Good Hunting: An American Spymaster's Story

by Jack Devine

  When I heard about the killing, I was delighted. I had been talking, and writing, about the importance of this takedown for ten years. In fact, I and a handful of former DDOs had had lunch with Panetta a year prior and I’d asked him why it was taking so long to get Bin Laden. I’m sure he and his subordinates were equally frustrated. Nevertheless, this is what I thought we should have been doing from the beginning—not nation-building but getting this terrorist.

  President Obama addressed the nation on Afghanistan in early June. The Taliban’s momentum had been arrested, and our focus was squarely on al-Qaeda. It was time to start bringing the troops home—ten thousand by year’s end, and all thirty-three thousand surge forces the president had committed at the end of 2009 by the end of summer 2012. America’s mission would change from combat to support. I’d been arguing for years that a large U.S. military presence in Afghanistan would not be successful, as a large Soviet presence had not been. And now President Obama was in effect shifting strategies and turning the mission over to the CIA and U.S. Special Forces.

  In August 2011, shortly before General Petraeus retired from the army and officially took over the reins of the CIA, Clair George died at the age of eighty-one. He was a spy’s spy, and one of the best of the generation of Cold War officers who joined the Agency in the mid-1950s. It’s bitterly ironic that he remains the first high-ranking CIA officer to be found guilty of felony charges committed during the conduct of his official duties. His pardon on Christmas Eve 1992 before his sentencing kept him from ever serving time, which was at least some measure of justice. He always maintained his innocence and never let his conviction diminish his joie de vivre or his loyalty to the CIA. As I told a Washington Post reporter writing George’s obituary, “If you wanted Paris, he’d send you to Somalia, and when you were done in Somalia, he’d send you to Paris … He wanted to know if you were a committed operator, or are you a dandy who wants to be pushing cookies around the diplomatic circuit? That’s how he sized people up.” I thought it was telling that, in his retirement, George worked as a volunteer suicide prevention counselor, helping man a hotline in his basement. A memorial in October 2012 for him at St. Alban’s Parish in Washington was a special moment for me, although bittersweet—the passing of an authentic warrior and leader who regrettably had to end his career when he got caught up in the political morass of Washington. Throughout it all, he kept his positive disposition, his allegiance to his subordinates, and an affection for helping young people.

  George’s memorial service brought me together with many former bosses, men also now in their seventies and eighties. I couldn’t help but reflect on my own place on the actuary charts and think about my own mortality. I left the service that day feeling proud of the CIA and the men and women who had served. I felt fortunate to have been part of its history.

  I went back to Langley again in the late summer of 2012 to attend a retirement ceremony for Justin Jackson, a senior officer who had my old job of associate deputy director of operations before he left the Agency.

  The headquarters building at one time was almost elegant in the simplicity of its lobby. But now I see some new ornament on display almost every time I visit. To the left of the high-tech turnstile that slides open for cleared visitors, the hallway is adorned with formal portraits of all the directors. I’ve worked with more than half of them. To the right, toward the special room where they hold retirement ceremonies, hang paintings of auspicious moments in CIA history, including the first Stinger shootdown by the mujahideen in Afghanistan. I felt a twinge of pride that day as I walked past the painting and went inside the room for Jackson’s retirement.

  In a forty-five-minute ceremony that was warm and rich with fraternity, Jackson received the Distinguished Intelligence Medal. Members of this good hunting club, past and present, don’t come together often, and I was in no hurry to leave. Eventually, though, it was time for a meeting with Petraeus, and a woman from protocol came to take me to the seventh floor. We rode up in the director’s private elevator, for which I once possessed a key. Petraeus sat at the head of a conference table in his office. We had kept in occasional contact since we had dinner the prior summer, right before he took over. We looked outside at the thick woods that surround the Agency’s vast complex and talked for about a half hour.

  Three months later, I was stunned when Petraeus abruptly resigned and acknowledged having had an extramarital affair with Paula Broadwell, a West Point graduate and Reserve army officer who had written a book about Petraeus’s years in command of the war in Afghanistan. I’d developed a good relationship with him, so it was particularly painful to watch a man of his distinction lose his job and much of the stature he had gained during his career as a four-star general and theater commander over this incident. He had all the qualifications necessary to excel on the seventh floor at Langley, although it wasn’t clear to me how he had actually connected with the Agency’s senior leaders. I happened to attend a meeting with them a week following his resignation, and it was clear to me that they had already moved on. The CIA is a tough, resilient place after all it has weathered over the years. Obama had just been reelected, names of possible new directors were being floated around town, the Republicans and many others remained in high dudgeon over an attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi earlier in the fall that had cost the life of the U.S. ambassador and three aides, as well as contractors, and the Agency needed to reexamine its priorities now that the wars of the past decade were ending.

  Following his reelection that fall, Obama named a man I had come to know well, John O. Brennan, to lead the CIA during the president’s second term in office. I had worked with Brennan back at Langley when he served as George Tenet’s executive officer; he later became a chief of station in the Middle East. I had always considered him to be a smart, serious-minded, dedicated officer who loved the business. Even in an institution that has a culture of putting in very long hours, Brennan stood out as a workhorse. He was one of the few career professionals who rose to the top of the Agency, joining the ranks of Helms, Colby, and Gates. He’d spent twenty-five years at the CIA, serving in both the Intelligence and Operations Directorates. His last post was chief of the National Counterterrorism Center (which is separate from the CIA’s Counterterrorism Center) during the administration of George W. Bush. He has stated publicly that he had no role in overseeing the administration’s enhanced interrogation techniques—waterboarding and other forms of torture—and commented at the time that he did not agree with such methods. An Arabic-speaking analyst by training, he is an expert in the Near East.

  My relationship with Brennan was passing in nature, until he left the government and we worked closely together as board members of a publicly traded defense contractor. We worked together again during Obama’s campaign for president in 2008. Brennan served as chairman of Obama’s intelligence committee, and I was a committee member. The press referred to us as “spies for Obama,” which was hardly the case. Nevertheless, he developed a close relationship with Obama’s key campaign staff. In fact, Obama offered Brennan the CIA directorship, but Brennan withdrew his name from consideration because a number of human rights groups opposed him as a result of his role as former head of the National Counterterrorism Center.

  I had drinks with Brennan in a Washington area hotel shortly after he withdrew. He was hugely disappointed, but he remained determined to return to the government and serve the Obama administration. We talked about his fallback offer to serve as an assistant to the president for homeland security and counterterrorism. He recognized the heavy burden of such a task for him and his family but decided to accept it nonetheless. For different reasons, I also thought it was a smart move; I had seen the ball bounce before and felt that the job very likely would put him in contention for the DCI spot the next time around. I also had seen how much Bob Gates grew as a result of his time working in the White House as a national security adviser and how effectively he was able to parlay that experience when he became
CIA director and, later, secretary of defense. I shared this view with Brennan at the time, and I now feel that history has played out very well for him.

  I congratulated Brennan after his confirmation as CIA director in March 2013 and told him that the “fun” would begin immediately. He responded that no one had yet suggested that the top CIA job would be fun. Having served on the seventh floor with a number of DCIs, I understand how gut-wrenching the job can be at times, but there are few places where you can have a significant impact on world events and better serve your country. For me, that is fun. And I’m sure that, in time, Brennan will agree. These are trying times for the CIA, and Brennan’s broad experience at the CIA and the White House will serve him, the Agency, and the country very well indeed.

  One critical attribute that Brennan and all other CIA leaders possess is the right temperament for intelligence. A spymaster’s life is not for everybody. It requires a special psychological makeup that allows him or her to work in the dark world of betrayal and to engage in actions, sometimes lethal, that often irrevocably alter lives, governments, and history. By necessity, it demands a highly compartmentalized mind that can box off multiple conflicting ideas, emotions, and behaviors. On the one hand, the spymaster must hunt for and manipulate potential agents into betraying their country while maintaining a fierce loyalty to his own country and value system. Similarly, the spymaster must undertake foreign-policy-directed covert action operations against our enemies in the uncomfortable gray area of morality and principle while maintaining all the while a rigid black-and-white standard of legal rectitude within the CIA culture. As a result of a mixture of DNA and life experience, I felt that I fit this profile snugly and survived and thrived as a spymaster and covert action operative for many years.

  I worried about the CIA for years after I retired. In the aftermath of 9/11 and the harsh criticism that came from the intelligence failure in Iraq and the waterboarding of al-Qaeda terrorists, I found myself despairing. Would the Agency’s critics succeed in dismantling the nation’s Central Intelligence Agency and fritter away its exquisite capabilities, its unique contribution to statecraft? The new intelligence czar, the director of national intelligence, had usurped both the president’s daily brief and what had been the DCI’s coordinating role among intelligence agencies. I had come to realize, and publicly stated several years ago, that the Office of the Director of National Intelligence was, for the most part, a redundant bureaucratic overlay. Over time the office has diminished in importance and influence. Because the CIA retained the 1947 charter that authorized “special activities” (covert action), in the end it wasn’t much of a contest. With the nation fighting dual wars in Iraq and Afghanistan as part of a global struggle against terrorism, the White House needed the Agency more than ever.

  On October 25, 2013, I was honored to receive the Hugh Montgomery Award from the OSS Society at a black-tie gala for eight hundred at the Ritz-Carlton in Washington. It is rare for a former CIA operative to receive any award in a public forum. The main event of the evening was the presentation of the Donovan Award to Admiral William McRaven, head of the Joint Special Operations Command, who directed the raid on the compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan, in which Osama bin Laden was killed. The award is named for General William J. Donovan, founder of the OSS, forerunner to the CIA, during World War II. In his acceptance remarks, McRaven gave a forceful presentation in support of Special Operation Forces. “Not since World War II has there been such a lethal combination of intelligence officers and special operations warriors,” he said. “Not since the fight against Hitler have we had such a talented group of government civilians, intellectuals, businessmen, writers, philosophers, engineers, tinkers, tailors, soldiers, and spies.” He delighted his audience by saying, “I’m here tonight to tell you that the OSS is back!”

  The night before we had chatted at a smaller dinner about the same thing. McRaven noted that the Joint Special Operations Command had grown significantly and he underscored the military’s close working relationship with the intelligence community. When he visited CIA headquarters for the first time, he told me, he was struck by just how many senior officers had worked closely with him in the past. This was a good indication of how much things have changed since 9/11.

  In my brief acceptance comments, I noted my good fortune in having met former OSS heroine Virginia Hall when I first joined the Agency. I mentioned Hall earlier for her exploits behind the lines in World War II when she helped organize the French Resistance, eventually becoming the most wanted spy in France. I told the audience that I marveled then and now at her courage, grit, and patriotism. I went on to note with more than a little pleasure that when you walk into CIA headquarters nowadays and look to the right side of the atrium, you will find a portrait of the first Stinger shootdown of a Soviet helicopter in Afghanistan juxtaposed next to a painting of Virginia Hall pumping out clandestine messages from a safehouse somewhere in central France.

  In my remarks, I said that “covert action will prove to be the most important tool in our national security arsenal in the complex and unstable world that confronts us today.” Finally, I bid farewell to old and new friends with the phrase they knew well: good hunting. Since that night, I have reflected often about Admiral McRaven’s view that “the OSS is back” and his assertion that Special Operations Forces represent the future. That judgment is far from certain.

  First, the OSS was created during World War II as an extension of the U.S. military forces opposing the Axis nation-states of Germany, Japan, and Italy. That’s not the national security world we live in today. After we exit Afghanistan in late 2014, it is most unlikely that we will be involved in another land war in the foreseeable future. Instead, we will continue to face stateless terrorist groups often in insurgency environments where we may or may not be welcome by the local governments. Ideally, we will be able to work with friendly host governments in providing equipment, training, and intelligence to eradicate the insurgents.

  Second, despite DOD planning to the contrary, the sixty-six thousand U.S. Special Operations Forces will need to be reduced substantially, since most future paramilitary engagement will be reminiscent of the smaller Cold War covert actions programs. These programs were operated by the CIA with a small agency staff overseeing surrogate forces under its Title 50 authority. In the past, the U.S. military supported these efforts by “seconding” military personnel to the CIA, where they operated under a clandestine civilian umbrella. This practice of “detailing” soldiers to the Agency should be reinstated, especially since our Special Operations Forces have developed such impressive war-fighting skills as a result of their lengthy engagements in Iraq and Afghanistan. This is the covert action world we will live in. Before the decade is out, especially as the U.S. military gradually returns to its more traditional strategy of preparing for potential conflict against hostile nation-states, the CIA should assert its traditional authority and take the lead in conducting political, economic, psychological, and, at times, armed covert action.

  Three days later, I found myself on a mixed panel of actors and intelligence practitioners discussing the reality of the popular television show Homeland. The panel included Nazanin Boniadi, who costars as the Muslim CIA analyst Fara Sherazi; Navid Negahban, who played the terrorist mastermind Abu Nazir; and John Miller, a former senior official with the FBI and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence who now serves as the NYPD deputy commissioner for intelligence. After a preliminary session with the actors, we were on Showtime’s temporary set at the downtown Sheraton Hotel responding to questions from a live audience. Three interested me most: How authentic is the show? How good an actor do you need to be as a CIA officer? And can someone like Carrie Mathison (played by Claire Danes) with bipolar disorder work for the CIA as a top operative?

  The high-end technology portrayed in the movies typically exists, but what that technology is capable of accomplishing is often exaggerated, sometimes wildly. But it is surprising to have wa
tched over the years how these over-the-horizon technical capabilities have become part of our real inventory. Edward Snowden’s leaks in 2013 exposing the National Security Agency’s ability to vacuum up millions, even billions, of e-mails and cell phone calls is a reminder of just how robust American information collection has become. Early in my career, I had disdain for what I thought was Hollywood’s trivialization of a deadly serious business. But, with the advantage of time and understanding, I began to appreciate that almost all Hollywood characterization adds to the mystique of the CIA operative and becomes a significant recruiting draw to bring top-level young men and women to the Agency. This seeming omnipotence also makes it much easier to deal with foreign counterparts and agents, as well as potential agents.

  The question about the similarities between professional actors and CIA operatives is intriguing. I never considered myself an actor, but as I began to dissect the question I became more and more engrossed in just how much acting skill is required to be a spy or spymaster. The most obvious parallel is that when you are working literally in a false identity and alias background in a foreign setting, you have to become someone else. Also, on the psychological level you must conceal your true feelings when trying to recruit unsavory characters and sometimes upright targets. You are constantly manipulating the environment and the target as if onstage. This is also true in working with counterparts in foreign governments who do not share our values or commitment to civil rights and personal liberties. An operative often must adopt a more cordial and understanding persona than reality would normally warrant. This question even produced a vivid flashback of me telling the Haitian chief of police to get out of his town. On that occasion, I had to conjure up a very stern, no-nonsense personality who oozed sinister traits. I must confess that I enjoyed the role. When you return home you need to cast away the mask and return to your true identity and personality. Acting is very much a part of being an effective operative.