Cancer at CIA?


In 1997, after one of a number of spy scandals, George Kennan penned an Op-Ed on the utility of the CIA. Many of his concerns have continued to seem relevant -- both because of the ongoing harvest of moles within the CIA (Hanssen was among the latest, finally convicted in February 2001), and because of the more recent history of mis-information, corruption, and, now, revelations about the use of torture. Some excerpts from Kennan's editorial:

It is my conviction, based on some 70 years of experience, first as a Government official and then in the past 45 years as a historian, that the need by our government for secret intelligence about affairs elsewhere in the world has been vastly overrated. I would say that something upward of 95 percent of what we need to know could be very well obtained by the careful and competent study of perfectly legitimate sources of information open and available to us in the rich library and archival holdings of this country.Much of the remainder, if it could not be found here (and there is very little of it that could not), could easily be nonsecretively elicited from similar sources abroad.

...

The attempt to elicit information by secret means has another very serious negative effect that is seldom noted. The development of clandestine sources in another country involves, of course, the placing and the exploitation of secret agents in that country. This naturally incites the mounting of a substantial effort of counterintelligence on the part of the respective country's government. This, in turn, causes us to respond with an equally vigorous effort of counterintelligence in order to maintain the integrity of our espionage effort.

...

There may still be areas, very small areas really, in which there is a real need to penetrate someone else's curtain of secrecy. All right – but then please, without the erection of false pretenses and elaborate efforts to deceive -- and without, to the extent possible -- the attempt to
maintain "spies" on the adversary's territory. We easily become, ourselves, the sufferers from these methods of deception. For they inculcate in their authors, as well as their intended victims, unlimited cynicism, causing them to lose all realistic understanding of the interrelationship, in what they are doing, of ends and means.

"Spy and Counterspy," New York Times, May 18, 1997

Kennan has a history of saying controversial things, many of which turn out to be true.

Three things I would add, particularly in response to whispers about CIA disaffection with the release of memos authorizing torture.

1) The truth has a way of coming out regardless.

2) Were these memos and the narratives of procedures not released, they would remain skeletons in the closet -- to be released (or retained) at the discretion of the foreign intelligence services who cooperated with the CIA.

3) Hanssen and Ames were disaffected agents as well. At some point, the feelings of individual agents become subordinate to the claim of national security.

I try not to be too paranoid in my daily life. I try not to think too much about Juvenal's question: Quis custodiet ipsos custodies? And, beyond paying taxes and nosing about in the national archives as a scholar, I have not connection with the American state. But it takes very little exposure to Le Carre (or Angleton and Philby) to realize how these scandals can cripple an intelligence organization.

This is not to say that the memos and evidence should have been buried. Cancer is not cured by denial.