Emails on ’coming and goings’ of Petraeus, other military officials escalated FBI concerns

By Michael Isikoff and Bob Sullivan
NBC News

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New in this version: FBI search Paula Broadwell's home Monday night; officials say the FBI agent who worked with Jill Kelley, the Tampa, Fla. woman who received anonymous emails from Broadwell, was dismissed from case because he became obsessed with Kelley.

Updated at 11:36 p.m. ET: “Menacing” anonymous emails that launched the FBI investigation which ultimately brought down CIA Director David Petraeus contained references to the “comings and goings” of high-level U.S. military officials, raising concerns that someone had improperly gained access to sensitive and classified information, a source close to the recipient tells NBC News.

The first email sent anonymously to Jill Kelley, the Tampa, Fla., woman who reported the threatening emails to the FBI, in May referred to Kelley socializing with other generals in the Tampa area and suggested it was inappropriate and should stop, according to the source close to Kelley, who spoke with NBC News on condition of anonymity.

After Kelley alerted the FBI, agents began pursuing it as a possible case of cyber harassment or stalking. "The thought was she was being followed," the source said.

The anonymous emails continued -- sent from multiple alias accounts -- and some later ones in the sequence contained references to Petraeus, though not by name, the source said.

What most alarmed Kelley and the FBI, the source said, were references to "the comings and goings" of high-level generals from the U.S. Central Command, which is based at MacDill Air Force Base in Tampa, and the U.S. Southern Command, as well as Petraeus -- including events that were not on any public schedule. This raised the question as to whether somebody had access to sensitive -- and classified -- information.

Moreover, the sender of the emails had "covered her tracks pretty well," the source said.

 

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Behind the email trail that brought down General Petraeus

Bill Clinton who served as the 42nd President of the United States was not forced out by one of the biggest sex scandals, then how can be forced to resign as CIA director General Petraeus? There is only one rational explanation: Next week General Petraeus would have to testify in U.S. Congress about an attack on the U.S. diplomatic mission in Benghazi.

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The Verge/  Adi Robertson

On November 9th, David Petraeus stepped down as Director of the Central Intelligence Agency, after an FBI investigation revealed an affair with biographer Paula Broadwell. His departure was sudden, and while an official resigning over infidelity didn’t break any new ground, the investigation was far more unusual. Initial reports said that the FBI had believed someone else to be accessing Petraeus’ personal Gmail account and began monitoring it, uncovering the affair in the process. Some questions have been resolved as more details emerged, but the surrounding story remains murky, touching on security issues, petty rivalries, and the risks of communicating through "anonymous" channels that are ultimately anything but.

Why was the FBI monitoring Petraeus' email? Well, it may not have been

One of the biggest initial questions was why the FBI had been checking Petraeus’ email at all. It’s now believed he wasn’t the original target, and it’s not even clear that he was being monitored. The bureau was actually investigating anonymous threats to Jill Kelley, a Tampa woman who helped organize military social events at the base where US Central Command is located. Petraeus ran Central Command from 2008 to 2010, and Kelley said in a statement that she had known him and his family for over five years.

The Associated Press and The Wall Street Journal report that Kelley contacted the FBI about "five to ten" anonymous emails that started in May. While their exact contents is still unknown, some reportedly accused Kelley of having or contemplating an affair, and they were apparently enough to launch an investigation. According to The New York Times, it didn’t hurt that Kelley was also friends with an FBI agent, who was able to kickstart the process.

The threats, the FBI soon deduced, were from Petraeus biographer Broadwell

The emails, the FBI soon deduced, were from Broadwell. While she had created a throwaway address, the bureau was able to connect her by matching email metadata (likely IP addresses) to hotels and other locations that Broadwell had stayed. Once the bureau suspected she was to blame, The Wall Street Journal reports, it obtained a warrant to monitor her email, starting with an account she shared with her husband — and soon after, it found a separate Gmail account with sexually explicit messages between her and someone who appeared to be Petraeus.

The FBI apparently believed someone had hacked Petraeus’ personal account or was posing as him

At first, the FBI apparently believed someone else had hacked Petraeus’ personal account or was posing as him to send the emails, a suspicion that was hinted at in the first reports. It’s unknown whether this led them to monitor his email too, or whether they looked for other ways to check the messages’ veracity. Either way, when investigators determined that they had found an affair between Petraeus and Broadwell, it raised other fears. Besides creating a scandal, an affair can leave officials open to blackmail, something that’s especially pertinent when discussing the director of the CIA. In either late September or mid-October, depending on the source, the FBI quietly called Broadwell in for an interview.

When Broadwell was brought in, she confessed the relationship and turned over her computer, adding another layer of intrigue: it contained classified documents that the FBI suspected came from Petraeus. A probe that started with some harassing emails had, it seemed, stumbled onto a serious security breach. Though the exact timeline isn’t known, the bureau seems to have kept quiet after finding the documents, continuing its investigation and asking for a meeting with Petraeus. But Petraeus — who admitted to the affair — denied giving Broadwell the documents, and in early November, Broadwell said they had come from elsewhere.

"Speaking as a friend, colleague and fellow general officer, Gen. Clapper urged Gen. Petraeus to step down."

At this point, the bureau seems to have decided that Petraeus and Broadwell’s affair, which had ended in early summer, posed no security risk. The probe’s conclusions were reported to Director of National Intelligence James Clapper on November 6th — Election Day. By then, however, the news had already leaked. House majority leader Eric Cantor (R-VA) says that a "whistleblower" contacted him in late October through Representative Dave Reichart (R-WA), "concerned that sensitive, classified information may have been compromised." According to The New York Times, it was the same agent who had started the investigation, frustrated by what he saw as stalling progress in the case.

It’s not clear what difference — if any — the leak made on Petraeus’ decision to resign. But a spokesman for General James Clapper says Clapper had asked him to do so on the 6th: "Speaking as a friend, colleague and fellow general officer, Gen. Clapper urged Gen. Petraeus to step down." Afterwards, Clapper notified White House officials, who told Obama on Thursday morning. Petraeus offered his resignation later that day, and Obama accepted it on Friday. Petraeus’ statement to friends and colleagues would be widely reported soon after.

A long-standing departmental rivalry? Technological incompetence? A conspiracy?

Some details may always be missing from the story, but what’s been perhaps most confusing is trying to figure out just what kind of story it is. Is Petraeus’ resignation the result of a long-standing rivalry between the FBI and CIA? Another case of an official being undone by technological incompetence? Was it announced late to give Obama a better shot at the election, or rushed to stop Petraeus from testifying at a hearing regarding the Libya consulate attacks? All these stories have been circulated, and they’re all — as far as we know — wrong.

The FBI / CIA rivalry, former Justice Department inspector general Glenn Fine told The New York Times, "might have been true 20 years ago. But it is hard to believe that is going on today." The connection between Benghazi or the election is also tenuous. An October speech in which Broadwell claimed that the CIA had captured Libyan militia members before the attack has been reported as evidence of a leak from Petraeus, but the anecdote could easily be a garbled version of an earlier Fox News report. It would also have been surprising if this had not come up in the FBI’s report; in fact, the speech was given during the investigation, and the CIA has called the claim "baseless." The election and hearings were almost certainly on the minds of Petraeus and others, but there’s no reason to believe the timing wasn’t coincidental.

A compromised email account bringing down the CIA director would be poetic, but it's not what happened

The idea of a compromised email account bringing down the director of the CIA would certainly be poetic, but reports suggest that if anyone failed to grasp the nature of the internet, it was Broadwell. Without her alleged attempts to threaten Kelley, her Gmail account likely would never have been discovered. Enhanced security wouldn’t have helped Petraeus either, if the affair came out through Broadwell’s email. And it’s possible that the entire situation would have gone unnoticed had Kelley not been friends with a member of the FBI — email harassment, after all, is fairly common.

Petraeus could have encrypted his messages or maintained a false name (he reportedly created the Gmail account under a pseudonym), but the truth is that when everything is connected, it’s difficult to be really unknown. The FBI stumbled across evidence of the affair while tracking Broadwell over at least three email accounts, only one of which had an incriminating connection to Petraeus. Last month, ordinary citizens on Reddit grappled with the implications of matching a real face to an online identity. Now, some of the most secretive parts of the US government are doing the same.

Who will replace Petraeus atop the CIA?

Security Clearence
By CNN Senior National Security Producer Pam Benson

So who might be the replacement for David Petraeus? The rumor mill was in full swing Friday after the CIA director stepped down, saying he had an extramarital affair.

One person being discussed is Michael Morell, the now acting CIA director, who could be named to the position permanently.

President Barack Obama thinks highly of Morell, several U.S. officials told CNN's Chief White House Correspondent Jessica Yellin.

In his statement on the resignation of Petraeus, Obama expressed the "utmost confidence" in Morell continuing the work of the CIA.

Also: Petraeus stand-in has been through this before

Senate Intelligence Committee chair Dianne Feinstein also expressed support of Morell, saying "the agency is in very good hands until the president selects a replacement."

But at the top could very well be John Brennan, the president's powerful adviser for counterterrorism and homeland security.

 

Brennan has shaped the White House's strategy to aggressively pursue suspected terrorists, dramatically escalating the use of armed unmanned aircraft to kill them in the ungoverned territories of Pakistan and in Yemen. Small teams of special operations forces have been deployed to critical locations. And Brennan is said to have the complete trust of Obama.

What could hold him back is exactly why he pulled out of contention for the CIA director's position in 2008 when the newly elected Obama was putting together his administration. Liberal bloggers accused Brennan of supporting outgoing President George W. Bush's policy of harsh interrogation techniques.

Brennan withdrew his name from consideration in an angry letter to Obama.

"It has been immaterial to the critics that I have a been strong opponent of many of the policies of the Bush administration such as preemptive war in Iraq and coercive interrogation tactics," Brennan wrote.

In the end, Brennan wound up with a more powerful position in the administration.

More recently, the White House has been criticized by some Republicans for leaks of sensitive information on counterterrorism operations. Brennan has called the leaks devastating and vehemently denied administration officials were involved. But the controversy could make for a difficult confirmation hearing if he is nominated.

Although many people say they think Brennan is ready to leave the administration after four years in an extremely demanding job, some who are close to him believe he still has his eyes set on the CIA job.

Another possibility for the position: Jane Harman, the former congresswoman from California who is well-respected within intelligence circles.

 

While in Congress she served as the ranking member of the House Intelligence Committee, chaired the Homeland Security Subcommittee on Counterterrorism and Intelligence, and was a member of the Armed Services Committee. Although a social liberal, Harman was seen as a moderate on intelligence and defense issues. She voted for the war in Iraq and initially supported the controversial domestic surveillance program run by the Bush administration.

Harman left Congress to run the Woodrow Wilson International Center, but still speaks out often on intelligence and foreign policy issues.

Undersecretary of Defense for Intelligence Michael Vickers is another name being bandied about.

 

Vickers has spent most of his career in the military and the intelligence community. Early on, he served as an Army Green Beret and a CIA operations officer. He helped arm the mujahedeen in Afghanistan in their battle against the Soviet occupation in the 1980s. His role in that operation was depicted in the 2007 movie, "Charlie Wilson's War," based on a book written by George Crile. Vickers later was named Assistant Secretary of Defense for Special Operations.

In his current position, Vickers simultaneously serves as the director of defense intelligence in the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, and as the primary military liaison to the CIA. His extensive experience working with the intelligence community and special operations forces is particularly noteworthy at a time when both services are a key component of counterterrorism strategy.

Another potential candidate is Mike Leiter, the former director of the National Counterterrorism Center (NCTC). The Harvard Law School graduate spent six years in the Navy flying missions over Bosnia and Iraq. After a stint as a federal prosecutor, Leiter served as the assistant director of a presidential commission on weapons of mass destruction, and was later named deputy chief of staff for the director of National Intelligence.

 

President George W. Bush appointed him director of NCTC, a position he continued in during the Obama administration. As director, Leiter oversaw more than 1,000 analysts charged with sifting through information gathered throughout the intelligence community in an effort to prevent terrorist attacks.

Although well-respected with strong support on Capitol Hill, Leiter did face criticism for the NCTC's failure to connect the dots when a Nigerian man tried unsuccessfully to blow up a Detroit bound airliner on Christmas Day in 2009.

Panetta makes first comments on Petraeus' affair

Security Clearance

The network pool traveling to Australia with Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta reports that Panetta commented for the first time about the resignation of CIA Director David Petraeus. The comments were given during a mid-flight press conference:

SECRETARY OF DEFENSE LEON PANETTA:  “First, obviously, it was a very sad situation to have a distinguished career like that end in this manner. And my heart obviously goes out to him and his family, but I think he took the right step and I think its important when you’re director of the CIA with all the challenges that face you in that position, that personal integrity comes first and foremost.”

“With regards to the future, you know, having served there the first 2 years of this administration, I think its really important to continue to have the CIA stay on track doing the job that is absolutely essential to our national security. They have very important mission focused on intelligence and intelligence operations and I think it’s very important to get someone strong and capable and dedicated to be able to continue that effort. This is a critical time to make sure that with all the threats that we’re dealing with in the world, that we maintain a strong intelligence operation.”

REPORTER QUESTION:  Any indications the Petraeus affair started while he was on active duty? Could he be prosecuted? Would that be your call? (NOTE:  CNN has learned that the affair started after Petraeus was already serving as CIA director)

PANETTA:  “You know, I don’t know the answer to that. I guess, I’m reading the papers like you are to determine just what the committees finds out, what the ultimate investigation determines on that issue. We obviously are going to watch this closely to determine just exactly when that took place. But I think right now my view is lets see what the investigation turns up and what the congress, these committees are able to determine just exactly what took place.”

REPORTER QUESTION:  As a former member of congress – do you think Capitol Hill should have been briefed sooner?

PANETTA:  “That’s another issue I think we ought to look at, because as a former director of the CIA and having working very closely with the intelligence committees, you know I believe there is a responsibility to make sure that the intelligence committees are informed of issues that could affect, you know the security of those intelligence operations.”

Assessing security implications of Petraeus' infidelity

Security Clearance 

With reporting from Suzanne Kelly and Pam Benson/ By CNN's Adam Levine

While affairs may be commonplace in Washington, when they involve the director of the CIA, things can take on a different tone.

Paula Broadwell and David Petraeus/
dailymail.co.uk

A U.S. official has said there was no breach of national security as a result of David Petraeus' affair, but that hasn't stopped discussion that Paula Broadwell could have gained access to classified information as a result of what she has routinely described as "unprecedented access" to Petraeus.

That discussion seemed to gain momentum Monday thanks to comments Broadwell made in a speech last month at the University of Denver.

"I don't know if a lot of you have heard this, but the CIA annex had actually taken a couple of Libyan militia members prisoner and they think that the attack on the consulate was an effort to get these prisoners back," Broadwell said.

A senior intelligence official told CNN on Monday, "These detention claims are categorically not true. Nobody was ever held at the annex before, during, or after the attacks."

Broadwell's source for that previously unpublished bit of information remains unclear, and there's no evidence so far that it came from Petraeus. Administration officials have said the Benghazi assault was a terrorist attack.

The New York Times also reported Sunday that investigators found classified documents on Broadwell's laptop computer. The newspaper cited investigators as saying Petraeus denied he had given them to her.

Retired Gen. James "Spider" Marks, for whom Broadwell once worked and who knows Petraeus, said he doubts security protocols were breached despite what seems an unlikely indiscretion on the part of Petraeus.

"There's almost zero percent chance that national security was compromised or at risk," he said Monday.

A senior U.S. intelligence official said an extramarital affair by a CIA officer is not automatically considered a security violation.

"It depends on the circumstances," the official said.

The official also said Broadwell did not have a security clearance from the CIA.

Another official said Broadwell, who is a reserve Army officer, did have some kind of security clearance and that there are no issues with Broadwell having unauthorized access to classified information.

Petraeus' resignation also presents challenges to the congressional inquiry into the Benghazi attack.

CNN has confirmed that Petraeus recently traveled to Libya to meet the CIA station chief to discuss the attack. He was scheduled to testify before a congressional committee this week on the assault and the U.S. government response to it.

That will now not happen, but it is possible that he could be summoned by Congress to testify later.

Some Republicans have criticized the administration's response to the Benghazi attack and have speculated that Petraeus' departure was linked to the congressional inquiry.

Rep. Peter King, R-New York, said elements of the story "don't add up." He called Petraeus "an absolutely essential witness, maybe more than anybody else."

However, a senior U.S. official said Petraeus' departure wasn't connected to the Benghazi hearing.

"Director Petraeus' frank and forthright letter of resignation stands on its own," said the official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the topic. "Any suggestion that his departure has anything to do with criticism about Benghazi is completely baseless."

Conspiracy or coincidence? Petraeus scandal scrutinized

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Chair of the Senate Intelligence: "We need to talk to Gen. Petraeus"

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Lawmakers question timing of CIA's Petraeus resignation

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Gen.Petraeus' resignation & Cover-up at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave.

Doug Hagmann

According to two well-vetted sources with intimate knowledge of the CIA operations and events in Benghazi, the resignation of CIA Director David Petraeus is directly related to the testimony he was expected to provide before a closed-door hearing next week before the Senate Intelligence Committee. Sources close to the controversy, citing the need for anonymity due to their positions, stated that Barack Hussein Obama was aware of the CIA director’s indiscretions “long before” the November 6, 2012 elections, and knew about the FBI’s investigative findings weeks before the election, but “erected a firewall” to prevent any disclosure before November 6th.

More on  Canada Free Press >>

Also  Hillary Clinton, David Patreaus Slither Away from Benghazi!

CIA spymaster, hello this is my email!

hard to believe that someone has access to CIA Director's personal e-mail account
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CIA Director David Petraeus speaks during a high-level meeting in the White House Situation Room. (Pete Souza/The White House via Getty Images)

Why David Petraeus's Gmail account is a national security issue
Washington Post/ Max Fisher 

The beginning of the end came for CIA Director David Petraeus when Paula Broadwell, a younger married woman with whom he was having an affair, “or someone close to her had sought access to his email,” according to the Wall Street Journal’s description of an FBI probe. Associates of Petraeus had received “anonymous harassing emails” that were then traced to Broadwell, ABC’s Martha Raddatz reported, suggesting she may have found their names or addresses in his e-mail.

The e-mail account was apparently Petraeus’s personal Gmail, not his official CIA e-mail, according to the Wall Street Journal. That’s a big deal: Some of the most powerful foreign spy agencies in the world would love to have an opening, however small, into the personal e-mail account of the man who runs the United States’ spy service. The information could have proved of enormous value to foreign hackers, who already maintain a near-constant effort to access sensitive U.S. data.

If Petraeus allowed his Gmail security to be compromised even slightly, by widening access, sharing passwords or logging in from multiple addresses, it would have brought foreign spy agencies that much closer to a treasure trove of information. As the Wall Street Journal hints, investigators were concerned about Petraeus’s Gmail access precisely because of the history of foreign attempts to access just such accounts:

Security officials are sensitive to misuse of personal email accounts—not only official accounts—because there have been multiple instances of foreign hackers targeting personal emails.

A personal e-mail account like Petraeus’s almost certainly would not have contained any high-level intelligence; he probably didn’t keep a list of secret drone-base coordinates on his Google docs account. But access to the account could have provided telling information on, for example, Petraeus’s travel schedule, his foreign contacts, even personal information about himself or other senior U.S. officials.

Private e-mail services like Google’s, though considered significantly more secure than most, still have susceptibilities to foreign intrusion. And it happens. Technology writers have sometimes discussed what one writer called the “password fallacy,” the false sense of safety created by access systems such as Google’s that balance security against ease of use. Even with Google’s extra security features, the company must also avoid making security so onerous as to drive away customers, making it an easier target for foreign hackers even before Petraeus possibly started sharing access and thus diluting the account’s integrity. And, as a Wired magazine investigation demonstrated in August, personal e-mail accounts often allow hackers access to other personal accounts, worsening both the infiltration and the damage.

All of this might sound a little overly apprehensive – really, U.S. national security is compromised because the CIA director’s personal Gmail account might have been a little easier to hack? – until you start looking at the scale and sophistication of foreign attempts to infiltrate U.S. data sources. Chinese hacking efforts, perhaps the best-known but nowhere near the only threat to U.S. networks and computers, suggest the enormous scope and ferocious drive of foreign government hackers.

Some Americans who have access to sensitive information and who travel to China describe going to tremendous lengths to minimize government efforts to seize their data. Some copy and paste their passwords from USB thumb drives rather than type them out, for fear of key-logging software. They carry “loaner” laptops and cellphones and pull out cellphone batteries during sensitive meetings, worried that the microphone could be switched on remotely. The New York Times called such extreme measures, which also apply in other countries, “standard operating procedure for officials at American government agencies.”

Even still, the publicly reported incidents of successful Chinese hacking – such as a March intrusion that stole a $1 billion, 10-year research project overnight – suggest that the efforts might be near-continuous and the successes rampant. A 2010 Chinese infiltration of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce ended up funneling weeks of corporate data; even after the chamber thought it had reestablished security, it discovered that an office printer and a corporate apartment thermostat were still sending data – who knows what kind? – back to China. You have to wonder what a similar infiltration into the private e-mail account of the director of the Central Intelligence Agency might have turned up.

Of course, the CIA director is not the Chamber of Commerce, which may explain why the FBI’s counter-intelligence monitoring is so sensitive that just Broadwell’s access to his Gmail account triggered an investigation. But the fact that the FBI looked so hard and so carefully – and that Petraeus lost his directorship of the CIA over an intrusion that many of us might consider minor or even routine – underscores the potential risk to U.S. intelligence entailed in Petraeus’s, or Broadwell’s, alleged misuse of his personal account.

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FBI probe of Petraeus triggered by e-mail threats from biographer, officials say

Paula Broadwell with Gen. David Petraeus [CSM Marvin L. Hill]

The collapse of the career of CIA Director David Petraeus was triggered when a woman with whom he was having an affair sent threatening e-mails to another woman close to him, according to three senior law enforcement officials with knowledge of the episode.

The recipient of the e-mails was so frightened that she went to the FBI for protection and help tracking down the sender, according to the officials. The FBI investigation traced the threats to Paula Broadwell, a former military officer and Petraeus biographer, and uncovered explicit e-mails between Broadwell and Petraeus, the officials said. Read more on  Washington Post >>

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CIA Director David Petraeus resigns, cites extramarital affair

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Canadian Diplomats Spied on Cuba for CIA in Aftermath of Missile Crisis: Envoy

Chris Simmons

John Graham at his home in Ottawa.
(Dave Chan for The Globe and Mail)

By Michael Posner, [Ottawa] The Globe and Mail 

In a little-known chapter of the Cold War, Canadian diplomats spied for the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency in Cuba in the aftermath of the 1962 missile crisis – and for years afterward. A major part of that story is told in a forthcoming memoir by retired Canadian envoy John Graham. Mr. Graham was one of a series of Canadian diplomats recruited to spy for the CIA in Havana. The missions went on for at least seven years, during the 1960s. “We didn’t have a military attaché in the Canadian embassy,” explained Mr. Graham, who worked under the cover of Political Officer. “And to send one at the time might have raised questions. So it was decided to make our purpose less visible.” Mr. Graham said he worked as a spy for two years, between 1962 and 1964. His mandate was to visit Soviet bases, identify weapons and electronic equipment and monitor troop movements.

The espionage missions began after President John Kennedy asked Prime Minister Lester Pearson – at their May, 1963, summit in Hyannis Port, Mass. – whether Canada would abet American intelligence-gathering efforts in Cuba. As a result of the crisis, which brought the superpowers to the brink of nuclear war, the Soviets had agreed to withdraw nuclear missiles from Cuban territory, in exchange for Washington’s pledge to remove its own missile batteries from Turkey and Italy. To monitor Russian compliance, the United States needed to supplement data gleaned from almost daily U-2 reconnaissance flights. It had few assets on the ground. Its networks of Cuban agents had been progressively rolled up by Castro’s efficient counterintelligence service. And having severed diplomatic relations with Cuba in 1961, it had no embassy of its own through which to infiltrate American spies.

Soon after the summit meeting, Ottawa sent diplomat George Cowley to Havana. Now deceased, Mr. Cowley, who had served in the Canadian embassy in Japan and sold encyclopedias in Africa, spent about two months in Havana in the late spring of 1963. He was followed by Mr. Graham, seconded from his post as chargé d’affaires in the Dominican Republic. His formal training, he told The Globe and Mail, was minimal – a few days at CIA headquarters in Langley, Va. At the end of it, an agency officer offered him a farewell gift – a sophisticated camera with an assortment of telephoto lenses. He declined the present, arguing that if he were ever caught with it, he’d surely be arrested. “But how will we know what the Soviet military convoys are carrying?” a CIA officer asked him. “We need precision. Configuration is essential for recognition.” “I’ll draw you pictures,” Mr. Graham said. “It was a bit like the character in Graham Greene’s Our Man in Havana, but that’s what I did.”

Story continues here:  http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/world/canadian-diplomats-spied-on-cuba-for-cia-in-aftermath-of-missile-crisis-envoy/article4614595/

The Origins of “Glomar” Declassified

A USGS Satellite photo of the Glomar Explorer in Suisun Bay, CA

UNREDACTED/ By William Burr

On 19 March 1975, the New York Times’ front page included Seymour Hersh’s headline story, “C.I.A. Salvage Ship Brought Up Part of Soviet Sub Lost in 1968, Failed to Raise Atom Missiles.” This was the story of the ship Glomar Explorer, constructed by one of Howard Hughes’ companies under CIA contract, and built to salvage a Soviet submarine three miles in Pacific waters. The National Archives has recently declassified in full, in response to a mandatory declassification review appeal, the record of a White House discussion that same day about Hersh’s story. President Gerald Ford met with White House advisers, Secretary of Defense James Schlesinger, and CIA director William Colby and discussed a response to the disclosure of “Operation Matador,” the code name for the salvaging project. Schlesinger wanted to confirm the story because it was “a major American accomplishment”, a “marvel,” and going public would help it avoid looking like “part of a covert operation.” Unpersuaded, Colby wanted to keep the lid on it. Recalling the May 1960 U-2 affair, when President Eisenhower acknowledged his responsibility which led to the collapse of the Paris summit meeting in May 1960, Colby wanted to take a different tack: “We should not put the Soviet Union under such pressure to respond.” With U.S.-Soviet détente under pressure in the United States, Colby thought it better to avoid new tensions in relations with Moscow.  More >>

La ironía de Aspillaga (I)

Desde el sitio de Ichikawa

 

Arnaldo M. Fernández

El 6 de junio de 1987, el mayor Florentino Aspillaga Lombard cruzó en carro diplomático la frontera entre Checoslovaquia y Austria para dirigirse a la embajada americana. A los nueve días estaba en Washington para mejor debriefing con la CIA. Aspillaga era jefe de la estación de Dirección General de Inteligencia (DGI) en Praga, por donde pasaba la mayoría de los agentes ilegales de Castro, sobre todo hacia Latinoamérica. No en balde Aspillaga anunció que revelaría las identidades de 350 agentes infiltrados en gobiernos extranjeros y hasta dio plazo explícito para que esos compañeros regresaran sanos y salvos a la Isla. Aspillaga abrió con entrevistas para Radio Martí (agosto 3 y 7, 1987), siguió con el reportaje “Spilled Beans; A defector bares Cuban secrets” (Time, agosto 24 de 1987, página 17) y así salió al ruedo mediático su golpe demoledor contra Castro: Aspillaga puso al desnudo a 38 agentes de la CIA que eran realmente agentes de Castro y advirtió de paso que Castro había detectado a 151 de 179 agentes de la CIA relacionados de algún modo con el «problema cubano», entre ellos 24 asignados a la sección de intereses de EE. UU. en La Habana (SINA), quienes fueron transferidos de inmediato.

Dizque Aspillaga consiguió identificar hasta 85 dobles agentes y puso en la picota que casi todo cubano reclutado por la CIA desde 1961 estaba bajo control de la DGI, ergo: casi todo lo que la CIA sabía sobre Cuba era pura desinformación con guión y coreografía del propio Castro. Ernest Volkman, co-autor de Secret Intelligence (Doubleday, 1988, 265 páginas) precisaría que el pobre desempeño de la CIA y su inexplicable candidez redondearon el éxito de Castro. A este respecto, un ex analista from inside the company, el Dr. Brian Latell, lamenta en su libro Castro’s Secrets: The CIA and Cuba’s Intelligence Machine (Palgrave Macmillan, 2012) las fallas de la CIA en su guerra contra Castro e irónicamente da ejemplo ilustrativo de semejante impericia al montar buena parte del tinglado analítico del libro sobre el testimonio de Aspillaga. Para subir la parada de sus revelaciones, Aspillaga contó a Latell haber dicho a la CIA en el debriefing de 1987 que Castro sabía que Lee Harvey Oswald mataría al presidente Kennedy en Dallas (Tejas) el 22 de noviembre de 1963. Este secreto se habría guardado hasta que Latell resolvió dar a imprenta otro libro sobre «el problema cubano».

Aspillaga queda desacreditado como testigo fiable porque al darse el escándalo mediático de la película JFK (1991), de Oliver Stone, se formó (1992) la Junta de Revisión de Archivos del Asesinato (ARRB, por sus siglas en inglés) para sesionar largo y tendido —hasta 1998— sin que la CIA presentara a Aspillaga ni siquiera después que uno de los peritos de ARRB y autor de Crime of the Century (Branch Line, 1982, 272 páginas), el historiador Michael Kurtz (Universidad de Luisiana Suroriental), diera el pie forzado de la conexión de Castro como «algo plausible». Aquí sólo cabe que Aspillaga sirvió a Latell una anécdota a la carta para el nuevo libro, o que la CIA desechó a Aspillaga porque no rinde testimonio, sino mero silogismo: si la mañana del 22 de diciembre de 1963 le ordenaron dejar de rastrear la estación de la CIA en Miami y enfilar las antenas hacia Tejas, entonces «Castro sabía que matarían a Kennedy». No hay que ser analista de la CIA para detectar aquí la clásica falacia de non sequitur.

-Foto: Latell firma un ejemplar de su anterior libro: After Fidel: The Inside Story of Castro’s Regime and Cuba’s Next Leader (Palgrave Macmillan, 2005, 288 páginas), que dio pie a la ilusión cubanológica del «raulismo» © Gerry Broome/AP

This Date in History: The CIA’s Failed Cuba Program Exposed

by Chris Simmons

          June 1987:  Florentino Aspillaga Lombard, head of the intelligence center at the Cuban Embassy in Prague, Czechoslovakia, defected to the US.  Aspillaga revealed to the CIA one of Havana’s most closely held secrets – almost every Cuban agent the CIA had recruited since 1961 was actually controlled by Cuban Intelligence.  Aspillaga told the CIA he knew this as he had previously worked for the element that targeted CIA operations in Cuba.

          According to media accounts, Aspillaga claimed that Havana had “turned” 38 of the CIA’s Cuban agents.  He explained that the CIA assets had been “dangled” before the CIA by Havana or identified and “doubled back” after their recruitment by CIA case officers.  Furthermore, this decades-long operation helped Cuba identify between 151 to 179 CIA officers.  In sum, almost everything the CIA thought it knew about Cuba was well choreographed disinformation scripted by Havana.  According to published accounts, 24 of these CIA officers were serving undercover in the US Interests Section in Havana when Aspillaga exposed Havana’s efforts.  All were quickly withdrawn.

          However, Cuba’s success cannot be attributed solely to the professionalism of its intelligence officers and agents.  According to Ernest Volkman, an acknowledged authority on intelligence issues, poor CIA tradecraft and the Agency’s amazing degree of gullibility were critical to Havana’s success

          Subsequently, another highly reliable former Cuban Intelligence officer  reported that Aspillaga actually identified 85 doubled agents.  This former Cuban officer learned of the real size of Cuba's successful anti-CIA operations as one of the double agents lectured at the Superior Institute of Intelligence (ISI) in the 1990s.  Note:  The ISI is where Cuba trains its civilian intelligence officers.

"Tenia una buena razon" Fidel Castro para matar a Kennedy?

despues de leer  Fidel Castro y el asesinato del presidente Kennedy 

cualquier analista-jefe cia con los resultados de trabajo que logro el dr. latell en su momento, estaria hoy contando alevines de salmon en un rio perdido en norteamerica o ayudando a ninos y ancianos a cruzar una congestionada interseccion en una de nuestras ciudades. pero el dr. latell tiene otro temperamento o misiones que cumplir en esta vida.  como un le carre o un forsyth hubiera sido mas creible y riguroso, pero equivoco el oficio.
entre los tontos e inteligentes utiles que mas han contribuido al fidelismo nadie supera a jfk. envia a la brigada 2506 al peor lugar posible para los propositos de la misma al modificar el plan original de bissel y luego cancela con una orden ejecutiva la cobertura militar norteamericana prevista. poco despues con los acuerdos kennedy-khrushchev le otorgo inmunidad vitalicia. por que fidel castro "tendria una buena razon" para matarlo?

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Barbara Robbins, A slain CIA secretary’s life and death

 

By Ian Shapira

The CIA director revealed only a few details about the 21-year-old woman, a secretary among spies. In the agency’s annual memorial service for employees killed on the job, then-director Leon Panetta announced that a new name had been inscribed with calligraphy inside the CIA’s Book of Honor: Barbara Annette Robbins, who had volunteered to go to Saigon during the Vietnam War and died in a 1965 car bombing at the U.S. Embassy.
The private ceremony inside the agency’s main lobby last year marked the first time the CIA publicly acknowledged Robbins as one of their own. But the slain secretary holds enough historic titles to make her an object of curiosity within the CIA. Robbins was the first woman at the male-dominated CIA killed in the line of duty. She is the youngest CIA employee ever killed. And, according to Panetta, she was also the first American woman to die in the Vietnam War.

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