John Prados, a senior research fellow at the National Security Archive, is the author of the e-book “Rethinking National Security” and the book “Islands of Destiny: The Solomons Campaign and the Eclipse of the Rising Sun.”He is working on a book about the CIA “Family Jewels.”
Because of an affair that had already ended, the nation this month lost the services of a highly skilled public servant. The hysterical reaction to the news of then-CIA Director David Petraeus’s liaison with his biographer, Paula Broadwell, has done more to harm national security than the affair itself.
Since early summer, the FBI had been, appropriately, investigating the harassing e-mails that Broadwell sent to another woman about Petraeus. Though the bureau eventually uncovered the affair, it found no reason to believe that the general had compromised anything related to security. Yet after the FBI informed the director of national intelligence, James R. Clapper — mistakenly, in my opinion, because no evident crime had been committed — Petraeus resigned ahead of the inevitable wave of public controversy.
That was a judgment call.
Petraeus’s downfall should prompt the intelligence community to make its own judgment call — to end the arbitrary and outdated rules that govern U.S. intelligence employees. These rules have damaged U.S. interests in the guise of protecting our security. On many occasions, they have resulted in the loss of the services, and even the loyalty, of experienced, highly trained people.
Two of the most egregious rules have been the CIA’s insistence on investigating foreigners engaged to agency employees and its own version of “don’t ask, don’t tell,” under which intelligence officers found to be gay lost their clearances or even their jobs. The latter policy was, fortunately, revoked in 1998 by executive order — not by the agency.
The security mavens will say that such rules have protected intelligence officers from blackmail. Since the passage of the Central Intelligence Agency Act of 1949, the agencies’ security units have had the legal authority to enforce such proscriptions. But the thought that a prospective spouse would have to pass a security check must have led many valuable intelligence officers to quit. And the thought that sexual preferences could cost someone her or his job must have led to other departures — or to officers not working to the fullest extent of their capacities, keeping their heads down to avoid attracting attention.
It is impossible to determine how much talent has been lost because of such regulations. There is only anecdotal evidence.
Eric H. Biddle, a skilled operations officer who worked for eight years against the Soviets, resigned from the CIA in 1960 because he wanted to marry his Greek girlfriend. The Soviet Union was our main intelligence target at the time. In another damaging incident that year, National Security Agency officers William H. Martin and Bernon Mitchell defected to Moscow. Officials blamed it on their alleged homosexuality, although evidence was scant, and both went on to marry Soviet women. Nevertheless, the case resulted in dramatic changes in hiring practices, and other agents suspected of being gay were purged from the agency.
Fast-forward a couple of decades, and one has to wonder about the impact on Aldrich Ames, the notorious Soviet spy within the CIA, of the agency’s vetting of his Colombian wife.
Because of an affair that had already ended, the nation this month lost the services of a highly skilled public servant. The hysterical reaction to the news of then-CIA Director David Petraeus’s liaison with his biographer, Paula Broadwell, has done more to harm national security than the affair itself.
Since early summer, the FBI had been, appropriately, investigating the harassing e-mails that Broadwell sent to another woman about Petraeus. Though the bureau eventually uncovered the affair, it found no reason to believe that the general had compromised anything related to security. Yet after the FBI informed the director of national intelligence, James R. Clapper — mistakenly, in my opinion, because no evident crime had been committed — Petraeus resigned ahead of the inevitable wave of public controversy.
That was a judgment call.
Petraeus’s downfall should prompt the intelligence community to make its own judgment call — to end the arbitrary and outdated rules that govern U.S. intelligence employees. These rules have damaged U.S. interests in the guise of protecting our security. On many occasions, they have resulted in the loss of the services, and even the loyalty, of experienced, highly trained people.
Two of the most egregious rules have been the CIA’s insistence on investigating foreigners engaged to agency employees and its own version of “don’t ask, don’t tell,” under which intelligence officers found to be gay lost their clearances or even their jobs. The latter policy was, fortunately, revoked in 1998 by executive order — not by the agency.
The security mavens will say that such rules have protected intelligence officers from blackmail. Since the passage of the Central Intelligence Agency Act of 1949, the agencies’ security units have had the legal authority to enforce such proscriptions. But the thought that a prospective spouse would have to pass a security check must have led many valuable intelligence officers to quit. And the thought that sexual preferences could cost someone her or his job must have led to other departures — or to officers not working to the fullest extent of their capacities, keeping their heads down to avoid attracting attention.
It is impossible to determine how much talent has been lost because of such regulations. There is only anecdotal evidence.
Eric H. Biddle, a skilled operations officer who worked for eight years against the Soviets, resigned from the CIA in 1960 because he wanted to marry his Greek girlfriend. The Soviet Union was our main intelligence target at the time. In another damaging incident that year, National Security Agency officers William H. Martin and Bernon Mitchell defected to Moscow. Officials blamed it on their alleged homosexuality, although evidence was scant, and both went on to marry Soviet women. Nevertheless, the case resulted in dramatic changes in hiring practices, and other agents suspected of being gay were purged from the agency.
Fast-forward a couple of decades, and one has to wonder about the impact on Aldrich Ames, the notorious Soviet spy within the CIA, of the agency’s vetting of his Colombian wife.