Inside the CIA (48 page)

As might be expected, high-ranking princes of the CIA who had lobbied Woolsey on behalf of the officers applauded his decision. They had convinced Woolsey that the officers were so special that anything more than a letter in their personnel files would ruin their precious morale and was unnecessary because they were so devoted to their jobs.

In fact, the officers in question were devoted to their own self-interest. As the inspector general concluded, CIA officers willfully ignored Ames’s spying, because they did not want to blow the whistle on one of their own. In contrast, when a female CIA station chief in Jamaica broke that code of silence by reporting a subordinate for beating his wife, the full force of the CIA’s bureaucracy came down on her. She became the target of an inspector general’s investigation, rumors were circulated about her sex life, and her career at the agency was ruined.

Woolsey’s decision perpetuated the air of indifference
that had led to the fiasco in the first place. It turned the stomachs of many CIA officers who recognized that it meant such catastrophes would happen again. To be sure, in return for leniency for his wife, Ames pleaded guilty and got life in prison without possibility of parole. But that was because his fate was in the hands of the Justice Department and FBI, not the CIA.

To fill the vacuum caused by Woolsey’s lack of leadership, a presidential commission was formed to study ways to restructure the CIA and decide if, indeed, the agency was needed at all. Yet deciding such a question was like deciding whether a community needed a fire department. Because Woolsey had failed to seize the initiative and do his job, public support was so weakened for the agency that a commission was seen as the only way to salvage what was left of the CIA’s declining credibility.

Ultimately, the fault lay with President Clinton, who could not manage his own White House staff, let alone the CIA. Oversight committees and commissions can go only so far in forcing change. It was up to Clinton, to whom Woolsey reported, to insist on aggressive action. What was needed was not only a series of firings but an extensive retraining program to change the culture of the agency, as well as a restructuring to bring about better coordination within the CIA.

Until a strong and competent president overhauls the agency, America will remain at risk. Indeed, because of Ames and a few other spies such as John A. Walker, Jr., the U.S. likely would have lost a war with the Soviet Union, those familiar with the Ames case say.

The CIA has come a long way since the days when it plotted with the Mafia to get Fidel Castro’s beard to fall off, gave LSD to unsuspecting subjects, and spied illegally on Americans. But powerful as it is, the Ames case and the way it was handled demonstrate that the CIA still has a long way to go before it becomes the effective, disciplined agency America deserves.

The CIA’s main gate off Dolley Madison Drive is one of four entrances to the CIA compound in McLean, Virginia.
(CIA photo)

The main entrance at the front of the CIA’s old building is just to the right of the director’s suite of offices on the seventh floor.
(CIA photo)

The CIA’s old building and main entrance, in the lower right, were completed in 1961, while the new building, in the upper left, was completed in 1988.
(CIA photo)

The entrance to the CIA’s 1.1-million-square-foot new building is sheathed in glass.
(CIA photo)

The CIA’s main lobby includes a memorial to fallen CIA officers.
(CIA photo)

William J. Donovan, whose statue stands to the left as one enters the CIA’s lobby, urged creation of an agency that would centralize intelligence gathering and served as the director of the Office of Strategic Services (OSS), the forerunner of the CIA.
(CIA photo)

The installation by Jim Sanborn in the courtyard between the old and new buildings carries secret messages encoded in copper plates outlining the CIA’s mission.
(CIA photo)

William H. Webster met Nancy McGregor’s son Ben in May 1987, just before she became his special assistant at the CIA.
(FBI photo)

William Webster equipped William M. Baker with a Sherlock Holmes outfit when Baker left the CIA as public affairs director in May 1989 to become the FBI’s assistant director in charge of the criminal investigation division.
(CIA photo)