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Jewish World Review July 31, 2001 / 11 Menachem-Av, 5761
Michael Ledeen
Since the living have not made noticeable progress, I revved
up my ancestral ouija board and tried again. After bit, the
words started to arrive.
"Nothing's happening is it? Just what you'd expect."
Why do you say that? I mean, it's the biggest story in the
country, you'd think they'd go all out to find something.
"Maybe they have. If they know what they're doing-that
would be the FBI, mind you, the D.C. police are not likely to
be counterintelligence experts--they certainly wouldn't let on.
Two reasons for that. First, they wouldn't want Condit to
know, because he might run (he might have been promised
safe haven by his handlers). And above all, because they
wouldn't want the others to know (the Bureau would want to
watch them as long as possible)."
Excuse me, but if I were the FBI, and I knew, or suspected,
that a member of the Intel Committee was actually a foreign
agent, I'd get him the hell away from classified material,
wouldn't you?
"Oh, no. I'd make sure he got some bad intelligence to pass
to his handlers. Throwing him off the committee would set off
all the alarms. The interesting thing is not so much the silence
of the investigators as the passivity of his colleagues. If the
poling data are right, and the Democratic party is suffering
terribly from the scandal, you would expect Gephardt and
Daschle to try to get him quarantined. But they haven't, and
that interests me for another reason."
Namely?
"Namely they don't want the investigators and the press to
look too hard at other colleagues, who might have "intern"
problems of their own. By now, Condit's cannon fodder.
They'd just as soon leave it that way, and not force their
enemies to look for other targets."
I see. Kinda like the Baskerville hound that didn't bark?
"Counterintelligence is not a Sherlock Holmes story. But
inaction is often as significant as action, as the Chinese have
long insisted."
So you'd feel better if other members of Congress were
demanding Condit be fired from the Intel Committee?
"Sure I would. Anyone would. It would be at least one little
step toward reinstituting a minimal respect for security in
government. We haven't had any real security for a
generation in America."
And what about the Republicans?
"The current crop of Republicans is very far removed from
these questions, although I rather like Shelby, who was in the
Agency for a while. But what can you expect from a
Congress with more than 75% of its members having never
served in the military? For that matter, what can you expect
from journalists, virtually none of whom served?
So it's all up to the FBI?
"Probably. And the more I hear about Louis Freeh, the more
it seems he thought he was running the Department of State,
rather than an intelligence agency. One of his top aides was a
Soviet mole, and it's clear that the FBI didn't pay much
attention to such a possibility. Maybe they will be more
aggressive toward Congress."
At which point everything got garbled, and I lost contact. I
had meant to ask him where he thought the body was buried,
but that will have to wait for the next
07/19/01: Be careful what you wish for
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