[Salon] I SPY - IN D.C.

I SPY - IN D.C. 

From Michael Brenner

Intelligence is thriving. It is a growth industry nearly everywhere. That has been due mainly to the Terrorism phenomenon. Think of the multiple stake-holders: terrorist organizations, their promoters (Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Qatar), target states, those caught up in associated inter-state conflicts especially across the Islamic world, consultants galore, purveyors of high tech equipment, NGOs. Add to that the New Cold War with Russia, and China’s historic challenge to Western supremacy, and one can readily see why so much effort – and money – is spent in trying to find out who is who as well as who is doing/planning what. 

Americans look at this from their own national perspective. Yet, for most of the world Washington is the target. We are the biggest, the strongest, the wealthiest, the most dominant, the most assertive power on Earth. Nearly everybody has reason to get a better fix on what the powers-that-be in the imperial capital are up to. The United States poses several unique challenges to Intelligence offices abroad. Let’s take a look at them. 

 

  1. Washington is a veritable sea of information.  System overload is a constant danger.  It is one-industry town: government and politics. Everyone communicates with everyone else incessantly about not just the news, but – far more deliciously – what is happening behind the scenes. A relatively clement climate and the chronic failings of the local sports teams encourage this monomania. So, too, do two other peculiar factors: the legions of people who are associated with the politics/policy world, and their extreme mobility. Persons are constantly moving in or out of government, making lateral transfers, aspiring to a position more prestigious/powerful, protecting a vulnerable sinecure, or plotting a political campaign. Only the latest sex scandals have a chance of distracting Washingtonians from this obsession. Even they have, on average, a 48-hour life cycle unless politically tinged (a hardy perennial like the Monica Lewinsky affair is entering its 4th decade). Who remembers Gary Hart or Fannie Fox and Wilbur Mills in the Mall reflecting pool? Or, indeed, Trump campaign manager Corey Lewandowski except the directors of Harvard’s Institute of Politics who made him a much celebrated Fellow? 

     
  2. There are few true secrets in Washington. Rather, it is as a situation where some people don’t know certain things. This is the reality insofar as “soft” Intelligence is concerned. Our masters do manage to keep under wraps a few highly sensitive items: like the nuclear codes, the exact details of the SIOP (does Isfahan figure before or after Qom on the priority scale for an all-out assault on Iran) – and, of course, day-to-day tactical maneuvers. In that last category we can put items like: e.g. why Biden chose Victoria Nuland as his personal envoy to deliver a message of ‘tough love’ to Putin in the Kremlin; what Wendy Sherman will say to Uzbek leaders to win their approval of American bases to serve as toll gates on the lucrative new Silk Road; how we sought to cajole Beijing into China boycotting Iranian oil even as Washington tightened the screws on the American sanctions against the PRC; what diabolically clever ploy Jake Sullivan had in mind when he ‘forgot’ to tell Macron of our plan to stab France in the back later that afternoon: the reasons for hastily abandoning the logistically critical  Bagram air base on the eve of the evacuation rather than sacking it; why the CIA chose this moment to release its sponsored report on the massive abuse of illicit global financial facilities – after scrubbing the names of ALL American miscreants? 


    Otherwise, these delicate matters aside, Intelligence collection is largely a matter of placing oneself at communication hubs where conversation reveals an enormous amount of ‘insider’ information. 


    A few suggestions. Get your agents on the invitation list to the innumerable seminars, talks, and informal discussion groups that abound in the think-tank/foundation universe. This is very easy to do since these gatherings are not at all exclusive. Even a nominal affiliation with one of them, or a chat with a principal, normally suffices. A reporter’s credentials are not an asset since there is a degree of sensitivity, in principle, about the risk of a wayward remark appearing in print – especially if attributed. Most often, there is a significant contingent of ex-officials, aspiring officials, minor current officials, and public intellectual influence peddlers at these meetings.  Their value goes beyond the hard nuggets of specific information they might divulge. Equally, if not more important, is the exposure of mind-sets, doctrinal alliances, personal rivalries, etc. which constitute the soft-ware of American policy-making.  These days, group think in line with conventional opinion predominates. Less exchange, less probing, more tactically oriented. That itself is an important datum. In addition, glimpses of the deeper reasons why all these good brains take shelter deep within the box help one to understand the American psyche.  

     Confirmation of the above assertion is provided by the massive data releases of WIKILEAKS and Edward Snowden.  Some of this vast trove is revelatory – and a fraction of that surprising. However, the largest portion of the material already was known to conscientious observers. Any scholar, analyst or investigative journalist who focused on a particular piece of it was familiar with an even larger fraction.  It was the specifics and the technical stuff that, for the most part, broke the classification barriers. For example, anyone paying close attention could rightly assume that the NSA was sweeping up communications on a global scale, that this vacuuming included the conversations of private citizenships in the U.S., and the communications of foreign leaders. Anyone who didn’t know these things while being in a position to know them simply wasn’t doing their job. Indeed, all anyone had to do was to read James Risen’s detailed expose of the secret plan’s clandestine origins in his 2006 book   - written to elude censorship by his New York Times editors and publisher. 

    As to the video clips depicting the slaughter of civilians by helicopter gunships, that sort of atrocity by both American forces and their rabid mercenaries was common knowledge to everyone on the scene – with the exception of The New York Times’ ace correspondents. 
  3. Speaking personally, I have pursued several research studies that involved the reconstruction and interpretation of decisions made and actions taken on matters of national security (as well as sensitive non-security topics) – and prospective decisions, too. My only credentials were academic and contacts of various sorts built up over the years. I can fairly say that I almost never missed anything of consequence. 

    Admittedly, access has narrowed in recent years. This owes to the sharpening of doctrinal loyalties, the paranoia of the War On Terror, and the government’s intrusion into domains previously considered off-limits along with actions (torture) that have produced a keener effort to keep things hidden from public view. So, the days are long gone when a visitor could leave the office of official ‘X’ then to stroll State Department corridors – dropping in on acquaintances and getting a subsidized snack in the canteen.* These days, you not only are you escorted personally onto “C” Street but you are hounded by either John Kerry’s Alsatian beast or Rex Tillerson’s mobile militia patrols.  Although the main purpose of these latter seemed to be the uprooting of any squatters who may have taken up residence in the great empty spaces opened by his purges. 

    Still, there are ways to circumvent these restrictions. Egotism and rampant ambition are the outsider’s allies. Washington policy circles are a Hobbesian world – for the reasons noted above. In this Age of Narcissism, the old proverb: “Put Number One First” is taken as a universal truth and categorical imperative. That translates into behaviors that can be useful to the spy (Intelligence operative). First, if you are seen as a writer (reporter, free-lancer, academic), immediately you become interesting. For everybody wants their version of the truth to be publicized. It promotes their ideas, it makes them personally look good, and it downgrades rivals, i.e. everyone else involved. The last is not least. This impulse is driven variously by ambition, a faltering self-esteem, or the simple accumulation of frustrations ingrained in an environment where most people feel under-valued. This feeling is accentuated as the standards for holding high office (appointed or elected) plummet drastically to the point where the implicit question ”Why not me?” sounds entirely reasonable. 

    There is a sub-species taking root in Washington that deserves attention: the malignant narcissists. They are not to be confused with the garden variety egomaniacs who are the native fauna holding the position of D.C.’s apex predator forever. This invasive challenger is personified by Donald Trump. Others of similar deformation are being sighted in considerable numbers – whether the original type with this personality aberration as an inborn character defect or one who developed the syndrome over time – the ANSs (Acquired Narcissistic Syndrome). Ted Cruz, Mike Pompeo, Rudi Giuliani and Michael Flynn fall into the latter category. The malignant narcissist is a quite dangerous critter to be avoided whenever possible as they act as if there were nitroglycerine belt strapped around their sweaty egos. They are useless as respondents or reliable witnesses to events but voluble. In other words, they testify not by their thoughts but rather by their performance.  Their antics are the data. 

     
  4. The key for a foreign Intelligence agent is to establish a presence. Get an affiliation – any affiliation. “Associate” or “Non-Resident Fellow” or “Visiting Scholar” will do fine. And it will be yours for life since nobody bothers to check these things. Attend everything. Strive to make some comment on each and every occasion, no matter how brief and/or anodyne. An unusual accent helps since it lends deeper meaning to the most superficial remark. Cultivate the persona of expertise. Doodling in Cyrillic script ostentatiously can be helpful. Or quote T.E. Lawrence from “Seven Pillars Of Wisdom” (even better: Ibn-Khaldun) – throwing in 2 or 3 Arabic words pronounced more or less correctly. If you’ve forgotten the exact quote, make it up – no one will ever know the difference.  It’s advised to avoid Peter O’Toole’s shouted command ‘NO PRISONERS!’ – unless you’re in an all-Republican gathering at the Heritage Foundation. 

    Cultivate a serious air while maintaining an amiable demeanor. Small talk while grabbing a sandwich or filling a coffee cup is an opportunity to make some “Washingtonian” remark. Sports are the common currency of American culture; they cross all boundaries. Just keep in mind that the football “Redskins” are “pitiful,” the baseball Nationals “disappointing” and the basketball Wizards “can’t get their act together.” 

    Once you become habituated to the ethos and mores of this setting, you can begin to think of refinements in your demeanor that could pay dividends in fashioning an image of gravitas. Body language is a subtle yet effective way of doing so. Here’s one example; it’s called the ‘lean-back maneuver.’ Simply put, when the speaker makes a particularly salient or controversial point, drop your scribbling pen and lean backwards in your chair – silently, and shift your gaze towards the far wall or ceiling. This inherently ambiguous gesture can convey either one of two things: thoughtful contemplation or “what the Hell is this guy going on about?”  Let the others around the table guess which one it is; ideally, each will project their own feeling in appraising your gesture. For some reason, the impression is enhanced if you’re in shirtsleeves. With a little practice before the mirror or, better, in front of your video camera, you should be able to perform a passable lean-back.  

    Join the National Press Club. These days, it is a pale imitation of the powerhouse it used to be. Only a handful of American newspapers maintain full-time Washington correspondents – much less State, Pentagon, etc. specialists. It’s cheaper and easier to pay The New York Times or Washington Post to feed you their stories and columns. You simply take their stenographic notes of government releases and reprint them under the local rag’s name. Still, there are some useful contacts to be made – in and around government offices. Membership is available for the asking – they’re desperate for dues-paying members. (Low dues, decent food, good bar). 

    In addition, some accredited journalists can be useful sources in themselves. Especially foreign journalists. Often, they have been around many years. They know where bodies are buried, where graves are being dug, and who is wielding the executioner’s axe.  And who is giving the commands. Most also have close contacts with their fellow-countrymen in the embassies. As a bonus, they can offer a better informed, more subtle interpretation of political attitudes back home than is provided by some monolingual Times correspondent sipping a frappuccino in a chic Beirut or Nicosia cafe.  

    Don’t be too effusive in offering lunch invitations. That can cast you as a lobbyist or some other outsider. You want to be just another insider – a member of the loose foreign affairs community who participates in the moveable feast. So, leave it at “Let’s get together for lunch one day.”  Rest assured that you’ll run into that person again within a few weeks at another one of the watering holes. “I’ll be seeing you, in all the old familiar places” – Sidney Reilly. 

    Do not ignore Congressional staffers. Congress is becoming more aggressive in asserting its prerogatives, albeit it very selectively, so it counts. Most important, they have access to Executive Branch officials – frequently as allies in some struggle or other. Senators or Representatives themselves may be relatively diffident about leaking anything but gossip. Also, they are notoriously unreliable – whether intentionally or due to the awkward fact that nowadays they are not the brightest bulbs in the pack. Staffers, on the other hand, are invariably sharp, energetic, motivated and voluble. They usually know what’s going on. 

    As to transaction currencies, great care should be taken in making a selection from those with proven records for soundness. Money, sex and status are the enduring triad. In dealing with staffers, forget money – at least anything like a direct payment. That is too chancy and most actually have scruples about dealings with foreigners.  Besides, they do not see themselves as “selling” or doing anything improper.   In this respect, they diverge from money-hungry elected politicians who are ever desperate to build up war chests. Offering opportunities for self-promotion (translatable into advancement) depend on your contacts, which as a foreign agent you are unlikely to have in Washington.  

     Sex comes into play as an encouragement to bonding and an ensuing lubricant that loosens tongues. Blackmail scenarios are pretty much excluded, as are overt quid pro quos. If you yourself are the emolument, befriend a few people on ‘K’ Street to learn the appropriate modus operandi.  Do keep in mind the experience of Anna (Vasilyevna) Chapman – the stunning Russian deep agent who never was activated and who never exploited her charms.  She lived an agreeable life in London and then the New York suburbs for years before being ‘uncovered’ by the FBI. (It was pure happenstance. A Bangladeshi meter maid checking her ID for parking in a yellow zone outside Gucci’s in the Trump Tower found her in an DHS data bank). Her only known missions were sending back to her Moscow boss occasional packages of high fashion items from Bloomingdale’s. A quick exchange followed for an equally useless American ‘spy’ caught in Red Square with a folding map of central Moscow asking pedestrians for directions to the Lubyanka. A kindly policeman escorted him there.  Reportedly, the transaction took place in the fitting room at Escada on the KU-DAMM in Berlin on a chill, foggy November evening. The redhead arrived in Moscow as a celebrity. That led to her being exposed as a center-fold in some Russian “gentleman’s magazine.”  Ms “Chapman” has now disappeared from view – unlikely to surface again unless she accuses the FBI agent who grabbed her of sexual harassment. In that event, she would become a New York Times feature in the Sunday Review worth 5,000 words – replete with her personal op ed: “Gender Abuse in the New Cold War – A Survivor’s Story.” Oprah surely would be next – she can count on a 2-hout special were she to marry a Romanov. 

     
  5. Practical Tips 

  1. Cover is the key (see above); no need for disguises. You’re not a celebrity – and nobody pays any particular attention to anybody in America these days.  
  2. Drop boxes, on occasion, may still have some utility. Washington offers limitless possibilities. Three come highly recommended. First, the imposing statue of Mohandas Gandhi that stands in front of the Indian Embassy on a small traffic island formed by Massachusetts Avenue, and “Q” Street.  Its wide plinth is usually strewn by small floral bouquets and token gifts of various sorts. Few dare remove them. Hence, a perfect place for secreting communications.  

    Then there is the Cosmos Club just a few feet away. This grand building encloses all sorts of nooks and crannies. At the end of a long corridor on the 4th floor, there is a hide-away called the Writer’s Room. This dusty space looks to be preserved in time – circa 1951. On the wall are sepia framed photos of writers like Sherwood Anderson and Archibald MacLeish.  A slip of paper or microfiche or thin thumb drive easily can be inserted from behind into a crack in the frame where it will lie undisturbed until retrieved. In fact, were the assigned agent to wind up in the federal pen, this location will keep it intact until Edward Snowden and Anna Chapman enter an assisted living together.  The only risk is that your agent may reach behind that framed photo of Sherwood Anderson to find a couple of thumb drives already in place – or a bit of micro-fiche put there by Alger Hiss.   

    Finally, a somewhat more daring option is the book shop at the Brookings Institution -across Dupont Circle down Mass Ave. This is a very public space where one can browse and, on special occasions, buy a Brookings publication. The collection is comprehensive. That means “classics” from years back that made a splash are available – if mainly for decorative purposes. There, one will find books by Kenneth Pollack and Michael O’Hanlon laying out verbose arguments for invading some country or other in the Middle East. These intellectual embarrassments are displayed in the evident belief that celebrity is success in Washington. Anyway, a secreted message could easily be placed at page 141 (Pollack) where he predicts Arab autocracies falling like dominoes in the wake of Iraq’s historic transition to democracy or at page 97 (O’Hanlon) where he presents his latest rosy assessment of the potent Iraqi army trained by David Petraeus 

    On the whole, Pollack is the better bet. His books are so thick that even if one were to crash onto the floor, your cryptic message should remain securely hidden. With O’Hanlon there is the additional risk, however slight, that some hard-pressed writer for Saturday Night Live might peruse one of his screeds looking for useful material. 

    Caution is in order in following these recommendations since their presentation here could alert the FBI to the danger they pose to the nation’s security. No need to worry unduly, though. To the best of my knowledge, no active member of the United States’ Intelligence or Counter-Intelligence agencies ever reads these commentaries.  


    The Trump Factor (This section was written when the Orangutan still was honoring the White House with his presence. Its value is mainly historical – unless Americans opt for a rerun of “The Creature From The Black Lagoon”). 

    The analyses and counsel presented thus far are not individual or administration specific. They remain generally applicable. However, the cardinal reality in today’s Washington is that almost everything is personalized. While policy orientations may be discerned by tried-and-true methods, there is no way to anticipate individual policy decisions. No one knows what they will be – even the President himself. It follows that one should prepared for anything and to expect the worst.  

     The pinnacle of a spy’s success in the Trump years would be to bribe a waiter at the Metropolitan Club to secrete a video recorder to register the quartet that met (and still meets?) for a prayer breakfast every Thursday in a private room over eggs & bacon with bagels. It comprised Jared Kushner, Mike Pence, Saudi Ambassador Khalid bin Salman Al Saud and UAE Ambassador Yousef Al Otaiba. (True)That should earn a corner office back in Ankara or wherever you call home. 

     So: the savvy observer avoided the lure of the rumors circulating around Dupont Circle that there existed a secretive foreign policy design or plans that gave all these seemingly random actions a logical form. Quite beside the manifest fact that anything of the sort would be beyond Trump’s comprehension, and rejected as a constraint on his irrepressible will, none of the principals was up the task of formulating one. The same could be said of the Biden administration.  Anthony Blinken or Wendy Sherman or Kamala Harris or Jake Sullivan as a grand strategist and/or master diplomat is a hallucination. 

     The practical implication is this. In the event that you find yourself in a close encounter in the dim recesses of a bar with an aide to one of these people who confides her understanding of the administration’s underlying strategy, do not dismiss it as calculated disinformation no matter that it sounds so disjointed as to border on the unintelligible. Rather, discernible coherence and plausibility is a sure sign that it is simply a fabrication by another D.C. wannabe. 

     Trump’s departure has opened an opportunity to gain some insight into his White House’s inside game. The departed have started talking – with the sort of candor associated with escapees from a mental institution. They want to set the record straight; they are keen to avoid being scapegoated; they are bent on settling scores. Moreover, all of those above personalities are voluble. The have an inborn impulse to shoot their mouths off. A veritable Yellowstone geyser. That is the moment to make every effort to be in their company in order to catch the spray. 

    “And laugh at gilded butterflies, and hear poor rogues 

    Talk of court news; and we’ll talk with them too, 

    Who loses and who wins; who’s in and who’s out;  

    And take upon us the mystery of things, 

    As if we were God’s spies, 

    And we’ll wear out packs and sects of great ones, 

    That ebb and flow by the moon”    LEAR 

    P.S. 

    In a message accompanying the commentary I sent out some time ago, this phrase appeared: "most definitively when the CIA disbanded its networks of agents in the early 1990s." 

     That is not quite accurate. "Disband" was poetic license. What actually happened was the acceleration of a process begun in the 1980s under CIA Director Bill Casey (Reagan)- following a period of consolidation under Admiral Turner (Carter). Casey's rampant politicization of the Agency's work had, among other deleterious effects, the erosion of morale and sense of intellectual autonomy among many area specialists and some field operatives. A number took early retirement or left for lucrative private sector jobs. The growth of technology- based information gathering accentuated the process of declining capabilities. As I have been told by a number of people who were associated with the Agency during this period, the institutional culture underwent an enduring change. "Careerism" came to dominate; independence of judgment and assessment was curbed. Analysts and field operatives (such as those placed in U.S. Embassies) held their fingers to the political winds. This process led to the scandalous abuse of Intelligence by George Bush on Iraq. 

    I also understand that reliance was placed more and more on Intelligence provided by allied governments - most particularly in the Middle East. For example, Richard Helms, Ambassador to Iran 1973-1977, thought it improper to run operatives in the country for fear of offending the Shah. Khomeini's people were not a target. That contributed to the shocked surprise when the Islamic Revolution turned the country upside-down. Similarly, we refrain from independent operations (other than some technology-based ones) in Israel, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Jordan. Pretty much whatever they tell us, we accept; such verification as we try to do is handicapped by the absence of independent HUMINT.  

    Would you buy an Old Master painting from Mohammed bin-Salman?  Would you buy a diamond tiara from Bibi & Sarah Netanyahu?  In fact, we have been buying far more valuable things from those sources without independent verification. The results are self-evident. 

     

 


Michael Brenner          

mbren@pitt.edu

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