A Spy's Journey

by Floyd Paseman

  So one morning I crawled into the vehicle with one of its developers, and we went up for a flight. Did it ever bounce around. At one point I actually took over the controls, but I did decline the offer to do the landing in favor of an experienced officer. But it was obvious that the vehicle would best be unmanned—and that it had a tremendous capability to gather intelligence. I did the same with the maritime vessels and the land-based craft. There were many other such projects that remain secret, and the American public needs to know that one of great benefits they get from having a CIA is the work it does in cutting-edge technology and techniques. The CIA leads the world in its innovative research-and-development work.

  Just as we had gotten over the shock of Kasi’s attack, on the morning of February 21, 1994, the FBI arrested CIA officer Aldrich Ames for spying for the Soviet Union. The news swept through the organization like wildfire, and people couldn’t believe their ears. One of our own had done massive damage. I won’t go into great detail since so much has been written about Ames. But the damage was significant:

  Ames passed to the KGB (and later the SVR) the names of 11 of the U.S. government’s spies in the Soviet Union/Russia. Due to his treachery, 10 were executed and the other spy spent years at hard labor before being pardoned by Yeltsin.

  He disclosed the techniques of our double agent program.

  He identified hundreds of our officer’s names and many agent names.

  He provided a stack of top-secret documents over 20 feet high.

  He passed unknown numbers of computer disks, each containing thousands of pages of information.

  For his treachery, Ames was paid over $1.5 million (U.S. dollars), with another million in a European bank. The Russians even had a dacha set aside for him, which, fortunately, he never got to use. In a plea bargain, he got life in prison.

  This episode triggered events that continue to plague the CIA to this day. In the aftermath of the Ames debacle, the polygraph test, supposed to be done every five years, turned into a witch-hunt. Polygraphers were stung by the fact that they had passed Aldrich Ames even while he was spying for the Soviets. From then on, the polygraphers were on the hunt. The result, in some cases, was almost unbearable interrogation techniques. And there were a lot of inconclusive cases, in which the polygrapher could not call the officer clean or conclude positively that they were practicing deception. Inconclusive—by the time everyone realized what a mess we had on our hands, hundreds of employees were put into this category. They couldn’t get assignments, and they couldn’t be promoted. This created animosity throughout the ranks of the Agency and also led to the requirement that all CIA employees file financial disclosure forms. On these forms employees declared their total assets, including houses, jewelry, stocks, cars, and so forth. The financial disclosure requirement intruded significantly into everyone’s life.

  After two years, I was ready for a new operational assignment. To my great surprise, one Friday afternoon the DDO called me to his office and asked me, “How would you like to be chief of the East Asia division?” I was stunned, thrilled, and honored, but mostly stunned. A dozen or more officers out there were senior to me, and they would be thrilled to be a division chief in the Directorate of Operation—one of the best jobs in the Agency.

  The holders of the key area division jobs in the DDO—Europe, Asia, Africa, Latin America, and the Soviet Union—were known throughout the Agency as the “Barons,” which gives you some idea of the stature they held in the business.

  I told the DDO that, of course, I would like the job. I also told him that I really wanted him to think over his offer, and that, on Monday, if he still wanted me, I was ready to take it. The DDO was perplexed, and I told him there would be obvious sniping about me being promoted over senior officers for the job, and I wanted to let him have a weekend to think about it. “I’ll be damned,” he said, and agreed. I fretted and fussed all weekend, and, thankfully, bright and early on Monday morning, I got a call from the DDO telling me to make preparations to move over to East Asia as division chief.

  Basketball All-Star 1958

  At the University of Oregon 1962

  1st Lt, Germany 1965

  At the Berlin Wall 1966

  First landing 1968

  Training in jump gear 1968

  Leaving home for the CIA 1967

  Studying Chinese 1970

  Building a bridge 1973

  Refused visa because of my hair 1974

  My band 1977

  Jogging on the Great Wall 1982

  Playing at the Bicentennial 1976

  Receiving promotion from DCI Woolsey 1993

  Receiving DIA Director’s Award 1998

  Ozaukee news article 2000

  Christmas greetings from Gen Khin Nyunt of SLORAC 1994

  THIRTEEN

  CHIEF, EAST ASIA—ONE OF

  THE “BARONS”

  1992–1994

  I spent two years as chief of the East Asia division in the CIA’s Directorate of Operations (DO). It was a time of great change in the way we did our business. The Berlin Wall had only recently gone down, and with it, the normal operating methods with which we had become so comfortable. Many countries had tolerated a large CIA presence because they saw us as an indispensable part of their own protection against communism. So, although in many cases they would have preferred a reduced CIA presence, they understood that we were united against a common enemy. But when the Wall went away, people took a second look and began to worry about our size and what we were really doing there. Our DDO was cognizant of this issue, and one of his charges to me was to re-validate our presence in Asia and make any needed changes.

  To do so, I effected many changes in the way we did business in Asia, and most of these remain in effect today. I received another promotion, this time to Senior Intelligence Service–04, and I remained there until retiring in 2001.

  Senior management can make a tremendous difference in the success of any good operating component. I was lucky to secure the services of three fine, operationally oriented senior officers. One was an expert on China—I’ll call him Dave—who also saw and understood the need for change in the way we operated. Dave implemented a number of new ideas in how we conducted our espionage. A second officer, I’ll call Bob, was a colleague who had been a chief of facility himself twice. Bob came in, took over a new account, and distinguished himself. The third, let’s call him Seth, was an officer who had also tangled with the same DDO who had cancelled my first chief’s appointment. As with me, Seth lost an assignment essentially for the same reason I did—telling the truth to someone who didn’t want to hear it. So Seth had been shoved aside to a meaningless assignment. When I learned he was available, I went to the new DDO and got him assigned to be one of my deputies. (I was proud several years later when Seth was himself appointed as chief of the East Asia division). I was also served exceptionally well by putting in a bright, witty senior officer I’ll call Judy as my executive officer. Judy had worked for me once before, and she was a person of impeccable integrity. Judy would inevitably be the first to tell me if she felt we were doing something inherently wrong. (I was proud that she became one of our senior chiefs of facilities following this assignment.)

  I was also lucky to have one of the State Department’s finest officers, Ambassador Winston Lord, as my counterpart at the Department of State. I had known Winston when he was ambassador to China. He had performed exceptionally well there, and he knew and understood the strengths and weaknesses of intelligence. As with the other division chiefs, I had frequent and immediate access to my counterpart at State, and we received great support from Winston.

  I can best tell the story of my two years as chief of the East Asia division in a series of vignettes. Following 1985, the tumultuous Year of the Spy, the treachery within our own organization had not totally ended. The Agency had discovered in April 1991 that one of our secretaries, Virginia Jean Baynes, had been copying documents to pass to a man named Joseph Garfield Brown.
She had befriended Brown at a karate class. Brown would then pass the documents to Philippine government officials for money. Baynes confessed when confronted and identified Brown as her cohort.

  Seth, Bob, Dave, and I held a meeting in early 1992 to set a trap to lure Brown back to the United States, where the FBI could arrest him. Here was the ploy: We would openly advertise in Philippine newspapers that the CIA was looking for someone to instruct its agents in self-defense tactics. While most thought it implausible, sure enough, Brown sent in an application. In an exchange of official correspondence with the CIA, he was asked to appear for an interview. Brown dutifully paid his own way back to the United States.

  On December 27, 1992, the FBI arrested Joseph Garfield Brown at Dulles Airport as he returned from the Philippines and charged him with spying for the Philippine government.

  “Hey,” he shouted as he was being cuffed, “I’m supposed to be going out to the CIA to work there.”

  Baynes was given a 41-month prison sentence.1 Brown pleaded guilty to conspiring to commit espionage and was sentenced to almost six years in prison.

  One of the duties of the division chief is to keep in touch with the field, which is best done by traveling through the region. I made a number of long trips out to Asia to meet with the troops and, where appropriate, with local officials.

  One of my first trips was to a South Pacific island where a dictator ruled with an iron hand. I arrived, met with our own personnel, and to my amazement found I was invited to address that country’s national security council. This was unprecedented, and I accepted. I met the key members of the government and was invited to attend a ceremony in which the local liquor is prepared fresh—and consumed in great amounts. Local custom was to crush kava root mixed with a little water in a large wooden bowl with bare feet, and then consume it on the spot. After the first drink or two, I forgot about all the bare feet involved in preparing the brew. I made it through more than the usual amount and was offered good wishes and promises of eternal cooperation.

  Another early trip was to visit our great allies, Australia and New Zealand. Both have excellent intelligence services with whom we were and are quite friendly. It’s a relationship that works for both sides. I was fortunate enough to be able to spend enough time to see both countries in some depth. The Aussies are wonderful people, as those who have visited the country can testify. I was able to get to the outback, and it’s spectacular—just like in Crocodile Dundee.

  One of the high points of the trip was a visit to southern Australia, where I had a beer at a local bar with a kangaroo. Well, the Aussies didn’t give the kangaroo a beer in my presence, but I was pretty sure the kangaroo was no teetotaler. I did have breakfast with the kangaroo the next morning—he had corn flakes.

  New Zealand was also spectacular. Varied geography abounds—high mountain peaks, deserts, glaciers, and the badlands, where infamous sheep rustler James McKenzie and his Border collie Friday were caught. A plaque commemorates the site. McKenzie went to jail, and some said Friday might rustle on her own and should be put down. Other accounts say both were hanged, but most say they lived out their days, although separated. Whatever the story, a statue was indeed raised in honor of Border collies and other sheepdogs.

  But it was in lovely Queenstown where I almost (but not quite) became the first CIA officer to bungee jump. The young New Zealand lad escorting me said he had instructions that I could do anything I wanted. So we drove to a towering bridge above a rushing ice-cold river where bungee jumpers would tempt fate. Although my escort assumed I wanted to jump, I suggested that we watch for a few minutes before I made the plunge. As I watched, a man who must have been in his 80s wrapped the cord around his ankle, stepped off the platform, and plunged head-first toward the river. Just inches from the rushing water, the cord did its job, and he bounced back up to just about touch the bridge. I wasn’t that nervous, but how was I to tell this lad that I didn’t want to do what the 80-year-old daredevil had just done? I was rescued by a young Filipina, who stepped in line ahead of me and prepared to jump. The guy in charge weighed the woman, adjusted the cord’s length, tied it to her leg, and told her to jump.

  Jump she did, and after plunging downward she took an unintended dip in the river. The guy in charge must have weighed her incorrectly. Worse yet, she flew back up, and up, right past the launch platform. But she missed the platform; if she hadn’t, things might have turned tragic. After seeing the Filipina’s near miss, the lad yanked me away and said he didn’t think his superiors would be too happy if I got seriously injured.

  As with other businesses, the CIA sometimes recruits flawed individuals. One case involved my executive officer, Judy, coming to me and saying that she had been working with some of our reports personnel, and that they had reason to believe that one of our highly touted young officers had fabricated intelligence reports on his previous tour. This young man spoke several languages and had been promoted early in both his previous tours. He had been held up as a model for other young officers, and as a model for successful CIA recruitment of minorities. These circumstances made this a difficult case.

  During her research, Judy discovered that one of the officer’s previous chiefs had indeed suspected the same thing and had reported his concerns through sensitive channels. But nothing was done. Judy assembled a team whose investigation showed that details of the officer’s reports came from a source that was demonstrably elsewhere during the time the officer was reportedly meeting him and gathering the intelligence. Their research also turned up one or two other instances in which the officer had falsified the meeting or the intelligence. I took this information up to the DDO, who had been one of the officer’s patrons and one who twice had endorsed his early promotion.

  Understandably, the DDO was most upset and said he was certain that some mistake had been made. He then told me the life story of the officer—that he was an orphan and a graduate of a prestigious school, who had made his way up through life’s difficulties and ultimately into the CIA, where he was a role model for minorities. I told the DDO I understood the sensitivity of the problem, but it was imperative that we take immediate action. The DDO agreed, reluctantly, and concurred in my plan to reassign the officer to a job outside the CIA headquarters to limit his access to classified information while I conducted a full investigation. Further, I asked the DDO for permission to immediately call the officer in, inform him of what we had discovered, and turn the matter over to our office of security. The DDO concurred in all these actions.

  I called the office of security and arranged for a representative to be present when I met with the officer. I told the officer that we had serious suspicions that certain pieces of information he reported had been in fact fabricated. We had a tremendously long session. The officer first denied the allegations and then later acknowledged that he elaborated on parts of the report. He later admitted he had not even met the agent who allegedly provided the report before sending the information in. The officer said, “This is not a serious matter—other officers do this all the time.” He also maintained that I was discriminating against him because of his race. We had built enough of a case to turn the case over to the office of security.

  Just as the officer was leaving, I asked the security officer whether or not I had the authority to inform the office of security not to let the officer return to classified buildings until the matter was resolved. The security officer said that I did, and he would strongly endorse this action. I informed the officer that his access to classified information would be denied while the matter was under investigation.

  In a strange turn of events, that evening I went to a ballgame in Baltimore. I was paged through the stadium loudspeaker system and told to call our headquarters. I called and was told that, upon leaving, the officer had gone straight up to the DDO office to complain about what I had done. I was ordered to call security that night and remove the hold I had placed on the officer’s security clearance and to permit him back into my di
vision while this matter was sorted out. I refused to do so. The DDO then had a senior officer call the officer of security and restored the officer’s clearance. The officer gained entry back into the headquarters compound the next morning.

  I went back to the DDO first thing the next morning and got the clearance lifted again. Eventually, the office of security did their investigation, and the officer in question acknowledged that he had fabricated a number of intelligence reports at two of his previous postings. We sent out a memorandum to the entire intelligence community in effect recalling all of the reports that this officer had produced.

  As a postscript, we also found that the officer had not graduated from the college he claimed, that he was not an orphan, and that he had invented other stories about his background and his credentials. After an exhaustive process, the officer was fired for cause. It was a sad case, but it also reconfirmed to me that the Agency would take the actions necessary in such a case. In the Agency we work hard to maintain the integrity of our workforce and our product.

  One of the great things about being the chief of East Asia division was Asia’s diversity. From metropolises to tiny hamlets to city-states, Asia has it all. In another great trip, I went to a poor country in the north that had not seen a lot of Americans. Our goal was to solidify a relationship with the country, which had been in the Soviet sphere until the Berlin Wall collapsed. My mission was to help this country move toward the West.