By Cindy Webb
Retired CIA Senior Executive
Former Associate Deputy Director for Operations for Counterintelligence (ADDO/CI)
“The Fourth Man” has sadly made a contribution to the worst, most irresponsible mistakes in the complex discipline of Counterintelligence, most notably publicly disparaging the reputation of a distinguished officer based on dishonest, unproven allegations by Ms. Bannerman and Mr. Lofgren and reported by Mr. Baer.
Mr. Milburn’s apparent involvement and discussion with Mr. Baer of ongoing sensitive FBI Counterintelligence investigations is also highly inappropriate.
In particular, Ms. Bannerman, Mr. Lofgren and Mr. Milburn shared with Mr. Baer information which incriminated Mr. Redmond, even though they knew it not to be true—such as alleging he destroyed the SIU to protect himself.
Intelligence professionals are disgusted that Mr. Baer—who has no background in Russian operations, Counterintelligence and Counterespionage—would take on such a complex subject matter, and without access to those with the expertise and critical classified information.
Mr. Baer tried to portray himself as just the reporter/storyteller but that is no excuse for failing his responsibility to probe the obvious disconnects in his sources’ assumptions and their motivations in telling their tall tale.
One of the most egregious omissions he makes involve references to senior FBI Agent Robert Hanssen in several places throughout the book but while failing to clarify that the lead from source Max to a senior CIA officer in Bannerman’s 1994 matrix briefing turned out to be FBI Agent Robert Hanssen.
Yet Mr. Baer and Ms. Bannerman continue in this book to incorrectly use those leads to promote their thesis of Mr. Redmond as the Fourth Man.
And of course the claim that Mr. Redmond destroyed the SIU to protect himself is blatantly false as is the ridiculous claim that he ran all Russian sources and information out of his back pocket.
It is the height of professional malpractice for an intelligence officer to use flawed assumptions and speculation to then build a composite (false) and then name someone publicly as committing treason.
In addition, Mr. Baer fails to properly assess the vulnerabilities and motivations of his key sources for telling the inaccurate story they do, while giving minimal attention to those officers—many very senior, accomplished officers—who challenged Baer’s thesis of Mr. Redmond as the Fourth Man.
For Mr. Redmond, the slander has done tremendous damage to his reputation as a legendary leader in Counterintelligence, not only in the US but with many foreign intelligence partners with whom he has worked and from whom he has received numerous medals and other honors. Indeed, those intelligence services follow these issues closely and as they see media coverage will need high-level assurance the book is irresponsible, malicious slander.
There is other damage to consider.
The book provides the Russians (and other adversaries) with a roadmap for potential disinformation and disruption operations.
CI experts have opined it is hard to imagine the Russians (and other intelligence services) would not take advantage of this public accusation to frame Mr. Redmond (if they have not already) to settle old scores with a successful senior CI Chief who disrupted scores of Russian operations throughout his career and managed many valuable Russian operations.
They are quite good at designing deception operations to protect other sources Russian Intelligence may have had (or still have) in the CIA, FBI and elsewhere in the USG and tying up our investigators.
In sum, it cannot be overstated how Mr. Baer’s compilation of flawed assumptions, omissions and untruths from his principal sources have caused tremendous personal, professional and financial damage to Mr. Redmond. His distinguished record is one of a dedicated patriot who spent a career building strong counterintelligence capability in CIA and across the USG.
One has to wonder how Mr. Baer got the key pieces of information which supported the incrimination to Mr. Redmond so wrong, especially when his key sources knew better.
Fortunately, most intelligence professionals who have read the book or have seen the media coverage are savvy enough to see the flaws.
For intelligence professionals who don’t know Mr. Redmond or this history and for people outside the intelligence profession—including Mr. Redmond’s friends and associates—unsubstantiated lingering suspicions are devastating.
It is incumbent on Mr. Baer to acknowledge his sources misled him and issue a public statement that he was wrong in his assertions about Mr. Redmond.
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In Their Own Words……Their Kaleidoscope
In our analysis and recreation of important history we have perhaps made this story more complicated than it needed to be. On one level it is a simple story of a CIA employee who was not willing or able to accept the many changes in how CIA conducted counterespionage work following the Ames case and eventually had to be replaced.
However, a distinguished professional has been irresponsibly called a traitor by people using flawed analytic and investigative tradecraft and false information so it was important to go into great detail to correct the book full of serious errors.
In closing we summarize the complex points made in this paper into one place; here is a direct quote of how Mr. Baer’s sources viewed—point by point—their “case” irresponsibly created by Ms. Bannerman et al against Mr. Redmond (Page 219/220):
“The way Bannerman, Hough and Worthen saw things, Redmond had created a kaleidoscope lined with mirrors of his own manufacture, turning the Fourth Man into his own private hunt.
Operating his personal stable of Russian assets, he alone got to decide which counterintelligence leads were taken seriously and which weren’t.
And he’d been at it for a long time.
It was Redmond in 1986 who’d first arranged to remove Soviet counterintelligence from official cable traffic and finished analysis, then eventually off paper all together.
It was Redmond who finagled himself into a position where he alone got to pick and choose what evidence would be used to unearth the Fourth Man.
It was Redmond who shut down SIU.
Guilty or not, as they saw it, there just wasn’t any other way to look at this side of the story.”
But as our evidence outlined in this report found, there was a much more logical explanation for the story which involved a hero trying to identify spies in the US Government while at the same time promoting and protecting operations in consultation with Agency management.
Fourth Man Into His Own Private Hunt:
Completely ignores FBI Chief Ed Curran and the dozens of dedicated FBI agents and CIA officers working these investigations and Russian operations in 1994 and beyond.
Operating his personal stables of Russian Assets:
Totally False; ignores the operational management decision by CIA leadership to promote draconian compartmentation to protect new operations because management believed—correctly—Russian operations were penetrated by a spy in CIA. No one could control all Russian operations at CIA Headquarters and around the world.
Case officers and Headquarters managers confirmed this completely erroneous allegation which mistakes very appropriate compartmentation for a ridiculous theory of “back pocket” control.
He alone got to decide which CI leads were taken seriously and which weren’t:
Absolute Nonsense. Indeed, the reason Bannerman was removed as C/SIU was because she wanted to control what information went to others, including FBI Chief Edward Curran. The post-Ames reforms in particular made it impossible for any one person to control all information—nor did anyone want to except Bannerman.
At it for a long time. It was Redmond in 1986 who’d first arranged to remove Soviet CI from official cable traffic and finished analysis and eventually off paper all together:
Another action to restrict dissemination of information regarding Russian operations which was the result of a policy decision by senior Counterintelligence Staff, Soviet East European Division officers to impose draconian compartmentation on Soviet operations because of the realization at the time there almost certainly was a spy in the Division. That allowed new Russian sources to survive and ultimately identify Ames, Hanssen, Nicholson, Pitts, and others.
He alone got to pick and choose what evidence would be used to unearth the Fourth Man:
False and Dishonest; there were Stations, operations officers, CE Division Chief, Chief of Russian ops, FBI chief Edward Curran, and of course the enhanced SIU that all saw the raw reporting.
Redmond shut down the SIU:
Simply dishonest and Bannerman, Lofgren, Worthen and Milburn all know it. Bannerman was replaced with another manager and the SIU not only continued but was significantly expanded with FBI agents and CIA officers.
After increasing frustration over many months, Bannerman’s management (below Redmond) decided to relieve her when she asked to be taken out of the chain of command of the Presidentially Directed FBI Chief Edward Curran.
No other way to look at this side of the story:
Classic Confirmation Bias. To them everything they saw had to point to Mr. Redmond as a spy, no matter how contrived. They never considered alternative and frankly far more logical and easily provable hypotheses.
In too many instances they ignored or distorted evidence clearly pointing elsewhere as demonstrated by the history we have provided.
Enlightened readers will see the true story is Mr. Redmond was an aggressive CI hero building strong CI programs for CIA, including establishing the CIA-FBI Investigative unit that identified Ames and then the follow-up SIU.
Beyond the slanderous, dishonest allegations against Mr. Redmond, the real story here is about the dozens of CIA officers and FBI agents who learned the lessons from the Ames case and found ways to do brilliant work together to protect American national security against our most dangerous adversaries.
The CIA had been through a devastating political and organizational crisis after the Ames arrest with many suggesting CIA should be abolished.
Many lessons were learned and to CIA’s credit it built a bigger and more effective counterespionage machine, including a closer relationship with the FBI.
Those CIA officers and FBI agents learned to build a much more effective partnership which in turn led to spectacular successes such as Nicholson, eventually Hanssen and the Russian illegals operation to name a few.
Sadly, the key sources in the book totally miss the real story of the brilliant work done by those who embraced the changes and saw what the stronger “Team America” partnership could achieve to protect the Nation’s secrets.