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Jewish World Review July 17, 2001 / 26 Tamuz, 5761
Michael Ledeen
Why has nobody noticed that Condit sits on the House
Intelligence Committee? All those guys are prime targets for
foreign agents, because they know things about our sources
and methods, the crown jewels of the intelligence business.
The Russians, the Chinese, and all the others, need to know
what we know about their operations against us, and if they
can find someone on an intelligence committee that they can
recruit, they will go all-out to do it.
Now consider Condit's vulnerability. It's enormous. He's
carrying on multiple liaisons, he may have fathered a child or
two out of wedlock, his career can be wiped out by
disclosure. Let's say a foreign agent discovers this (not hard,
as we have learned), and arranges a conversation with Condit
in which the congressman is offered a hard-to-refuse deal:
You tell me what the CIA and the FBI know about my
country's operations, and I'll remain silent about Chandra and
the others. If you don't give me what I need, I'll talk to the
newsies.
Meanwhile, they tap his phone, both because Americans talk
about sensitive information on the telephone, and because
they need to keep close tabs on his problems. Let's say
Chandra, besotted with the guy, heartbroken at the thought of
leaving, desperate to maintain the affair, tells him on the
phone that if he doesn't do the "right thing" by her, she's
gonna go public.
What would you, the top agent of your country here in
Washington, do? You've got this fabulous source, maybe
even better than Ames or Hanssen, and he's also a terrific
agent of influence, because he votes on policy, and not just
intelligence policy. He's about to be ruined by this lovelorn
sweet thing. You'd solve his problem for him, wouldn't you?
And you would certainly not tell him about it. You'd just do
it. Condit might have suspicions, but he wouldn't know
anything. He could even pass a polygraph.
"Do you know what happened to Chandra?"
"Absolutely not." And it's the truth.
Do you think the D.C. cops were alert enough to ask him the
tough, counterintelligence questions? Do you think FBI
counterintelligence has been brought into this case? Do you
think any of these investigators has considered the possibility
that her computer was penetrated by a skilled espionage
agent — a trained hacker — and wiped clean, shortly after
she was dealt with?
I doubt it. Americans don't think this way, even though we've
got tons of evidence that Washington is overrun with
foreign-espionage agents, and we know that the intelligence
community has been repeatedly penetrated by our enemies,
and for the past many years the very idea of serious security
has been laughed at by the highest officials, starting with the
president himself. Clinton's White House was wide open.
All of this is speculation, of course, I don't know anything
that's not in the papers, and it's hard to read the papers from
here. Most of the time we read Hebrew, Greek, and Latin.
But if I were conducting an investigation, I'd look very hard at
the espionage angle.
That's Angleton's take. Yes, he was always very paranoid,
all counterspies are very paranoid. But he was also very
smart, and we sometimes need smart paranoiacs to walk us
through these complicated things. Sometimes they're right.
And even when they're not, it's a great story, isn't it? He's
authorized me to negotiate a movie
07/05/01: Let Slobo Go
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