From the moment I arrived, I was treated as a VIP. On the schedule was a hunting trip, but I don’t hunt, and I tried unsuccessfully to get it cancelled. This was a delicate diplomatic situation. Our ambassador lobbied me hard to go on the hunt, and pointed out that it would offend our hosts if I declined. So I reluctantly accepted.
We boarded a rickety old Russian helicopter, and after we took off I noticed barrel after barrel of aviation fuel right inside the chopper next to ours. Two hours into the flight, I found out why—we were refueling en route. The copilot left his seat—which didn’t comfort me either—came back with a rubber hose in his hand, stuck the hose in one of the barrels, put the other end in his mouth, gave a great suck, and siphoned gas from one of the barrels into the tank of the helicopter. My escort told me not to worry, that this pilot was their most experienced—he had crashed several times and knew how to do it properly.
Much to my dismay I learned that we were to actually hunt from the helicopter—a bizarre and dangerous practice if ever I saw one. One of the men strapped on a harness, hooked a safety line to the inside of the chopper, and leaned way out the door. Someone handed him an automatic weapon—an old Chinese-made AK-47—and he would fire away at any animals rounded up by the pilot’s maneuvering. The whole thing still bothers me, but they managed to kill a large moose for dinner.
After dinner, I went to my tent and saw two sentries with AK-47s standing outside. I entered the tent and found out why—they had hung the remaining moose meat in my tent to keep it from freezing overnight. (Our hosts slept in the helicopter and we had the VIP tent—a traditional yurt.) One of the sentries told me they were there to protect me against wolves or bears that might catch the scent of the meat.
I slept fitfully, and heard a clink every now and then. The temperature plummeted to 40 degrees below zero, and I had never been so cold in my life. I woke up several times thinking I might be freezing to death, and each time I piled on yet another wolf hide for warmth.
When I finally got up at daybreak, I found empty vodka bottles littered outside my tent. The sentries had stayed up all night and drank copious amounts of vodka. I didn’t know if I was in more danger from the drunken sentries or the wild animals.
My hosts gave me an AK-47 and told me to take a morning walk, that a special breakfast would be ready when I returned in about an hour. I enjoyed my stroll and soaked up some of the territory’s immense beauty. And after I returned, ready for a special breakfast, I discovered my host’s version of the breakfast of champions—mooselips and rice. I could barely get it down—and did so only with the help of some morning vodka. The problem wasn’t what I was eating, it was that it was unchewable. It was like trying to eat one of those rubber worms that fishermen use as bait. I finally got it down, and enjoyed the remainder of the visit.
But my tenure as chief of the East Asia division was not all fun. I had one run-in with the DCI. As chief of the division, I sat in on any and all covert action activities that were being reviewed in Asia. In one case, I disagreed violently with the action being proposed, which would have involved the possibility of the loss of life of natives of the country that was to be the target of the covert action.
The briefing was long and detailed and had a military option. It was this option I objected to. I was not against using force, but in this case there were more negatives than positives. After the briefing, the DCI went around the room asking for comments and support for the program—which he strongly endorsed. The first four or five senior officers were heavily in favor. I took the plunge and outlined my opposition in a clear, crisp fashion. Following my comments, the senior DI Asian representative—a great mind and a great Asian analyst—agreed with me.
We were the only two who didn’t like the plan. I was the senior DO officer responsible for Asia, and my friend was the senior DI officer involved. Without our concurrence, the plan could not go forward. I took a fair amount of direct abuse, including some snide comments about my lack of manliness. But I held my ground. In the end, the proposal was defeated. A number of the participants later called to tell me that they really agreed with me and were pleased the covert action proposal didn’t go any further. I told each one that I thought less of them, and that I didn’t believe for a second that they had changed their endorsements. They had the opportunity to say no in front of the DCI and declined to do so.
This certainly reinforced my lifelong opposition to covert action. I oppose it not because I think it’s unnecessary, but because in my experience it’s typically been a poor substitute for good policy, plus, it almost always becomes public. So it’s neither covert nor good action. There have been examples of worthwhile and successful covert actions—such as in Afghanistan—but they are in a slim minority. Covert action should always be the last choice—if it’s a choice at all.
The Vietnam/Laos POW issue from a decade ago still bedeviled us. I oversaw a special task force, created by my predecessor, just to keep up with congressional requests for files and information about live sightings. They continued to come in by the score. We even built a mockup of Son Tay, the area where a famous raid to free POWs took place (of course, no POWs were there). We worked on imagery, when people suspected POWs were hiding in shadows in photos. We chased down dozens of sightings of the infamous couple known as “Salt and Pepper”—purportedly two army soldiers, one black and one white, who decided to stay behind and fight with the Vietcong. Although it can be argued that we were morally obligated to do everything we could do to locate POWs, these efforts never led us to a single live POW. Millions of taxpayer dollars were spent responding to the congressional mandate, which unfortunately continued to give false hope to the unfortunate families of those missing in action.
On a lighter note, my deputy, Seth, and I managed to snag great seats to a Baltimore Orioles game on opening day—right next to the first-base dugout. The stadium was packed, and security was everywhere, since President Clinton was to throw out the first ball of the season. The crowd was predominantly Republican because when the president walked out to make the first pitch, they booed mercilessly. It was embarrassing.
I went to buy a couple of beers, and when I turned around, a CNN cameraman and reporter thrust a camera and a microphone in my face and asked, “What do you think about the crowd booing the president of the United States?”
On worldwide television, I answered that I thought we all needed to understand that the image of the president appearing at a ballgame is something we should all respect. The president understands that running the country is like running a baseball team. Each person counts, and it’s the solid team effort that finally delivers the winning game.
The reporter stopped the camera, looked at me, and said, “Wow, that’s fantastic. We’ll use it tonight.”
I turned to Seth, who shook his head and said, “I think I’m gonna puke.” I acknowledged that maybe I had laid it on a little thick but felt it was OK. That evening, CNN broadcast my comment worldwide every hour on the hour. For the next several days I got dozens of cables from my officers in Asia kidding me about being at the ballgame while they were defending our way of life.
As a division chief, I inevitably got more involved in office politics than I had in any other assignment—and never more than during the Chinese immigration flap. Sometime in June, a cargo vessel had grounded itself right off Manhattan. Immigration authorities found over 100 illegal Chinese aliens who were smuggled into the United States. The story made the evening news for a week, and all the major media extensively covered this trade in human cargo. And things quickly escalated into a crisis.
The president directed all government agencies to work together to get to the bottom of this scandalous affair. The DCI called the chief East Asia analyst and me to his office. He wanted to know what we knew about illegal Chinese immigration. We told him the truth—it was not an issue we covered, it was in the bailiwick of the law enforcement community. The DCI ordered the analyst to write a piece on the subject and told
me to order all my people in the Far East to report whatever they could on the subject.
When customer interest gets ahead of organizational structure, we make fools of ourselves. My people all told me what I already knew—they didn’t cover this issue, and information on illegal Chinese immigration was routinely reported by the State Department and by the legal attachés (overseas FBI reps). Dutifully, they gathered what they could from all sources, including our embassies, and reported it in to me at headquarters. Our headquarters analysts then wrote a big piece, and everyone appeared happy. That was, until the FBI director chastised his own overseas personnel for not reporting as we had. The overseas FBI legal attachés read our reports, and recognized it was mostly their reporting that our overseas personnel had sent in over the years.
The legal attachés were furious at the various CIA chiefs for compiling and sending in their reporting. And my chiefs were none too happy with me for upsetting the delicate relationships that exist overseas between the intelligence and the law enforcement communities. In other words, we had managed to report duplicate information and turn out an analytical piece on it. The fuss finally settled down. But I never forgot the lesson—sometimes the customer is wrong in demanding a particular product from a particular producer. The divisions of labor between intelligence and law enforcement are delicate and exist for a reason. They function best when clear divisions of responsibility and good lateral communications are established. We need to remember this as we continue to react to the events of September 11, 2001.
The division chief travels with the DCI whenever he goes abroad. During my time as chief of the East Asia division, the DCI traveled a lot. On one long trip to Asia, we traveled in a VIP compartment that was crammed into a C-140, an aging aircraft that spent a lot of time in the shop. Since we had to cover so much distance, we had to refuel in flight, and this was quite an exercise. I developed a great appreciation for the men and women of the U.S. Air Force who take on these duties. Everything got tense as we refueled because there is minimal margin for error. We, the receiving aircraft, flew in the jet stream of the tanker aircraft above us, and we really got tossed around. One of the troubles with the C-140 VIP configuration was it is windowless. So we got tossed around but had no window or horizon to help us achieve equilibrium and overcome motion sickness. I managed to keep my dinner down, but not everyone else was so lucky.
We approached the landing zone of our first stop. I got out of the VIP container, went to a window, and saw some kind of liquid rushing out of the plane’s belly. Our hydraulic system had ruptured, and all the mechanical equipment, including the landing gear, was affected—and we were still in the air. A team assembled and cranked the landing gear down by hand. As we approached set-down, the pilot told us over the intercom that we had no brakes.
So we made what the pilot called a white-knuckle landing. Touching down, we overran the runway and finally coasted to a safe stop hundreds of yards past the normal termination point. We got everything repaired, but the part of the hydraulic system ruptured a second time on a subsequent stop. And finally someone got the good idea to find another aircraft to complete the trip.
On our third stop, I renewed my acquaintance with the head of the local intelligence service, who had become a good friend over the years. He invited me to his home late one evening to have a beer with some of his younger officers and have a leisurely conversation about our business. I agreed, but I made a mistake—I should have told the security officer traveling with the DCI party I was going out and would be returning late.
So I talked with his younger officers, and noticed it was getting really late. My friend drove me back to the hotel, and I asked him to drop me off at the entrance. He did, waved goodbye and sped off. Only then did I discover that, for security reasons, entrances to the hotel had been sealed off when the DCI party went to bed. I could not get back in. I tried every entrance to the hotel—all with no luck. I had no phone or phone numbers, so I couldn’t call anyone. I thought of tossing stones at windows, but remembered that the security guards were armed, so I discarded that idea. One hour of great anxiety later, a laundry truck pulled up to deliver fresh linens. I told the driver my problem, but he refused to let me go in with him. As we argued, one of the hotel maids saw the commotion. I pleaded with her to let me in, but she told me it would cost her her job. I appealed again, this time with a solution. She would leave the door open for one moment and then walk down the hall. If I made it in, she had no role in it. I made it in, and slept soundly.
Our next stop included a visit to the demilitarized zone (DMZ) in Panmunjon—site of the United Nations Control Commission and the front line for U.S. forces. It was a most impressive site, as many who have visited there can testify. It was February, and we stopped there in sub-zero weather. We had the normal briefings, and went to get a peek at North Korea from the most advanced post manned by a U.S. soldier. We were bound up in parkas, and our briefer told us how tough the soldiers stationed in the DMZ were. The outpost soldier stood ramrod straight. I looked over behind him and saw a frozen used condom. I almost fell over. I nudged the DCI, and pointed to the frozen condom. He looked and laughed and said, “Wow, these guys are really tough.”
As the division chief in the CIA’s Directorate of Operations I had the opportunity to provide intelligence and information directly to the customer. In a briefing of then chief of staff, General John M. D. “Shali” Shalikashvili, Shali asked for a detailed account of how we were doing against North Korea. The DCI sent a senior Directorate of Intelligence analyst, Marty Petersen and I to the Pentagon to brief him. We were escorted into the office and introduced to General Shalikashvili. I looked around the room, which was filled with other generals and a horde of colonels. I turned to Shali and said, “General, I apologize, but I cannot provide you with all the information you need with all of these people in the room. We will be discussing very sensitive sources and methods, and I am sure that many of the people in the room do not have a need to know.” The general turned to me and asked if his G-2 (intelligence) could stay. I said of course he could. The general cleared the room. We provided the chief of staff with an overview of our operational capabilities and analytical observations about the North Korea threat.
The general asked very precise questions and was an eager listener. We finished in about an hour and got up to leave. The general stopped us and said, “I just want you to know, on behalf of our armed services personnel, how much we greatly appreciate the sacrifices you in the CIA make daily to make our world a safer place, and to protect the very valuable lives of these soldiers. Thank you both.” I was very moved and very proud to be an officer of the CIA.
In the secure room of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, our oversight committee, Senator John Warner and several other members requested a briefing on Asia. Again, Marty Peterson and I went down and briefed the committee. As we were getting up to leave, Senator Warner asked if we could stay for a moment, as he had something else he wanted to ask the two of us. We stayed in the room, and the other senators departed. Senator Warner had just won re-election in a tough battle after breaking with the Republican Party. He refused to endorse the candidacy of Oliver North of Iran-Contra fame as a candidate for Virginia’s other Senate seat.
Senator Warner looked straight at us and said, “I know I will get a straight answer from the CIA. What do you guys think about what I did to Ollie?” We were both taken aback. I said, “Senator, if I could have voted for you twice, I would have.” He laughed and said, “Yeah, that’s what I thought.” Warner thanked us for our service to the country.
As a division chief and a senior officer, you occasionally get sent on special missions. The U.S. government was concerned about the safety of one of history’s great heroes, Aung San Suu Kyi, the daughter of the man who had led the Burmese independence movement, General Aung San. By 1988, Burma had been under military rule for decades. When Aung San Suu Kyi returned to Burma from exile to tend to her sick mother, she
evolved into the leader of Burma’s democratic movement. She got two things for her efforts: she won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1991, and she was placed under house arrest upon her return from accepting the award. Despite this, she was democratically elected in one of the first real open elections in Burmese history. Shortly after the election, the treacherous military junta ruling the country, known as SLORAC—the Council for the Restoration of Democracy—a misnomer by any definition—overturned the elections and put her under house arrest.
By the time I became chief of East Asia division, Aung San Suu Kyi had already been under arrest for some time. She continued to attract a huge, loyal following, and the military regime considered her dangerous to their desires to continue to dominate the country. All U.S. efforts to free her led to naught. We downgraded our presence there to a chargé d’affaires, and recalled the ambassador in protest. The decision was made to send me to see the leader of the junta, Lieutenant General Khin Nyunt—who was also the head of their intelligence service—on a secret trip while in the region on other business. One of my chiefs in the region made secret arrangements. The rules were that no publicity would accompany the visit. I arrived in country, and prepared for the meeting. I was picked up by an armed detachment of soldiers and taken to a government building. As I exited the car, flashbulbs popped all around me. It was obvious the regime had ignored the agreement of no publicity.
I went into the meeting, and had a most difficult time with the General. I was photographed several more times, and left with nothing accomplished. This was a great disappointment. It took me several days to get over the failure of my mission. The heroic Aung San Suu Kyi remains under restraint by the group of thugs running the country. Numerous other public and non-public missions, including a U.S. presidential envoy, have likewise failed to free this beacon of democracy.
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