The inaccuracies, disinformation, and defamatory allegations regarding Mr. Redmond stem from Mr. Baer’s decision to tell the main story almost exclusively, it appears, from the perspective of three flawed sources with agendas—mid-level CIA officer Laine Bannerman, FBI analyst Jim Milburn and Mr. Baer’s former boss, Central Eurasia Division Chief William Lofgren.
(Ms. Bannerman’s SIU colleagues in 1994-95— Diana Worthen and Maryanne Hough—are mentioned occasionally in the book but are not specifically sourced to the most slanderous allegations against Mr. Redmond. Ms. Hough had apparently passed away by the time the book was written.)
Mr. Baer chose not to give appropriate attention and weight to other people with direct, authoritative roles in CIA and FBI leadership and investigations at the time who told him his theory regarding Mr. Redmond was not credible.
There are several examples in the book where Mr. Baer says he asked former officers directly about Mr. Redmond as the Fourth Man, however their attempts to discredit that irresponsible charge were put in a footnote and/or given minimal attention.
To be fair, honorable serving or retired intelligence officers did not and should not discuss classified, sensitive operations and investigations with Mr. Baer or anyone else not cleared to know. This is especially true in the most sensitive and complex world of espionage investigations and Russian Counterintelligence.
One has to wonder why Ms. Bannerman, Mr. Lofgren and Mr. Milburn provided so much sensitive detail, but with significant distortions, omissions, inaccuracy and mischaracterization.
The information Ms. Bannerman provided incriminating Mr. Redmond in her recollection of the 1994 matrix briefing is inaccurate as are her many other characterizations of CIA’s investigations.
It is important to note that she was relieved as Chief of the SIU in circa August-September 1995 and did not have official access to classified investigations after that. Her recollection of events has been discredited by dozens of people involved in SIU investigations at the time.
Most important the SIU was NOT dissolved by Mr. Redmond as Mr. Baer and Ms. Bannerman allege; rather Ms. Bannerman was replaced with an experienced manager with Russian expertise. The SIU as an institution was expanded and continued to manage complex espionage investigations with the FBI very successfully over the next two decades and beyond.
Mr. Milburn’s motivation is less clear from the book and Mr. Baer does not specifically source as much directly to him, perhaps to protect him. We will not speculate on his motives here but it does appear he may have been influenced in part by Ms. Bannerman’s flawed assumptions and misguided theories.
It is important to note that Mr. Milburn worked directly with CIA’s SIU on the CIA penetration case(s) from the beginning—before the identification of Ames as part of the original SIU—and fully endorsed another CIA officer in 1996 (incorrectly as it turned out) as the primary candidate for the senior level KGB penetration of CIA.
It’s also worth noting that Mr. Milburn is apparently one of the few people involved in the investigations known to have used the term the Fourth Man and—according to Mr. Baer—he participated in the FBI interview of Ms. Bannerman in 2006 where, according to Mr. Baer’s book she shared with the FBI various allegations and assumptions we know to be false and misled her FBI interviewers.
Mr. Baer notes that as he was finishing the book “I caught up with Jim Milburn.” He told Mr. Milburn that Mr. Redmond had told him he had no idea what drew the FBI’s attention to him other than he believes the FBI detests him. Mr. Baer claims Mr. Milburn said “He knows exactly what the FBI has on him. And you don’t know a quarter of it.” (page 239) (Mr. Redmond refutes this.)
Mr. Lofgren, who provided no substantive investigative details in the book, tells Mr. Baer in March 2019 that now—twenty-five years later with no access to investigations or operations—he thought Mr. Redmond might be the Fourth Man and Mr. Baer should see what he can do with that.
Mr. Baer himself states that at that time Mr. Lofgren was suffering from early Lewy Body Dementia, a fact which should have raised obvious questions with Mr. Baer about the reliability of Mr. Lofgren’s claim and his ability to provide and assess credible details of complex investigations two and a half decades later.
In any case, Mr. Lofgren’s allegation, according to Baer, was a major catalyst for writing the inaccurate story he tells.
As Mr. Baer writes “…Lofgren would come around to propose I blow the dust off the Fourth Man investigation and see what I could do to restore it to life.” Mr. Baer claims that Mr. Lofgren “didn’t think he’d solve it” but “Mr. Lofgren’s hope was that in my poking through the ashes, it would come to the Fourth Man’s attention and make him pay the piper in the currency of sleepless nights.” (Page 13-15)
What is particularly troubling is that in their positions, Mr. Baer’s two key sources—Ms. Bannerman and Mr. Milburn—knew that much of the information incriminating Mr. Redmond was false yet they provided it to Mr. Baer anyway—such as the claim Mr. Redmond destroyed the SIU and ran agents out of his back pocket in order to control information that might harm him.
Did they knowingly give Mr. Baer false information to frame Mr. Redmond?
Did Mr. Baer shape information and ignore inconvenient, alternative views in order to present “evidence” to support his 4th Man thesis?
Is it some combination?
Answers to these questions are important to understand how Mr. Redmond was dishonestly defamed by the central thesis promoted by Mr. Baer and his sources:
In sum they lead the reader to believe (falsely) Mr. Redmond knew Ms. Bannerman was on the cusp of exposing him as the high-level KGB spy in the CIA so, to protect himself, he sabotaged the three “spy catchers” by controlling all Russian operations, firing Ms. Bannerman, and closing down the SIU.
Indeed, an honest review of the facts from people involved at the time shows that nothing could be further from the truth.
Mr. Baer may have initially had some pause when Mr. Lofgren suggested he write the book noting that there’d been “no evidence of the man’s treachery that he was aware of” and that “in espionage, like journalism an extraordinary claim demands extraordinary proof.” (Page 14).
Unfortunately, Mr. Baer then decided he wanted to tell the story and made a series of serious mistakes— starting with Mr. Lofgren’s preconceived thesis of the Fourth Man as Mr. Redmond, then recruiting other biased sources and accepting their many falsehoods and incorrect assumptions to build on each other toward that preconceived conclusion.
At the same time, he and his sources irresponsibly rationalize away things that didn’t fit his narrative and excluded key exculpatory information all together. The next chapter shows some of the most obvious examples.