coincidence.

  Powers’s final article in the Los Angeles Times, published on July 7, 1985, and titled “Saga of Secret Airlift Ethiopian Jews: Exodus of a Tribe,” did not help matters.

  As the coup unfolded, the US embassy, under the direction of career ambassador Hume Horan, wisely decided that it was time to downsize the official staff and send back to the United States nonessential personnel and family members. One of those individuals was USAID employee Mr. Reaves. In late 1984, the Israeli government, as the result of deteriorating regional conditions, was clamoring to increase the number of Falashas departures to Israel. It determined that the only way to do so was to locate a remote yet secure airfield in Sudan to house large groups of Falashas and where the unmarked C-130 aircraft could arrive and depart in relative safety and obscurity. The Israeli government lacked the necessary diplomatic avenues even to approach the Sudanese, and that act could have risked disrupting the modest shuttle operation that was already underway. The Israeli government approached the US government, seeking an intervention on its behalf. The White House readily agreed to do so. Consequently a senior US government official arrived in Khartoum to tell Ambassador Horan that the White House had given its blessing to a robust Operation Moses. But as a result of the ordered departure of embassy personnel, Mr. Reaves was effectively removed from any decision making or operational role concerning the airlift.

  RSO Gallant, who remained behind during the evacuation, was contacted by Gayle Fowles, Reaves’s assistant. She told him that she had been asked by Reaves to go over to his house to tidy things up and clean out a “gun locker” beneath his bed. Due to the dangerous street conditions, Fowles asked RSO Gallant to accompany her. Once inside the residence, the two embassy officials discovered that the gun locker contained high quality shotguns, hunting rifles, handguns—including a .44 magnum Smith and Wesson six-shot revolver equipped with a scope—and a Galil (Israeli) assault rifle, along with gold coins and tax-free Israeli war bonds, one of which was valued in excess of $100,000. As the embassy officer was making an inventory of the weapons from the locker, Reaves’s houseboy, who had remained in the house after Reaves left Sudan, came into the bedroom with a fully loaded AK-47 and asked the officer if he wanted another one of Reaves’s weapons.

  While Reaves’s home was being inspected, I was once again up in Director Dittmer’s office. This time I listened to a tirade about how upset the Black Dragons were with the latest series of leaks, which involved classified and highly sensitive department information quoted in the Los Angeles Times articles. In no uncertain terms, I was told to initiate an investigation and do whatever possible to identify the responsible person. The unauthorized disclosures in the Los Angeles Times were directly responsible for the termination of the US-backed airlift of Jews from Ethiopia. Leaks have serious human implications.

  This one was easy. One quick telephone call to RSO Gallant, and the mystery leaker was identified. Khartoum was not a city in which foreigners pass unnoticed. Journalists and diplomats receive particular scrutiny from both security personnel and those involved in the tourist industry. The RSO confirmed that Reaves and Charles Powers, the Los Angeles Times reporter working in Khartoum, were known to have socialized while both worked in Sudan.

  During this conversation, I discovered that Reaves had a “gun collection,” and since it was maintained on US government territory (the house’s rent was paid for by the US government) in apparent violation of embassy housing regulations, I directed that everything discovered inside the gun locker, except for the AK-47, be packed up and shipped to my office.

  It was high time to call Reaves in for a friendly chat. On July 11, 1985, he sat across the conference room table from SA Nanette Kreiger and me and spun quite a story.

  “I do not deny that I had a limited social and professional relationship with Powers,” Reaves said. “I never provided him with any classified information until the night Powers told me that he was going to publish a story concerning the secret airlift of Falashas out of Ethiopia via Sudan.”

  “Go on,” Nanette encouraged.

  “Unfortunately Powers had been able to piece together a fairly detailed and accurate story of Operation Moses,” Mr. Reaves said. He explained that he told Powers that if the story went public, it could end the program prematurely, and he asked Powers to postpone printing the story until the airlift program was over. “I needed Powers to delay his story, so I promised to flesh out the details of Operation Moses, to include a visit to the remote airfield, if he delayed publication.” Eventually Powers accepted most of Reaves’s proposal and Reaves later fulfilled his promises. Powers got everything he could have hoped for and more out of the deal. Then he returned to the United States.

  I asked Reaves who had given him permission to release classified information to a journalist. I also asked who had authorized him to take Powers to a restricted military airfield. He wavered a bit and finally said that US ambassador Hume Horan was aware of his dilemma with Powers and had authorized him to “do whatever was necessary” to protect Operation Moses from public exposure. When I told Reaves that I thought his previous comments suggested that he and Powers had finalized their “non-disclosure until the right-time agreement” during one conversation, he disabused me of that notion and said it took place over several days. He acknowledged that he was the primary source of leaked information and signed a sworn statement to that effect.

  I then turned my attention to the weapons and monies. The gold coins were eventually returned to Mr. Reaves as well as the shotguns, rifles, and handguns that he had legally registered in the United States. The fully automatic Galil assault rifle was not. Neither were the two thirty-round magazines. He explained that he kept a large cache of weapons because he was an avid hunter and Sudan offered great game opportunities. He said he paid for hunting guides and services with the gold coins as they were an acceptable form of payment by the locals. The issue of the Israeli war bonds was purposefully not raised because the subject was outside the scope of my investigation. But I have to admit it was difficult to keep a straight face listening to Reaves’s explanation of the connection between the guns and the gold coins.

  Nanette and I shared a good laugh together after he left the interview room. She would eventually become my immediate supervisor a decade later when she was assigned as the director of DS/CI and would supervise me in the investigation into the missing laptop from INR that contained nuclear-sensitive information. Her aggressive style was highly appreciated.

  On July 25, 1985, at 10:00 a.m., a distinguished yet highly annoyed Hume Horan, the US ambassador to Sudan, reported to HST room 2422 to explain his understanding of Operation Moses and its nexus with Reaves. He was not happy to be called in front of investigating agents to explain a highly political and sensitive matter that should have never become public, much less in the context of a leak case. In precise words and a slow monotone, Ambassador Horan said, “I did not authorize Reaves to review the details of Operation Moses with Powers or anyone else for that matter.”

  “Would you provide a sworn statement to that effect?” I asked.

  He slowly unscrewed the top to his fountain pen and said, “Give me a piece of paper so that I can write and sign a statement.”

  Whom do I believe—Ambassador Horan or Reaves? Ambassador Horan continued his distinguished career and served as our ambassador to Saudi Arabia and as a deputy assistant secretary of state in the Bureau of Consular Affairs before retiring from the State Department in 1998. After working as a Middle Eastern affairs analyst for BBC, NPR, and MSNBC, among other news agencies, he served from May to November 2003 as a senior advisor on religious and tribal issues to Ambassador L. Paul “Jerry” Bremer at the Coalition Provisional Authority in Baghdad, Iraq. His son, a former officer in the Marine Corps who worked closely with DS in Europe, became an FBI agent with whom I subseque
ntly worked closely on numerous foreign counterintelligence investigations from 1997–2002. Ambassador Horan passed away and was buried on July 30, 2004, in Arlington National Cemetery.

  I believe that Mr. Reaves was disappointed to discover in late 1984 that he was being removed from any future involvement in Operation Moses. He had been working in Sudan on numerous USAID projects since 1980. I am convinced that he wanted to continue to be part of an historical event. I further believe that Reaves, without seeking or obtaining permission from the US ambassador, provided sensitive information to a reporter from the Los Angeles Times. Because Reaves was a USAID employee, the results of my investigation were turned over to that agency’s security personnel for whatever action they deemed appropriate. I was never told if he received any administrative punishment or adverse action or if he was turned over to the Department of Justice for review. It was my understanding that Mr. Reaves was allowed to continue working for the US government. His identity was not leaked to the press.

  Unfortunately the story of the Los Angeles Times articles on Operation Moses did not end there. On January 28, 1986, in an article entitled “Trial Tests Sudan-U.S. Relations,” theWashington Post reported that former Sudanese officials were now on trial for their participation in Operation Moses. Much of the prosecution’s case came directly from the Los Angeles Times articles, and selected portions were quoted in the courtroom to bolster the new regime’s case, especially against Omar Tayeb. According to those who had known him before the coup, Mr. Tayeb had lost over sixty pounds while waiting out the four-month-long trial. The trial, which was televised locally, was also used by the prosecutors to take some potshots at Ambassador Hume Horan, who had recently returned to post. One fallacious sentence in the Washington Post article was this line: “Sudanese were shocked last year at the disclosure abroad of a joint Israeli–American civilian charter airlift of the Ethiopian Jews, called Falashas, and then of a follow-up U.S. Air Force evacuation of those left behind earlier.” Of course, this was sheer nonsense. What the article failed to mention was the fact that the Israeli and American media made the disclosure. Without the media’s revelations, the trial of the former Sudanese officials would not have been possible. Leaks have serious consequences.