Special Access Programs

Former CIA chief of staff Larry Pfeiffer at The Bulwark:

According to the indictment against Trump, eight of the TOP SECRET documents may have had information about or derived from so-called Special Access Programs (SAPs). The sensitivity of these documents was so great that prosecutors were obliged to redact even the codewords on the documents. The implication is that even publicly acknowledging the codenames of these projects, without discussing their operations at all, was deemed a great security risk.

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SAPs have three protection levels—acknowledged, unacknowledged, and waived. Acknowledged SAPs are ones whose existence is openly recognized and whose purpose may be identified publicly. Details of acknowledged SAPs remain classified and access protected by designated codewords. Presidential travel activities are often cited as examples—everyone knows the president travels, and often it’s public long in advance that the president will be in a certain place at a certain time: a U.N. meeting, a party convention, a State of the Union address, etc. What’s secret are the details of how the president will get to and from the events and how the Secret Service will protect him. Funding for acknowledged SAPs is generally unclassified.

Unacknowledged SAPs are those whose existence and purpose require greater protection. All information is classified, and funding is classified, unacknowledged, and not directly linked to the program. Under extremely limited circumstances, the normal reporting requirements of an unacknowledged SAP can be “waived” by the Secretary of Defense. Congressional oversight in those cases would be limited to oral notifications to the chair, ranking members, and staff directors of the respective appropriations and armed services committees.

To recap, of the 31 documents former President Trump is being charged with inappropriately storing at his resort hotel, eight may have contained information about or derived from our government’s most sensitive activities. In the wrong hands, the exposure of that information could risk the lives of U.S. and allied military and intelligence personnel, and foreign intelligence sources and their families—not to mention American civilians.

Secrets

In the past few hours many of us have watched the discussion regarding classified documents & their appropriate storage.

Since like most senior officers I had some experience in this area, I thought it would be helpful to provide some BASIC info.

So, this new 🧵is born! 1/21

— Mark Hertling (@MarkHertling) August 12, 2022

CLASSIFIED is the lowest classification level. It's information that might "damage or disclose" an element of national security.

Classified document may address particulars about a weapon system (e.g., max range of a missile) or #'s of soldiers deployed. 3/ pic.twitter.com/Z85H7VqFIS

— Mark Hertling (@MarkHertling) August 12, 2022

Executive Order 13526 say:

"TOP SECRET classification [is] applied to information, the unauthorized disclosure of which reasonably could be expected to cause exceptionally grave damage to the National Security that the original classification authority is able to identify" 5/ pic.twitter.com/tg0BGZZLGI

— Mark Hertling (@MarkHertling) August 12, 2022

For the highest security clearances, people come to your door - and the door of those you list on your form, and your bosses, your teachers, your friends - and ask a lot of questions. There's also a criminal background check.

The investigation can take months to complete. 7/ pic.twitter.com/P8wAcCeWxd

— Mark Hertling (@MarkHertling) August 12, 2022

Now, there are add-ons, which we're hearing about now. I'll address two:

SAPs or Special Access Programs.
-SCI or Sensitive Compartmented Information
9/

— Mark Hertling (@MarkHertling) August 12, 2022

There are onerous access & security requirements, with only those who have a need to know gaining access. These programs are closely guarded with extreme measures of security, to include use of code words.

Even mentioning those code words to those not read on is a violation.11/

— Mark Hertling (@MarkHertling) August 12, 2022

SCI is classified information that comes from sensitive intelligence sources (people or systems), methods, or analytical processes.

SCI is handled within formal access control systems established by the @ODNIgov .

Often, those with TOP SECRET Clearance also have TS-SCI. 13/ pic.twitter.com/DRb2VR5B6f

— Mark Hertling (@MarkHertling) August 12, 2022

You'll often hear the word "SCIF" (Sensitive Compartmented Information Facility).

That's a secure place where sensitive information can be viewed & discussed to prevent surveillance or spying.

SCIFs are permanent or temporary & usually require special locks and/or guards. 15/ pic.twitter.com/541nPMmMTw

— Mark Hertling (@MarkHertling) August 12, 2022

There are other network, too, (e.g., NATO secret), but I won't get into those.

(BTW, on my desk in Iraq, in a SCIF facility I had a regular computer & three other classified systems...and way too many emails to read late at night when I returned to the headquarters). 17/

— Mark Hertling (@MarkHertling) August 12, 2022

What does a classified document look like? Here's a sanitized one, with markings.

Red marks at top, each paragraph classified, each page numbered with the classification on top.

Note the "classification" and "declassification" block on the lower left. A bit on that...19/ pic.twitter.com/xpRQozyX4p

— Mark Hertling (@MarkHertling) August 12, 2022

The reason the classifier also declassifies is a "process" must notify all others who are involved with the information...or who may be endangered by its release.

Yes, technically, @potus can order declassification...but other people have to know & the date must be noted!!! 21/

— Mark Hertling (@MarkHertling) August 12, 2022

It Is Hard to Figure Out North Korea

John Schindler at Observer:

In fairness to IC analysts trying to make sense of what’s going on in the DPRK, most of their usual sources of information work poorly if at all when it comes to this hard target. We have no embassy in Pyongyang, which means the CIA’s usual practice of employing spies masquerading as diplomats to gain access to the host country’s secrets doesn’t apply. Neither do American firms do business in North Korea, so the CIA’s other option, of employing case officers under non-official cover—called NOCs in the spy trade—posing as businesspeople, doesn’t apply either.

Even if Americans somehow could get into North Korea, the 24/7 monitoring given to suspect foreigners in the country means they’d be hard-pressed to get any spying accomplished. Pyongyang, trusting no one, watches even its friends closely. A senior KGB official who did a tour in North Korea in the waning days of the Cold War admitted that he was under tighter surveillance by his “allies” in Pyongyang than he had experienced in his long espionage career. He told me that he was watched more invasively by North Korean counterspies than he ever had been by the FBI during a previous KGB tour in America.

Even the NSA, which supplies the lion’s share of intelligence in our IC, can’t get much access to North Korea. Pyongyang has buried most of its communications underground, making them immune to conventional interception, while cell phones are almost unknown there. Neither can NSA tap into the country’s computer networks easily, since North Korea barely has Internet access. Being all but sealed off from the world in IT terms means that the DPRK represents a very hard target for NSA, as well as a denied area overall for American spies.

Our spy satellites offer some indications of what’s going on north of the DMZ, but without corroborating HUMINT or SIGINT, that secret imagery is a lot less useful than it could be. The only way to get fresh intelligence about what’s happening in North Korea is by recruiting Pyongyang’s diplomats serving abroad (many of whom are really spies). They’re a pretty unsavory bunch, since DPRK embassies are outposts for crime—counterfeiting, drug-dealing, and various frauds—more than diplomacy, and any spies recruited will be impossible to maintain contact with once they return home.

Trump and Deceased CIA Officers

Shane Harris reports at The Wall Street Journal that CIA director John Brennan takes exception to Trump's disrespect for the intelligence community.

“I think it’s the right and indeed the responsibility of the president of the United States to challenge the conclusions of the intelligence community,” Mr. Brennan said. “We don’t expect our information and our assessments to be swallowed whole.

“It’s when there are allegations made about leaking or about dishonesty or a lack of integrity, that’s where I think the line is crossed,” he continued, taking particular umbrage at Mr. Trump’s comments last week that leaking intelligence on political figures was something that Nazi Germany “would have done and did do.”

“Tell the families of those 117 CIA officers who are forever memorialized on our wall of honor that their loved ones who gave their lives were akin to Nazis,” Mr. Brennan said. “Tell the CIA officers who are serving in harm’s way right now and their families who are worried about them that they are akin to Nazi Germany. I found that to be very repugnant, and I will forever stand up for the integrity and patriotism of my officers who have done much over the years to sacrifice for their fellow citizens.”

 

Doubting the Donald

Jeffrey M. Jones reports at Gallup:

As Donald Trump prepares to take the presidential oath on Jan. 20, less than half of Americans are confident in his ability to handle an international crisis (46%), to use military force wisely (47%) or to prevent major scandals in his administration (44%). At least seven in 10 Americans were confident in Barack Obama, George W. Bush and Bill Clinton in these areas before they took office.

There are good reasons to doubt Trump's readiness.

Former intelligence analyst and briefer David Priess writes at The Washington Post:

We’ve learned that President-elect Donald Trump has declined many intelligence briefings, delegating the daily task instead to Vice President-elect Mike Pence. “I get it when I need it,” Trump said. “I’m, like, a smart person. I don’t need to be told the same thing and the same words every single day for the next eight years.”

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The PDB contains timely and, hopefully, accurate assessments of national security threats and foreign policy opportunities. Each article, drafted by CIA analysts — and, since post-9/11 reforms kicked in more fully in 2005, by their colleagues across the intelligence community — synthesizes classified and unclassified source material into an assessment that is usually no longer than a single page, focused on what the president needs to know rather than what he wants to hear. But does the PDB really repeat things “every single day” for the busiest man in the world?

A newcomer to analysis could be forgiven for underestimating the value of successive articles about the same country, region or city that share similar probabilistic and estimative language. But the slight distinctions from one report to the next often provide the best decision advantage for the president, whether he’s smart or not. As Obama explained in an interview last January, when he goes through the PDB, “I’m looking at: Are there significant differences?” The PDB’s insights into what other governments, groups and individuals around the globe are doing or considering doing — even if only marginally different than in the days or weeks before — help the commander in chief get ahead of crises before they develop or react to them more confidently if they do erupt. Even when the text seems repetitive, there’s value in such incremental updates. Clinton, for example, told me there were few days when he felt he got nothing out of the PDB.

Petraeus for Secretary of State

Disgraced former CIA Director David Petraeus is reportedly under consideration for secretary of state.

During a July 7 hearing, Representative Elijah Cummings (D-MD) asked FBI Director James Comey about Petraeus:

CUMMINGS: If I understand that case correctly, General Petraeus kept highly classified information in eight personal notebooks at his private residence. Is that correct?
COMEY: That is correct.
CUMMINGS: According to the filings on that case, his notebook included the identities of covert officers. He also included war strategy, intelligence capabilities, diplomatic discussions, quotes and (inaudible) discussions from high level national security council meetings and discussions with the president.
General Petraeus shared his information with his lover and then biographer. He was caught on audio tape telling her, and I quote, "I mean, they are highly classified, some of them. They don't have it -- it on -- on it, but I mean, there's code word stuff in there," end of quote.
Director Comey, what did General Petraeus mean when he said he intentionally shared, quote, "code word" information with her? What does that mean?
COMEY: The Petraeus case, to my mind, illustrates perfectly the kind of cases the Department of Justice is willing to prosecute. Even there, they prosecuted him for a misdemeanor. In that case, you had vast quantities of highly classified information, including special sensitive compartmented information. That's the reference to code words. Vast quantity of it. Not only shared with someone without authority to have it, but we found it in a search warrant hidden under the insulation in his attic and then he lied to us about it during the investigation.
So you have obstruction of justice, you have intentional misconduct and a vast quantity of information. He admitted he knew that was the wrong thing to do. That is a perfect illustration of the kind of cases that get prosecuted. In my mind, it illustrates importantly the distinction to this case.
CUMMINGS: And General Petraeus did not admit to these facts when the FBI investigators first interviewed him, did he?
COMEY: No, he lied about it.

Drone Support

Mark Mazzetti and Matt Apuzzo report at The New York Times:

About once a month, staff members of the congressional intelligence committees drive across the Potomac River to C.I.A. headquarters in Langley, Va., and watch videos of people being blown up.

As part of the macabre ritual the staff members look at the footage of drone strikes in Pakistan and other countries and a sampling of the intelligence buttressing each strike, but not the internal C.I.A. cables discussing the attacks and their aftermath. The screenings have provided a veneer of congressional oversight and have led lawmakers to claim that the targeted killing program is subject to rigorous review, to defend it vigorously in public and to authorize its sizable budget each year.

That unwavering support from Capitol Hill is but one reason the C.I.A.’s killing missions are embedded in American warfare and unlikely to change significantly despite President Obama’s announcement on Thursday that a drone strike accidentally killed two innocent hostages, an American and an Italian. The program is under fire like never before, but the White House continues to champion it, and C.I.A. officers who built the program more than a decade ago — some of whom also led the C.I.A. detention program that used torture in secret prisons — have ascended to the agency’s powerful senior rank.

Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) supports the drone strikes.

When Ms. Feinstein was asked in a meeting with reporters in 2013 why she was so sure she was getting the truth about the drone program while she accused the C.I.A. of lying to her about torture, she seemed surprised.

“That’s a good question, actually,” she said.

The Torture Report

Danielle Pletka writes at The New York Times:

The outgoing Democratic leadership of the Senate Intelligence Committee released a report on C.I.A. rendition, detention and interrogation of terrorists in the years following the 9/11 attacks. But here's a red flag: Not one person who managed or ran the interrogation program was interviewed.

Why does it matter? Because the way this “report” was generated colors the notional facts it professes to share. Many of the “revelations” of C.I.A. techniques and black sites are old hat to most. Some approve; others don’t. Fair enough, and in a democracy, such a debate is worthy. The larger challenge comes in determining the efficacy of these techniques. Opponents insist (fueled less by fact and more by their sense of righteousness) that enhanced interrogation doesn’t work. So claims the outgoing chairman, of the Senate Intelligence Committee, Dianne Feinstein.

Here is the problem: Her claim is false. And taken in conjunction with the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence’s unwillingness to interview the targets of their critique, one can only assume that much of the rest of the document is also tainted.

Three former C.I.A. directors -- George J. Tenet, Porter J. Goss and Michael V. Hayden -- and three former deputy directors -- John E. McLaughlin, Albert M. Calland and Stephen R. Kappes -- take down the report’s claims in a short rebuttal that eviscerates Feinstein’s central accusations that interrogation revealed no actionable intelligence and provided no assistance in the capture of Bin Laden, and that C.I.A. officers engaged in excesses of torture beyond limits allowed by the Department of Justice.

Another Intelligence Failure

Shane Harris writes at Foreign Policy:

United States intelligence agencies were caught by surprise when fighters from the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS) seized two major Iraqi cities this week and sent Iraqi defense forces fleeing, current and former U.S. officials said Thursday. With U.S. troops long gone from the country, Washington didn't have the spies on the ground or the surveillance gear in the skies necessary to predict when and where the jihadist group would strike.

The speed and ease with which well-armed and highly trained ISIS fighters took over Mosul, Iraq's second-largest city, and Tikrit, the birthplace of former Iraqi ruler Saddam Hussein, have raised significant doubts about the ability of American intelligence agencies to know when ISIS might strike next, a troubling sign as the Islamist group advances steadily closer to Baghdad. And it harkened back to another recent intelligence miscue, in February, when U.S. spy agencies failed to predict the Russian invasion of Crimea. Both events are likely to raise questions about whether the tens of billions of dollars spent every year on monitoring the world's hot spots is paying off -- and what else the spies might be missing.

The CIA maintains a presence at the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad, but the agency has largely stopped running networks of spies inside the country since U.S. forces left Iraq in December 2011, current and former U.S. officials said. That's in part because the military's secretive Joint Special Operations Command had actually taken the lead on hunting down Iraq's militants. With the JSOC commandos gone, the intelligence agencies have been forced to try to track groups like ISIS through satellite imagery and communications intercepts -- methods that have proven practically useless because the militants relay messages using human couriers, rather than phone and email conversations, and move around in such small groups that they easily blend into the civilian population.

The CIA and the Separation of Powers

Reuters reports:

A bitter dispute between the CIA and the U.S. Senate committee that oversees it burst into the open on Tuesday when the committee chairwoman accused the agency of spying on Congress and possibly breaking the law.

Veteran Democratic Senator Dianne Feinstein said the CIA had searched computers used by committee staffers examining CIA documents when researching the agency's counter-terrorism operations and its use of harsh interrogation methods such as simulated drowning or "waterboarding."

Speaking on the Senate floor, Feinstein condemned how the CIA had handled the committee's investigation into the agency's detention and interrogation program started under President George W. Bush after the September 11, 2001 attacks. Human rights advocates condemn the interrogation practices as torture.

"I have grave concerns that the CIA's search (of committee computers) may well have violated the separation of powers principles embodied in the Constitution," said Feinstein, who is normally a strong ally of U.S. intelligence agencies

The CIA has crossed this line before.  Back in 2005, Lee Edwards wrote at NRO:

In the fall of 1964, the White House turned to the CIA to get advance inside information about the Goldwater campaign, although the senator could hardly be described as a "domestic enemy" (the only valid excuse for agency action). E. Howard Hunt, later convicted for his part in the Watergate break-in, told a congressional committee a decade later that he was ordered to spy on Goldwater's headquarters. He said that President Johnson "had ordered this activity" and that White House aide Chester L. Cooper "would be the recipient of the information."

CIA Director William Colby admitted that Cooper prepared campaign material for Johnson and obtained advance texts of Goldwater speeches through a "woman secretary," clearly suggesting that the agency planted someone inside the Goldwater campaign organization.

Government Contractors and Security Clearances

In our chapter on bureaucracy, we note that the number of public employees is a poor measure of government activity because agencies contract out much of their work to the private sector.  The Huffington Post reports:

The U.S. government monitors threats to national security with the help of nearly 500,000 people like Edward Snowden – employees of private firms who have access to the government's most sensitive secrets.

When Snowden, an employee of one of those firms, Booz Allen Hamilton, revealed details of two National Security Agency surveillance programs, he spotlighted the risks of making so many employees of private contractors a key part of the U.S. intelligence apparatus. 

...

The ties between government and contract workers are so pervasive in Washington that those on each side are known by nicknames: Contractors are called "green badgers" for the color of their identification badges. Government workers, who sport blue, are known as "blue badgers."
...
Of the 4.9 million people with clearance to access "confidential and secret" government information, 1.1 million, or 21 percent, work for outside contractors, according to a report from Clapper's office. Of the 1.4 million who have the higher "top secret" access, 483,000, or 34 percent, work for contractors.
...
Because clearances can take months or even years to acquire, government contractors often recruit workers who already have them.

Intelligence and Deliberation

"The first rule in decisionmaking," wrote Peter Drucker in The Effective Executive,  "is that one does not make a decision unless there is disagreement."

At Associated Press, Lara Jakes reports that the intelligence system used to discourage disagreement.

The system was still in place in 2002, when the White House was weighing whether to invade Iraq. Intelligence officials widely — and wrongly — believed that then-dictator Saddam Hussein possessed weapons of mass destruction. By December 2002, the White House had decided to invade and was trying to outline its reasoning for doing so when then-CIA Director George Tenet described it as "a slam-dunk case."

The consequences were disastrous. There were no WMDs, but the U.S. wound up in a nearly nine-year war that killed nearly 5,000 American soldiers, left more than 117,000 Iraqis dead, and cost taxpayers at least $767 billion. The war also damaged U.S. credibility throughout the Mideast and, to a lesser extent, the world. Tenet later described his "slam-dunk" comment as "the two dumbest words I ever said."

Two years later, Congress signed sweeping reforms requiring intelligence officials to make clear when the spy agencies don't agree. Retired Ambassador John Negroponte, who became the first U.S. national intelligence director in 2005, said if it hadn't been for the faulty WMD assessment "we wouldn't have had intelligence reform."
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To prevent that from happening again, senior intelligence officials now encourage each of the spy agencies to debate information, and if they don't agree, to object to their peers' conclusions. Intelligence assessments spell out the view of the majority of the agencies, and highlight any opposing opinions in a process similar to a Supreme Court ruling with a majority and minority opinion.

The result, officials say, is an intelligence community that makes assessments by majority vote instead of group-think, and where each agency is supposed to have an equal voice. In effect, officials say, the CIA has had to lean back over the last decade as officials have given greater credence to formerly marginalized agencies. Among them is the State Department's Bureau of Intelligence and Research, which warned before the 2003 Iraq invasion that the CIA had overestimated Saddam's prospects to develop nuclear weapons.

Political Pressure and "Zero Dark Thirty"

Focusing on a CIA analyst, "Zero Dark Thirty" tells how the United States got Osama bin Laden.  Despite near-universal acclaim, director Kathryn Bigelow did not get an Oscar nomination this week.  At The Los Angeles Times, Kenneth Turan has a theory:

Back on Dec. 19, Sens. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), Carl Levin (D-Mich.) and John McCain (R-Ariz.) wrote an open letter to "express our deep disappointment with 'Zero Dark Thirty.' We believe the film is grossly inaccurate and misleading in its suggestion that torture resulted in information that led to the location of Usama Bin Laden."

To anyone who knows the academy's traditional aversion to controversy (for example, disagreement dogged "The People vs. Larry Flynt" and the highly regarded "The Hurricane" ended up with only one nomination, for star Denzel Washington, after questions were raised about its accuracy) knew that letter meant Oscar trouble for "Zero." It's not even that surprising that it was the directors who caved in to the drumbeat of condemnation. As one of the smaller voting branches of the academy, it is more susceptible to the vagaries of outside pressure.

...
The senators are within their constitutional rights to insist that "Zero" says that torture led the CIA directly to Bin Laden, but that is not the film I saw. Of the two key prisoners who are tortured on camera, one flat out lies to the interrogators and the other never says anything no matter what is done to him. Hardly a ringing endorsement of enhanced interrogation techniques.

The CIA does get a piece of information from that recalcitrant man, but it is the guile of interrogators employed well after the torture that does the trick. If "Zero Dark Thirty" has any message about what led to Bin Laden's location, it's that, rather than torture, it was the slow, meticulous, painstaking gathering of information over nearly a decade by Chastain's character Maya that did the job.

The Huffington Post reports:

As recent as this week, the debate about whether "Zero Dark Thirty" is pro-torture remained in play. As TheWrap notes, Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences member David Clennon said he would not vote for the film in any Oscar category because of its content. "Zero Dark Thirty" scored a nomination for Best Picture, but Bigelow was snubbed in the Best Director category at the Academy Awards, putting the overall awards picture of the film in heavy doubt. (The 1989 film "Driving Miss Daisy" was the last Best Picture winner to capture the award without a corresponding Best Director nomination.) It's worth noting, however, that Boal did receive a nomination for Best Original Screenplay.

“Torture is an appalling crime under any circumstances,” Clennon wrote in a blog post. "'Zero' never acknowledges that torture is immoral and criminal. It does portray torture as getting results.”

"We are outraged that any responsible member of the Academy would use their voting status in AMPAS as a platform to advance their own political agenda," [Sony co-chair Amy] Pascal Pascal said in her statement. "This film should be judged free of partisanship. To punish an Artist's right of expression is abhorrent. This community, more than any other, should know how reprehensible that is. While we fully respect everyone’s right to express their opinion, this activity is really an affront to the Academy and artistic creative freedom."

Petraeus, Scandal, and History

The current scandal involving former CIA director David Petraeus and General John Allen is not exactly unprecedented. When he was serving as the first Secretary of the Treasury, Alexander Hamilton had an affair with a married woman named Maria Reynolds.  Her husband was a con man who threatened Hamilton.  PBS picks up the story:

Hamilton eventually paid Reynolds more than $1,000 to continue the affair without interference. But then Mr. Reynolds began to tell others that Hamilton was providing him with inside tips about government securities. When a group of congressman accused Hamilton of corruption, he revealed the truth of the romantic affair by sharing his love letters with his accusers.

In 1797 Hamilton's letters were published in a pamphlet by newspaperman James Thomson Callender. In the pages of the pamphlet, he reiterated corruption charges against Hamilton. Hamilton responded with a pamphlet of his own, in which he asserted that no financial improprieties occurred. With candor seldom shown by politicians of his day, or of any other since, Hamilton confessed his affair with Maria Reynolds and apologized.

While some undoubtedly appreciated Hamilton's candor, the disclosure of his affair with Reynolds severely damaged his reputation. It may have even cost him the presidency, a prize Hamilton felt he deserved. Although Hamilton would rise again, his power would never be so great as it had been before the affair.

Here is an excerpt from Hamilton's pamphlet, titled "Observations on Certain Documents":

I owe perhaps to my friends an apology for condescending to give a public explanation. A just pride with reluctance stoops to a formal vindication against so despicable a contrivance, and is inclined rather to oppose to it the uniform evidence of an upright character. This would be my conduct on the present occasion, did not the tale seem to derive a sanction from the names of three men of some weight and consequence in the society; a circumstance which I trust will excuse me for paying attention to a slander that, without this prop, would defeat itself by intrinsic circumstances of absurdity and malice.

The charge against me is a connection with one James Reynolds for purposes of improper pecuniary speculation. My real crime is an amorous connection with his wife for a considerable time, with his privity and connivance, if not originally brought on by a combination between the husband and wife with the design to extort money from me.

This confession is not made without a blush. I cannot be the apologist of any vice because the ardor of passion may have made it mine. I can never cease to condemn myself for the pang which it may inflict in a bosom eminently entitled to all my gratitude, fidelity, and love. But that bosom will approve, that, even at so great an expense, I should effectually wipe away a more serious stain from a name which it cherishes with no less elevation than tenderness. The public, too, will, I trust, excuse the confession. The necessity of it to my defence against a more heinous charge could alone have extorted from me so painful an indecorum.

Cuban Missile Crisis: October 19, 1962

In Springfield, Illinois, the Journal-Register reports on JFK's effort to keep up the appearance of normality in the early days of the Cuban Missile Crisis:

The nation knew nothing about what was happening, of course, and that includes the thousands in Springfield who went to see the president just three days into the crisis on October 19, 1962, as he began a swing through several Midwestern states and the west campaigning on behalf of Democratic congressional candidates. Just a day before arriving in Springfield, Kennedy and Soviet Foreign Minister Andrei Gromyko met for two hours in the Oval Office where Gromyko told Kennedy Soviet aid to Cuba was meant only for defensive capabilities.

Despite the intense discussions and strategy sessions with his civilian and military advisors on how to respond to the situation, the White House thought that having Kennedy stay on his normal schedule would create the impression nothing was amiss. In the meantime, the Joint Chiefs of Staff urged Kennedy to respond with military force, including an airstrike. But Kennedy resisted.

The day after he was in Springfield the president’s press secretary announced that Kennedy suffered from an “upper respiratory infection” and abruptly cancelled the rest of his trip. The president returned to Washington.

David A. Welch and James G. Blight write:

On October 19, the CIA reported the construction of twelve SS-5 launch pads, likely to be operational in December, and more importantly, three SS-4 sites with four launchers each, two sites of which were reported to be operational already.4 American intelligence also revealed the presence of forty-two 11-28 light bombers, capable of delivering nuclear weapons to a range of approximately 600 miles.

Cuban Missile Crisis: October 16, 1962

Fifty years ago today, the Cuban Missile Crisis reached the White House. The JFK Library reports on how President Kennedy learned of the offensive missiles in Cuba:

At 8:45 AM on October 16, 1962, National Security Advisor McGeorge Bundy alerted President Kennedy that a major international crisis was at hand. Two days earlier a United States military surveillance aircraft had taken hundreds of aerial photographs of Cuba. CIA analysts, working around the clock, had deciphered in the pictures conclusive evidence that a Soviet missile base was under construction near San Cristobal, Cuba; just 90 miles from the coast of Florida. The most dangerous encounter in the Cold War rivalry between the United States and the Soviet Union had begun.

The president had several other meetings on Cuba that day.  Here is audio of one, from the National Security Archives:

Tuesday, October 16, 11:50 A.M., Cabinet Room, The White House.

On the morning of October 16, CIA imagery analysts brief the president on the results of U-2 photo reconnaissance overflights of Cuba on Sunday that had discovered the existence of Soviet medium-range ballistic missiles (MRBM) in Cuba.  The briefing begins with an interpretation of the images by Arthur Lundahl from CIA's National Photographic Interpretation Center (NPIC), who speaks loud and clearly, with supporting analysis from the CIA's Acting Director Marshall Carter, whose voice is low and often difficult to hear.  The president then asks Lundahl several questions about the images.  Lundahl then introduces Sidney Graybeal ("our missile man") who shows the president photos of similar weapons systems taken during Soviet military parades.  Obviously concerned, the president then asks Graybeal when the missiles will be ready to fire.  Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara then joins the discussion, adding that he doubts that the missiles are yet ready to fire since there is no indication that nuclear warheads are present.

 

Cuban Missile Crisis: October 14, 1962

The CIA explains why October 14, 1962 was an important date in the Cuban Missile Crisis:

The intelligence picture was complicated further when the best source of information on Soviet military activity in Cuba -- high-level aerial reconnaissance -- was curtailed at a crucial time for diplomatic reasons. In mid-September the Kennedy Administration placed restrictions on US Air Force U-2 flights over Cuba after the Communist Chinese shot down a U-2 over the mainland and the Soviets protested an accidental U-2 overflight of Sakhalin Island.

The restrictions limited aerial reconnaissance over Cuba to a few peripheral and in-and-out flights by CIA-piloted U-2s. Other intelligence -- such as refugee and agent reports, intercepted communications, and shipping information -- could not fill the gap. Unbeknownst to anyone in Washington, the first Soviet Medium Range Ballistic Missiles (MRBMs) arrived at the port of Mariel on Sept. 15, 1962.

In early October, the National Security Council's Special Group relaxed the restrictions on U-2 flights after receiving more reliable HUMINT reports about suspicious Soviet activities in western Cuba. Bad weather and bureaucratic delay kept the first Air Force-piloted U-2 mission under the new reconnaissance schedule from being flown until Oct. 14.

On 11:30 PM (Pacific) on October 13, Major Richard Heyser took off in a U-2 from Edwards Air Force Base in California.  At the Council on Foreign Relations, James M. Lindsay picks up the story:

The flight to Cuba took Heyser five hours. At 7:30 a.m., he began his reconnaissance run, approaching the island from the south. He was flying fourteen miles high, twice the altitude of commercial jet traffic. The weather over Cuba was picture perfect. As the U-2 entered Cuban airspace he switched on the plane’s camera. His job now was to fly a straight and steady course, which meant not letting

his eyes stray far from the circular airspeed indicator. He was flying at an altitude known to U-2 pilots as “coffin corner,” where the air was so thin it could barely support the weight of the plane, and the difference between maximum and minimum speeds was a scant six knots (seven mph). If he flew too fast, the fragile black bird would fall apart. If he flew too slow, the engine would stall, and he would nose-dive.

He scanned the sky for telltale wisps of smoke from Soviet surface-to-air missiles recently deployed on the island. If he saw a contrail heading in his direction, he was trained to steer an S-pattern, into the missile path and then away from it, so that the missile would zip past him, lacking sufficient power to adjust its course.

But no wisps of smoke appeared. It was an uneventful reconnaissance run. After six minutes and 928 photos, Heyser exited Cuban airspace. He adjusted course and headed for his final destination, McCoy Air Force Base near Orlando, Florida.

Analysts at the National Photographic Interpretation Center would soon conclude that were three medium-range ballistic missile (MRBM) launch sites near San Cristobal.  The Cuban Missile Crisis was under way.

Argo: The True Story

Our chapter on national security and foreign policy contains an extensive discussion of the intelligence community, a topic that is doing fine box office right now.

Argo is a first-rate movie about the rescue of six US embassy employees during the Iranian hostage crisis that began in 1979.  The amazing nub of the story is true: the CIA set up a dummy production company in Hollywood and disguised the six as a movie crew. Argo is not, however, completely accurate.  At Slate, David Haglund points out ways in which the movie departs from history.  SPOILER ALERT:   the biggest departure involves the thrilling climax, so do not read the article until you've seen the movie.

On its website, the Central Intelligence Agency is now presenting a first-person account of the true story by Antonio Mendez, "exfiltration expert"  who got the Americans out (played in the movie by Ben Affleck, who also directed).  Here is a clip from an interview with Mendez:



Click here for the CIA's brief history of the episode.

Here are real-life artifacts:

Gingrich and Historical Errors

Newt Gingrich's new book, A Nation Like No Other, contains a couple of historical errors.

Describing the 1942 Battle of Midway, he writes (pp. 159-160):

After a scout plane reports that the enemy carrier fleet has been located, Torpedo 8, along with other bomber squadrons and some fighter jets, takes off to its rendezvous with destiny.

There were no fighter jets at Midway-- or anywhere else -- in 1942. Although both the Axis and Allied forces were developing jet aircraft, there would be no operational fighter jets until 1944.

A few pages later (p.; 167), he discusses intelligence during the 1970s:

During Carter's presidency, the CIA tapped a group of experts on the Soviet Union—labeled “Team B”—to compare the capabilities of the United States and the Soviet Union.

The CIA did indeed commission a "Team B," but it did so during Gerald Ford's presidency, not Jimmy Carter's. The CIA director at the time was George H.W. Bush.

These points are nitpicks, of course, but there are two reasons for noting them. First, Gingrich often refers to his background as a historian, so it is appropriate to hold his writings to a high standard of accuracy. Second, he is seeking to be commander in chief, so his comments on military and intelligence matters merit close scrutiny.

CIA Directors

Our chapter on foreign policy and national security discusses the intelligence community at some length. The community is in the news, with reports that the president is going to name General David Petraeus to head the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). At The Atlantic, Max Fisher says that the move represents a trend "in which the lines between military and intelligence operations increasingly blur."

It is worth noting, however, that four other CIA directors have come from the military:

• Gen. Walter Bedell Smith, USA (1950-1953)
• Vice Adm. William F. Raborn, Jr. (1965-1966)
• Adm. Stansfield Turner (1977-1981)
• General Michael V. Hayden USAF (2006-2009)