CIA TO APPEAL COURT DECISION

Judge Robert Lasnik ruled for a second time that he would not dismiss the case, which involves a Seattle-area couple who say the agency reneged on a promise of lifetime financial security in return for their help in obtaining intelligence about their homeland. During the Cold War, he was a diplomat from an unnamed country who defected to the US.
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-CIA-Lawsuit.html

FOREIGN HACKERS GET INTO CLASSIFIED COMPUTERS AT SANDIA

According to this Gertz & Scarborough account, hackers believed to be connected to a foreign government successfully broke into Sandia's classified computer system recently. [If true, this would be a first as far as public knowledge. While there have been many news reports of intrusions into important US Govt national security computer systems, there have been no previous reports that I know of that a CLASSIFIED system had been penetrated. — jdmac]
http://www.washtimes.com/national/inring-2001316211918.htm

VERNON WALTERS PREDICTED FALL OF BERLIN WALL IN 1988

This fascinating first person account by a senior State Dept officer who served in the Bonn Embassy when Vernon Walters (LtGen, former CIA/DDCI, etc) was Ambassador to West Germany. It was posted on IntelForum last week. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED!
http://lists.his.com/intelforum/msg04423.html

SENATOR MOYNIHAN CRITICIZES THE CIA, AGAIN

In 1992, then Senator Moynihan said that the CIA had missed the most important thing of the Cold War — that the USSR was going to self destruct. Therefore, the Senator recommended, the CIA should be abolished. Well, the CIA conference at Princeton, which the former Senator did not attend but apparently read about in the Post, inspired the Senator to make his familiar criticism, again. He also reiterates the the mining of Nicaragua's harbors in 1984, which prompted Senator Goldwater, chairman of the Senate intelligence committee, to write his famous "pissed off" letter, and Moynihan, the vice chairman, to resign.
http://washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A17864-2001Mar16.html
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/03/17/arts/17CIA.html

HANSSEN, HANSSEN, HANSSEN:

RUSSIAN DEFECTORS WHO MAY BE RELATED TO HANSSEN CASE. Sergei Tretyakov, a Russian intelligence officer who was serving under diplomatic cover at the UN, defected to the west in October. In December (by which time Hanssen was under suspicion and surveillance), Yevgeny Toropov, another intelligence officer, defected from the Russian embassy in Ottawa. Speculation is that one or the other of them is the source of the Hanssen files that the US acquired late last year. The Wash Post article also reveals that the CIA had managed to get copies of Hanssen documents but they were signed by "B" or "Ramon." What clinched the case against Hanssen was the delivery to the CIA, apparently from the SVR's Hanssen file in Moscow, one of the plastic garbage bags used to deliver documents in dead drops. Hanssens's fingerprints were identified on the bag.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A16597-2001Mar16.html
http://www.nationalpost.com/home/story.html?f=/stories/20010317/503463.html

WAS HANSSEN DORMANT FROM 1991 TO 1999? The affidavits filed with Hanssen's arrest detail his espionage activities from 1985 to 1991 and from 1999 to 2001, raising the possibility he was inactive through most of the 1990's. However, as Vernon Loeb points out, there are clues he may have been spying all along.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A16011-2001Mar16.html

SHOULD US RETALIATE AGAINST RUSSIA FOR HANSSEN ESPIONAGE WITH DIPLOMATIC AND ECONOMIC SANCTIONS?
http://www.insightmag.com/archive/200104027.shtml

RUSSIAN SVR OFFICER HURRIES HOME. Vladimir Frolov, nominally the press officer at the Russian embassy here but actually a Russian intelligence officer, abruptly packed up and left for Moscow last week. He was not PNG'd. However, the Bush Administration is debating whether or not to PNG (expel) one or more SVR officers in retaliation for the Hanssen espionage case, and perhaps Moscow is trying to preempt that by withdrawing Frolov.
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/03/19/world/19SPY.html

NEXT GENERATION "SMALLSATS" WILL COST $25BILLION

over two decades — the largest contract ever from the intelligence community. The effort will employ 10's of thousands in southern California under contracts awarded last year to Boeing and Raytheon. The "Future Imagery Architecture" satellites are expected to be much smaller and more numerous than today's imaging satellites and will operate in orbits more distant from the earth.
http://www.latimes.com/news/state/updates/lat_spysat010318.htm
http://www.sunspot.net/business/nationworld/sns-techjobs.story?coll
=sns%2Dbusiness%2Dheadlines

CIA DECLASSIFIES REINHARD GEHLEN RECORDS

http://washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A20686-2001Mar17.html

ISRAEL TO LEGALIZE TORTURE?

The government of Ariel Sharon is expected to urge Israel's parliament to approve a law that would allow the security service to torture Arab detainees. The use of "moderate physical pressure" during interrogation has been outlawed by the high court and Yossi Beilin, the former Labour justice minister, resisted demands by Shin Bet, the domestic security service, for its reintroduction. [Will this get in the way of cooperation between the CIA and/or FBI cooperating or exchanging intelligence with Israel? — jdmac]
http://www.sunday-times.co.uk/news/pages/sti/2001/03/11/stifgnmid02002.html

INTERVIEW WITH VLADIMIR SEMICHASTNY, KGB CHIEF DURING THE 1960's

Interesting comments about the Penkovsky case in interview which took place shortly before Semichatny's death in January.
http://www.themoscowtimes.com/stories/2001/03/16/101.html

BAY OF PIGS CONFERENCE IN HAVANA

There will be a conference in Havana next week on the Bay of Pigs invasion. It is co-sponsored by the Cuban govt and the George Washington University based National Security Archive. According to the announcement, former Kennedy Administration and CIA officials will participate.
http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/bayofpigs/

BOOKS & OTHER SOURCES

CNN SERIES ON NSA THIS WEEK

CNN is running a 5-part series of 3 minute segments on NSA during its 10pm EST newscast.

Monday    Codebreakers
Tuesday    Spying on you? (tonight)
Wednesday    Codemakers
Thursday    Listener
Friday    Traitor problems

GEOFFREY ELLIOT with IGOR DAMASKIN, KITTY HARRIS: THE SPY WITH SEVENTEEN NAMES, forthcoming from St Ermin's Press, London.

Harris was born to Russian émigré parents in London, was briefly married to Earl Browder, who was to become head of the American Communist Party, and became Soviet spy. Among other things, she had a long term affair with British spy Donald Maclean while acting as an intermediary between the British diplomat and his KGB controller. All this in a new book. She had been known only by her code names until now
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/et?ac=004563000037636&pg=/et/01/3/16/nspy
116.html

CRS REPORTS ONLINE

After years of fruitless debate over whether the public should be granted direct access to online CRS products, the impasse has been partly overcome as the result of a pilot program in the House of Representatives. Under the House initiative, the CRS still will not provide direct public access (and therefore remains immune to utterly hypothetical liability lawsuits). But instead, individual members of the House can now grant public access to a select archive of CRS reports through their own web sites. Congressmen Mark Green, Christopher Shays, and others have done so. A few notable new reports, all in PDF format, include:

"Intelligence Issues for Congress," updated March 2, 2001:
http://www.fas.org/irp/crs/IB10012.pdf
"North Korea's Nuclear Weapons Program," Issue Brief, updated February 27, 2001:
"Weapons of Mass Destruction: The Terrorist Threat" Dec 1999
http://www.fas.org/irp/crs/RS20412.pdf

REVIEW OF TOMLINSON (MI6) BOOK

http://www.themoscowtimes.com/stories/2001/03/16/104.html

HOW MUCH DID HANSSEN DAMAGE THE US?

In the March 15 "Stuff" I provided the off the cuff answer below of my own and asked for reader replies — which I got. See below.

FROM LAST WEEK: I was asked that question at a recent academic forum. Of course, I only know what I have read in the papers and don't know what the final answer will be, but here's how I responded to the question: From the standpoint of FBI counterintelligence officers, I said, I am sure the damage was a real disaster. However, if one considers that the only purpose of US intelligence is to support US foreign policy by providing information to policymakers, then one has to ask if Hanssen ruined (or even damaged) US foreign policy during the time he was active. Perhaps he did some damage to foreign policy but, in my view, only at the margins and very little at that. Sure, it was a counterintelligence disaster and a terrible tragedy for compromised agents and operations. But, after all, we won the Cold War. What would of or should of the US done differently policywise in the 1980's and 90's that Hanssen's treachery ruined or prevented? — John Macartney

RESPONSES FROM READERS

John: I have had something of the same thought re Hanssen and who won the Cold War, but the issue goes deeper. He compromised many of our collection systems, making future intell collection for us more difficult not only against Russia, but elsewhere, as Russia will undoubtedly share some of this intelligence. — Dr Mark Lowenthal

Hi Mac! Nice way you handled the question on damage assessment. However, I wonder if a better answer might be "As an outsider without any but the info reported by the media, I could not kowledgeably or reliably comment". We sometimes add fuel to the media frenzy when we try to do otherwise. See you on the news at 11. Regards, John Gregoire
PS Thanks for doing stuff. I enjoy and learn something every week. Currently on top of the world as Pollard is still in the pen. He worked for me at one point and I was the "SOB" who first pulled his tickets...a few years before he was caught and charged!

1) broadly speaking, I'd say the purpose of intelligence is to defend over time the Constitution and sovereign independence of this republic from enemies foreign and domestic. hence, it must support policymakers with respect to foreign policy and internal security policy, or "national security policy" broadly speaking.
2) I imagine that we would have to have the results of a full damage assessment in order to determine whether or not, and in what manner, Hanssen may have compromised or influenced directly or indirectly the formulation and implementation of our national security policy. Did his activity assist the Soviets/Russians in the formulation and implementation of disinformation programs, running agents of influence (in our government, academics, think tanks, press, business/like Armand Hammer, etc), protecting agents of influence, running deception operations, acquiring military capabilities, acquiring knowledge of our plans and intentions with respect to national security policy, and so on?
3) You raise an excellent question and the same should be raised about Ames, Pollard, and other cases for example. However, I am not sure that unclassified versions of damage assessments are made available to the public on these cases? Are they? So it is hard to make a case at an unclassified level on this. For example, we are just now getting around to an understanding of VENONA as scholars have put out books over the last several years about it. But I have not seen one that gets into the matter of damage assessment from a foreign policy perspective. That is, how President Roosevelt's own perspectives (let alone his wife's) and policies may have been affected, how the penetration of the State Department and Treasury Department (say the Harry Dexter White case) and other US government agencies, and academic, press, and other influential circles by the NKVD and GRU influenced the formulation of US policy and how this impacted on our national security in the near, medium, and long terms.
4) There is still another problem. That relates to the tendency for discussion and analysis of foreign policy to be dominated by foreign policy elites interested in perpetuating all manner of mythology, and hence in perpetuating a sort of official history. Emerging after World War I, this problem has caused more recent generations to lose an accurate understanding of actual events and the dynamics of this century. At least this is my view. How can an analyst analyze accurately — and predict or forecast — if his/her mind is clouded by official (or semi-official) mythology perpetuated in academic, business, and government circles? Jonkers alluded to this problem in a way when he mentioned factors such as culture, the influence of elite opinion and so on in a recent WIN...
One way to mitigate this problem is through timely declassification of foreign policy related government documents. We should reject the protection of "sources and methods" arguments if these are falsely used in such a way as to simply cover-up policy failures or intelligence failures (thereby perpetuating official "politically correct" history) . Of course, we want to protect what is proper to protect— and just who is it who decides what is proper to protect????. But I think 30 years is way too long a wait for most materials because this creates too much of a memory hole with respect to national policy. And excuses about lack of resources for processing documents are just excuses, resources can always be made available through executive or legislative (earmarked funds) means.... CA Kirofe

I don't actually have an answer, but do think the question relates to what I've been calling the "correlation problem." I.E., there have been at least dozens of significant to serious espionage cases over the past few decades, cubic meters of classified information at all levels shipped out to unauthorized recipients. But there's been very little to no identifiable consequence to the US national security.
Certainly agents have been caught and shot, COMINT operations shut down, etc. But the nearest thing I can find to even potential harm to national security are the guys who gave away war plans or military crypto keys — Sgt. Johnson, the Walker bunch. And even there, the potentiating event would have been a general war between the US and USSR. Whether the final outcome of such a conflict would have been affected by the betrayed information is something I'm very happy not to know.
So, based on what we know now, did Hanssen matter much, would history have gone differently without him or Ames? I don't think so. (See the Cockburn op-ed in today's LA Times for a contrary opinion from Dr. Deutch). Peace-time, non-tactical intelligence mostly matters in the aggregate and in the large scale, and since 1960 or so agent HUMINT has contributed a fairly small amount to the aggregate. — Allen Thomson

John - My off the cuff reaction: Reports of the costs of compromise or the benefits of secret sources are probably both exaggerated in this and many cases. Such reports reflect a lack of understanding about the benefits of secret intelligence. The point of secrecy is to gain an edge. Sometimes this edge is a large advantage and sometimes it is marginal. It is almost always temporary. Penetrations and security failures are just part of the business.
Rather than become excessively outraged when they occur, we need to just go about our business and minimize such compromises (being careful to remember that the surest way to protect secrets is to share them with no one — an approach that also ensures they will have absolutely no value). Bottom line- trying to prove that a single secret was decisive in determining the outcome of the Cold War is a fool's game, but so is trying to prove that secrets had absolutely no value. — Dr Bruce Berkowitz, RAND Corp.

It seems to me as if many Intelforum posts reflect the existence of two different points of view (POV), or schools, concerning the relationship between national security and matters of secrecy, espionage and counterespionage (SE&C).
The first appears to believe that SE&C is an integral and irreducible component of the definition of national security. Presumably that school would list as other components such things as preservation of the national territory and the physical and economic well-being of the citizenry. In this case, it is sensless to ask if compromise of secrets and intelligence/counterintelligence successes and failures affect the national security, because SE&C *is* part of the national security. A name for this POV/school might be "definitionalist".
The second (to which I belong) could be called "instrumentalist". That is, it agrees that preservation of the national territory and the physical and economic well-being of the citizenry — possibly other things — are fundamental components of national security. The difference is that it does not see SE&C as a component of the national security, but rather as instruments or tools meant to protect and enhance the actual components. In this case, one can ask questions concerning the effectiveness of the instruments, their monetary cost, and the possibility of undesirable side-effects. And in pursuit of answers, one can look for evidence that successful application of the tools has had a positive effect on the national security, that failures have harmed the national security, etc. — Allen Thomson

WERE YOU At JICPOA DURING WWII?

Or do you know of anyone who was? NIP, Naval Intelligence Professionals is assisting the CINCPACFLT N2 in building a display in the newly renovated Fleet Headquarters Building in Makalapa, Pearl Harbor, which will honor those who worked in Naval Intelligence in the Pacific in World War II. Centerpiece of the display is the development of Station HYPO, Joint Intelligence Center Pacific Ocean Areas (JICPOA) and Fleet Radio Unit Pacific (FRUPAC) and the vital work performed by these organizations. The display is built insofar as possible around photographs of people and the installations. One major area of Intel production we have been unable to find representative photos for is the large section of the JICPOA which performed photo interpretation and cartography, produced targeting materials, terrain models, photo mosaics, etc. Before integration into JICPOA, photo-intel support to the fleet was done by the Photo-Reconnaissance and Interpretation Section, Intelligence Center (PRISIC), first on Ford Island then at Kodak Hawaii in downtown Honolulu. (Photos from those locations would be useful also.) We need 2-3 photos of people, preferably at work (over light-table, chart drafting, etc), and of products (e.g., target folder, photo-mosaic, terrain model). If anyone can help, we would need materials in hand by 8 April. Pleas contact me by phone at (808) 261-5334 or by Email at . Dick McDonald, Capt, USN-ret

UPCOMING EVENTS

MAR 21, Washington, DC DIA Alumni Assoc (DIAA) luncheon meeting, Ft Myer O'Club, 1130 social, 1215 luncheon. Speaker: RADM Tom Brooks, USN-ret, "Life After DIA." Also Mark Ewing, DepDirector DIA, will give an update on the Agency.
http://www.dialumni.org/flyer.html

MAR 28 — Washington, DC

INSTITUTE OF WORLD POLITICS OPEN HOUSE
The IWP is a Washington based, Boston U accredited graduate school that specializes in courses on intelligence, counterintelligence and national security. They will be holding an open house next Wednesday night, 5-7:30pm, 1521 16th St NW. Refreshments.
http://www.iwp.edu/

MAY 4, Washington, DC

AFIO's 3rd Annual Business Law and Intelligence Symposium at the Reagan Center in downtown Washington.
http://www.afio.com/sections/event_schedule/syplaw21.html

AFIO's LIST OF UPCOMING EVENTS

http://www.afio.com/sections/event_schedule/index.html#IWP

Please NOTE :  In accordance with Title 17, U.S.C., Section 107, this material is distributed without profit or payment to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving this information for non-profit research and educational purposes only.  All Copyright(s) existing prior to the publication of Intelligence "Stuff" in this format and on this web site, remain with their respective original Copyright holder(s) and use of such material(s) here is done in compliance with the conditions set forth above. 
John Macartney is the author of and Copyright holder for the name Intelligence "Stuff" and the content therein, when/where prior copyright(s) are not of issue.