Agency Management had no Interest in Investigating Spies
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The book said that, “No one was looking for a spy post Ames or wanted to. (Pg 18)
It also said that the SIU investigation was even kept from CIA Directors. (Pg 105)
This is a blatant falsehood. Dozens of senior CIA and FBI officials as well as extensive documentation and CI officers at all levels in both organizations can confirm the intensity of focus on a robust counterespionage effort in CIA, including regular written and oral briefings for the DCIA and a compartmented group of CIA senior leaders. The DOJ report on Hanssen noted above also confirms that fact.
It appears that Ms. Bannerman promotes this canard to create for herself the fallacious image of heroic spy hunter trying to find the Fourth Man in an Agency where no one else cared and to justify her own highly inappropriate “off-the-books” investigation discussed below.
It also would offer a convenient excuse as to Baer’s incorrect claim that no senior leaders were ever briefed on the ridiculous Fourth Man allegation.
In fact, Counterespionage Group management regularly briefed senior leadership and there is ample documentation confirming that and the intense focus by the Agency senior leadership.
After arriving at CIA in May 1995, DCIA John Deutch was very focused on Counterintelligence in the aftermath of the Ames case, as was his new Deputy George Tenet who had been the senior Intelligence Coordinator at the NSC during the Ames arrest and aftermath.
Shortly after their arrival they directed Mr. Redmond to return to CIA Headquarters from his new post as a Chief of Station and promoted him into a new position: Associate Deputy Director for Counterintelligence (ADDO/CI)—the mission manager for all of CIA Counterintelligence, including all the post Ames reforms.
Beyond SIU and counterespionage programs described above, Mr. Redmond implemented many other CI programs across CIA in training and awareness, operations, security, CI analysis, more sophisticated CI databases, a world-class audit capability and other areas for CIA’s post Ames Counterintelligence improvements.
Sensitive CI investigations were regularly briefed to the DCIA, the DDCIA and other senior Agency management as well as any new indications of CI problems. Additional resources were made available as the number of complex investigations expanded.
In addition to senior CIA leadership, Congressional Oversight was heavily focused on studying the mistakes and building improved programs, including the closer partnerships with the FBI, CIC, Office of Security and many other capabilities.
Mr. Redmond oversaw major reviews of the Ames investigation and studied lessons learned across the organization. CIA and FBI provided compartmented briefings to the leadership of Intelligence Oversight in Congress.
Mr. Redmond and Mr. Curran were responsible for building a team that managed the enhanced Counterespionage program with new, very experienced leadership and offensive operations to recruit sources who could tell us where the problems were. Some of the spies that were uncovered include Harold J. Nicholson, Earl Pitts, Robert Hanssen, many others not publicized and many cases with CI and security issues that for various reasons did not reach the level of espionage.
The Example of the Harold James Nicholson Case:
The enhanced SIU after Ms. Bannerman departed worked closely and effectively with the FBI on numerous investigations, including the case which led to the arrest of CIA case officer Harold J. Nicholson in November 1996. The case was resolved in record time largely due to senior leadership focus, the SIU and its extremely effective FBI-CIA partnership.
In the book Ms. Bannerman incorrectly and shamefully downplays the significance of the excellent work done on that case claiming, “without a doubt a full-fledged FBI and CIA investigation into Nicholson would completely derail the Fourth Man hunt.” (Pg 218)
That was of course not the case; Mr. Redmond, Mr. Curran and CIA leadership made sure there were adequate resources to work multiple investigations and the FBI-CIA Nicholson team did an excellent job.
The Attorney General, the DCIA, and the Director of the FBI conducted a joint press conference after the Nicholson arrest to discuss the case and outlined the tremendous joint work done by FBI and CIA as a result of the many improvements. The press release is one of many open source reviews that describe the post Ames changes that assisted in the excellent investigative work.
There were many other examples of errors in the Bannerman/Baer claims but the above illustrate the pattern of distorted facts and falsehoods used to build the case for Mr. Redmond as the Fourth Man.
From a December 2000 article in the New York Times:
. . . . DCI John Deutch never took the time to understand secret operations, with one exception: for a year and a half he monitored the progress of counterintelligence investigators as they closed in on a spy in the CIA who could have turned into a second Ames.
Just what tipped off the investigators remains secret, but according to a CIA official involved, Deutch was briefed on the case very early in his tenure—probably the day he was sworn in’’—and it followed the classic pattern of accumulating clues and a shrinking list of suspects.
From an initial 50 or so, the list shrank at last to one name with evidence enough implicating him for a FISA warrant—permission for a wiretap and other intrusive forms of surveillance from the seven-judge court established under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.
Finding moles, however, was no longer left to the CIA alone; in the wake of the Ames case, Congress had given the job to the FBI At least once a month, a group of eight or 10—Deutch, Louis Freeh of the FBI and half a dozen others—would meet in Deutch’s conference room for a progress report on all pending cases.
‘’Everybody came to those meetings,’’ said one of the participants. ‘’It was their job to come, and counterintelligence was a high priority mission, but the reason they came was that those meetings were goddamned fascinating.’’
Deutch, frequently impatient with routine briefings and eager to press every agenda forward, behaved quite differently at the counterespionage group meetings. He asked questions, he listened to the answers and he didn’t meddle.
Some DCI’s, the participant said, aren’t interested and can’t be bothered. Others get so excited they want to run the show. Deutch struck the perfect balance. He paid attention, he gave the team whatever support it asked and he let them do their job.
By the spring of 1996, everybody in the monthly meeting group and on the ‘’bigot list’’—those individuals cleared to know about a given case or operation, which in this matter included Slatkin, Tenet, Smith and Michael O’Neil—understood that the long investigation had come down at last to one name: Harold James Nicholson, a 16-year veteran of the DO and a past chief of station in Eastern Europe. . . . .
. . . . Eventually this and much other evidence led to the arrest of Nicholson at Dulles International Airport as he was about to leave the country in November 1996. At a news conference the next day, Deutch and Louis Freeh praised the success of their joint effort, and Deutch told reporters that ‘’the story here is that we have a very successful post-Ames counterintelligence effort.’’ . . . .