Intelligence_ From Secrets to Policy - Mark M. Lowenthal [118]
PROBLEMS IN COUNTERINTELLIGENCE
Several problems arise in assessing counterintelligence operations. First, by its very nature, any counterintelligence penetration is going to be covert. Counterintelligence officers are unlikely to come across initially compelling evidence about a successful hostile penetration.
Second, the basic tendency within any intelligence organization (or any organization, for that matter) is to trust its own people, who have been vetted and cleared. They work with one another every day. Familiarity can lead to lowering one’s guard or being unwilling to believe that one’s own people may have gone bad. This appears to have been a problem in uncovering the espionage of Ames; the CIA was slow to look inward for the cause of severe losses of assets in Moscow. It was originally thought that Hanssen escaped detection for more than twenty years because of his familiarity with U.S. counterintelligence policy and techniques. However, a 2003 report by the inspector general of the Justice Department (the FBI is part of that department) found that internal laxity and poor oversight allowed Hanssen, who was portrayed as erratic and bumbling, to avoid detection. Most telling, the FBI first concentrated on a CIA officer when hunting for the spy who turned out to be one of their own—Hanssen. It is easier to believe that the problem lies in another agency.
But the alternative behavior—unwarranted suspicion—can be just as debilitating as having a spy in one’s midst. James Angleton, who was in charge of the CIA’s counterintelligence from 1954 to 1974, became convinced that a Soviet mole—a deeply hidden spy—had penetrated the CIA. Some believed that Angleton was reacting to the fact that a close British associate, Kim Philby, had turned out to be a Soviet agent. Angleton was unable to find the mole, and some believe that he tied the CIA in knots by placing virtually anyone under suspicion. Some suggested that Angleton himself was the mole and that he created a furor to divert attention. Angleton remains a controversial figure, but his activities give some indication of the intellectual issues that can be involved in spying and counterintelligence.
For many years counterintelligence was a major source of friction between the CIA and the FBI. Some of the friction was a legacy of long-time FBI director J. Edgar Hoover’s resentment toward the CIA and that agency’s reciprocation of Hoover’s feelings. The friction also stemmed from differing views of the problem. A discovered spy is a problem as well as a counterespionage opportunity that the CIA may wish to exploit. Counterespionage can be thought of as a subset of the larger counterintelligence issue. CI seeks to thwart or exploit any and all attempts to undercut or penetrate intelligence activities. Counterespionage works against the HUMINT aspects (both offensive and defensive) of the Cl problem. For the FBI, spying is a prelude to prosecution. As late as the Ames case of the early 1990s, the CIA and FBI were not coordinating their counterintelligence efforts, which probably prolonged Ames’s activities. As a result of his arrest and the subsequent investigation, the CIA and FBI created a jointly staffed counterintelligence office to correct the mistakes of the past.
Like so much else in intelligence, suspicions of espionage may not always be proven. The case of Wen Ho Lee, a scientist at Los Alamos National Laboratory, is instructive but complex. In brief. Lee’s case came up hard on the heels of a congressional report put out by the Cox Committee (U.S. House Select Committee on U.S. National Security and Military/ Commercial Concerns with the People’s Republic