The Master Controller of all Russian Operations and Information
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Ms. Bannerman alleges that, to protect himself, Mr. Redmond ran Russian operations out of his back pocket so he could disrupt and control CIA operations, information and investigations that would expose him as a spy.
She claims he prevented agent reporting from being written up or being put in CI information in databases. (Pages 168-172)
“Mr. Redmond, operating his own personal stable of Russian agents, he alone got to decide which CI leads were taken seriously and which were not.” (Page 220)
Officers directly involved in Russian operations confirm the “Back Pocket” accusation is both ridiculous, false and impossible. No single officer—no matter how senior or clever— could control worldwide Russian operations as she claims. Moreover, a CIA officer no matter how senior, would not have the ability to also control FBI technical and human operations for CI sources.
Ms. Bannerman and her SIU colleagues knew this better than anyone and, given the growing evidence of another spy, what they portray as back pocket Redmond-controlled operations was in fact smart compartmentation to protect ongoing Russian operations and espionage investigations.
After Russian sources were compromised in the mid-1980s, Soviet-East European Division management and Chief of Counterintelligence, Gus Hathaway consciously directed that there must not be a repeat of the James Jesus Angleton era when belief there was a penetration shut down Soviet operations for years. The Division must stay in business.
So Mr. Redmond worked with leadership —including the Deputy Director of Operations—to impose unprecedented draconian compartmentation on the management and communications for, and dissemination of, information from the new operations starting up.
Headquarters management of Russian operations was confined to the “back room”, a very small group of people headed by Diana Worthen (later a member of Ms. Bannerman’s SIU). Thus Ms. Worthen and Ms. Bannerman knew well this new, tightly compartmented way of doing business.
Indeed, the new compartmentation allowed new Russian sources to survive and provide leads to such spies as Ames and Hanssen, even with Ames working for the KGB in-place in CIA Headquarters.
CIA officers involved confirm—contrary to Ms. Bannerman’s claims—that sensitive CI source reporting was in fact always documented in writing, but dissemination was carefully and correctly restricted to those with a clear need-to-know and deliberately not included in electronic databases until it had been appropriately sanitized/protected.
The examples Ms. Bannerman and Mr. Baer cite as evidence of Mr. Redmond running back pocket operations fall apart under scrutiny. For example:
Mr. Redmond personally went out to meet a case officer at the airport who was returning with reporting from a sensitive agent meeting. “Redmond would drive out to Dulles and intercept Sulick gate side then grill him on the drive back to Langley.” (Page 206)
This leaves the reader to conclude sinister motives by eliminating key details which would give the accurate, rational explanation.
In fact, the case officer—Michael Sulick—confirmed to us Mr. Redmond did indeed pick him up at the airport and Mr. Redmond was accompanied by Mr. Lofgren, the Central Eurasia Division Chief at the time (and one of Mr. Baer’s key sources in the book and former boss). They took Mr. Sulick directly to CIA Headquarters to brief CIA Director John Deutch and the Executive Director on the sensitive reporting—,an example of how closely CIA’s senior leadership was following these sensitive investigations and Mr. Redmond’s role in managing it.
Moreover, there were a number of CIA officers in the Field and Headquarters who were involved in the operation and the reporting provided. Finally, FBI agents involved in the sensitive operations knew about the operations and would receive reporting. Hardly “back pocket” as Ms. Bannerman and Mr. Baer suggest.
Three Agent Examples
Mr. X, Alex, and Mitrokin:
Mr. Baer sites the three following Russian sources which Ms. Bannerman uses to incorrectly claim Mr. Redmond controlled Russian operations/reporting from his back pocket. The case officers and others involved confirm Mr. Redmond’s actions were entirely correct and involved other CIA operations officers at Headquarters and overseas as well as full documentation. Here are facts:
Mr. X: (page 204) The CIA station involved made a devastating mistake sending a cable to CIA Headquarters describing a “write-in” volunteer—ostensibly from the KGB—who claimed CIA’s communications were compromised. (Obviously if a source tells you your communications are compromised you don’t put that into a cable.)
The Director of Operations, Claire E. George, himself, face-to-face ordered Mr. Redmond to travel to that Station immediately—that day—to take over the case. Mr. George was vociferously irate over the Station’s error and for the duration of the case Mr. Redmond operated under the personal, detailed direction of Mr. George. The volunteer was never met personally and turned out to be a Russian misinformation operation to distract CIA from Ames.
Alex: (page 203) The Headquarters case officer—Michael Sulick—who met Alex disputes Mr. Baer and Ms. Bannerman’s version about “Alex” as a pattern of Mr. Redmond running off-the-books Russian operations. Of note, this was a Second Chief Directorate case and Mr. Redmond was all in pursuing the operation and most certainly did not assume personal control of Alex as Ms. Bannerman claimed. In fact, Mr. Sulick recalled he met at CIA Headquarters to discuss plans for the operation with Mr. Redmond, Division Chief Milton Bearden and a small group of other officers.
Mr. Sulick then traveled overseas to meet and debrief Alex together with COS Moscow. Mr. Sulick then wrote up the meeting as appropriate and due to many sensitivities we cannot address in an unclassified report, it was appropriately restricted to the people with the need to know.
Mr. Redmond and the other tight group in Headquarters and the Field handled it with appropriate compartmentation.
Vasiliy Mitrokhin: (page 205) Mr. Redmond, who was Deputy Chief of the Counterintelligence Center at the time, learned by accident that Mitrokhin was turned away overseas by the Soviet East European Division and then approached the British.
After confirming Mitrokhin was in British hands, Mr. Redmond, together with the FBI, arranged with the British for access to the Mitrokhin archives. Mr. Redmond then set up a small group in the Counterintelligence Center—which included an FBI employee—to translate it.
Mitrokhin was an archivist in KGB headquarters and he defected with hundreds of documents on KGB operations, worldwide, many of which were sensitive ongoing espionage cases involving Americans. Mr. Redmond and his British colleagues agreed to keep the information closely held while this goldmine was translated, prioritized and investigated. This was a massive feat with tremendous results.
Ultimately after the investigations were concluded, Mitrokhin put much of his information into a fascinating book “The Mitrokhin Archive—the KGB in Europe and the West” which he co-authored with Christopher Andrew.
Ms. Bannerman’s use of this as anything but brilliant CI work is simply dishonest. Moreover, she neglects to say that the SIU had its own database with all this material.