The Classified Activities and Clandestine Special Operations Studies Program Institute is a group of former Special Operations and Special Forces operatives who have worked in classified, clandestine, and covert operations. Thus, we are of the firm belief that no law was broken as to the naming of Ms. Plame as a CIA employee. The reason for this is simple. The law reads:
Whoever, as a result of having authorized access to classified information, learns the identify of a covert agent and intentionally discloses any information identifying such covert agent to any individual not authorized to receive classified information, knowing that the information disclosed so identifies such covert agent and that the United States is taking affirmative measures to conceal such covert agent's intelligence relationship to the United States, shall be fined under title 18 or imprisoned not more than five years, or both.
The key, to us is the word covert agent. The word covert operation is further defined in the US Code Title 50 Chapter 15 Section 413b as
(e) ''Covert action'' defined :
As used in this subchapter, the term ''covert action'' means an activity or activities of the United States Government to influence political, economic, or military conditions abroad, where it is intended that the role of the United States Government will not be apparent or acknowledged publicly, but does not include -
(1) activities the primary purpose of which is to acquire intelligence, traditional counterintelligence activities, traditional activities to improve or maintain the operational security of United States Government programs, or administrative activities;
(2) traditional diplomatic or military activities or routine support to such activities
Again, the key words are where it is intended that the role of the United States Government will not be apparent or acknowledged publicly. To give some examples from history will be helpful to clear up media and other distortions of differences in programs. Under the Eisenhower Administration, a covert activity took place inside the USSR where certain military activities needed to be verified. The Agency utilized non United States, non English speaking persons to man a non-USA marked prototype plane to land inside the USSR for on the ground verification of the needed information. If caught, the men used were non USA citizens, with no known ties to the United States, hired by a non governmental organization to fly a new prototype aircraft. They had been isolated from other activities and had no knowledge of their true employer. The military activities plus future nuclear weapons benefits from inside the USSR were veified. That is covert.
The once Top Secret Document "Instructions for the coordination and control of Navy's clandestine intelligence collection program" provides the further distinction between clandestine and covert. "A clandestine intelligence operation is an activity to accomplish intelligence, counterintelligence, and other similar objectives, planned and executed under the sponsorship of Governmental departments or agencies in such a way as to assure secrecy or concealment of the operation and its sponsor, and to permit plausible denial by the sponsor in the event the operation is compromised. The term 'clandestine' should not be confused with 'covert', which is reserved for the description of certain 'action operations' conducted in support of national policies and objectives, as a complement to the sponsor's overt mission abroad. These covert action operations are not included in the mission of clandestine intelligence collection units....The existence of the clandestine intelligence collection program is, therefore, in itself classified Secret. Policies and broad plans for the clandestine program, operation plans and operational data will receive extremely limited distribution and will be handled within the separate codeword channel ... Rigid security is essential to the prosecution of a clandestine intelligence operation and for the protection of broad national policy interests..."
The term agent and case officer is further defined. These terms need to be known. An "AGENT" is any individual who, on a controlled basis, is engaged in the clandestine collection of intelligence or counterintelligence information or in support thereof, either wittingly or unwittingly. A "CASE OFFICER" is an individual, always a United States national, who recruits, trains, tests, briefs, dispatches, debriefs, or otherwise directs, supports, or participates in the management and control of the activities of agents engaged in clandestine intelligence activities. Note, these are not covert. Covert is an action operation, like the action in the Eisenhower administration.
Director Larry J. O’Daniel was a Military Intelligence Lieutenant in the Vietnam War. He was in the Special Operations Program, code name Phoenix. The code name Phoenix was unclassified. The mode of operations of Phoenix was classified. The fact that he went on operations and that the United States Government, in Operation Phoenix, was targeting Viet Cong Infrastructure members, by itself, was classified and clandestine. Publicly, the operation was Vietnamese and he was an adviser to a Vietnamese District. Officially, he worked for MACV. This was his cover. He also reported to CIA and Phoenix channels and managed an agent network of Kit Carson Scouts, or former VC. He went on overt military operations in support of overt District military operations and likewise went on clandestine intelligence gathering operations and clandestine action operations designed to capture, cause to defect, or otherwise neutralize members of the Viet Cong Infrastructure.
Director John J. McCarthy was a covert operator in the Special Operations Program, Code Name Cherry. He was a covert operator, publicly outed by the Agency itself, in order to hide illegal, rogue, prohibited activities in Vietnam. Specifically, all United States personnel were separated from Detachment B-57’s headquarters, documented as United States civilians, with a cover as an Army evaluation team and utilized cover names, none of them real. They were ordered not to associate with other B-57 or other 5th Special Forces Group members. All of the Cambodians hired by Cherry used cover names as most were Ex-Cambodian and Ex-Vietnamese officers wanted by their governments for some crime or another. They were documented as United States security guards at local installations. All the Cambodians were Khmer Serie, an organization with plans of overthrowing the then Cambodian Government. McCarthy, then known as John McAlister, was outed despite the fact that B-57 had fears of reprisals from Khmer Serie for what was ultimately determined to be a death of undetermined origin. The Vietnamese Government, nor the United States Government, had knowledge of Cherry and it’s goal of helping the Khmer Serie overthrow and remove by force or death, the government of then Prince Sihanouk. (CIA considers this still classified)
Unknown to McCarthy and other Cherry members, the President of the United States and the Joint Chiefs, in implementing the President’s orders, had explicitly ordered the CIA, State Department, and Joint Chiefs on June 14, 1966 to “That you direct the Department and CIA to press the Thai and Vietnam Governments to cease all support for the Khmer Serei rebels” (not knowing that the Agency had hired, through Cherry, the same rebels). As part of Clandestine Collection Operations Against Cambodia (S) (the (S) indicating that the Clandestine Operations were classified Secret by that name itself) authorized by the President in February 1966, it was explicitly stated that, “(TS) ... as cross-border operations were authorized, COMUSMACV had already recruited and partially trained 40 ethnic Cambodians. These personnel were carefully screened to ensure that they were not Khmer Serei.” Further, thorough screening, checking and investigation of all Cambodians recruited can minimize penetration of the operation by the Khmer Serei. Finally, All ethnic Cambodians recruited will be carefully screened to reduce the possibility of penetration of the program by Khmer Serei or Cambodian intelligence agents and authority was not granted for recruitment of additional ethnic Cambodians for cross-border operations. (Department of Defense, JCS Official Records, 9155 (1 Feb 1966), Sec. 1, IR 101) . Thus, Cherry was covert (if really authorized, which is was not, but was rogue CIA).
Note also, that in conformity with covert, Cherry was definitely an "action operation", albeit, illegal. There is nothing known about Plame to show that she was involved in anyway with "action operations" or anything other than intelligence gathering, which is not covert, by definition.
In the instant case, in Maureen Dowd's column in The New York Times, she quotes Ambassador Wilson as saying that he met Valerie Plame at a cocktail party and that "at first she said she was an energy analyst, but confided sometime around the first kiss that she was in the C.I.A.. I had a security clearance." (But no need to know, if Plame was a covert agent) Robert Novak received confirmation from the CIA that Valerie Plame worked there, thus negating the part of the covert that it is intended that the role of the United States Government will not be apparent or acknowledged publicly.
G. Gordon Liddy wrote in a column on this case, She contributed $1,000 to the Al Gore for President Committee in 2000. That is the maximum contribution then permitted by federal law and a tidy sum for a career civil servant. The Federal Election Campaign Act required that the Gore campaign report the name and employer of its large contributors to the Federal Election Commission, so the Commission can, in turn, report it to the American People. But the system does not work if the contributors are not honest. Did Plame admit that she was an employee of the CIA on the FEC Report? No she did not. She saw fit to hide that from the American People. Instead she listed a bogus CIA front company as her employer.
Ambassador Wilson publicly disclosed both his security clearance and the fact that he undertook a classified mission for the United States government, thus negating covert actions. Plus, on the website for the Middle East Institute which is funded by Saudi Arabia and which apparently advocates for Saudi interests, Mr. Wilson's official biography at the Middle East Institute in Washington lists Valerie Plame as his wife. A covert agent, if she was one, would not have used either the name Valerie Plame or Mrs. John Wilson and under any circumstance, her identity was probably known to all interested intelligence agencies plus any known aliases. She could not have been covert.
Further, after the Institute wrote about this affair, (In 2003), others came in validating our original position. For example, Cliff Kincaid, of Accuracy in Media, on August 2, 2005, wrote that Herbert Romerstein, a former professional staff member of the House Intelligence Committee, came to the conclusion that when Wilson went public with his criticism of the Niger affair, he had to know that foreign intelligence agencies would investigate both him and his family. That alone would out Plame. Romerstein also confirmed that "...Wilson listed his wife's maiden name in the biography he put on the web site of the Middle East Institute." It is possible that this biography, does not now list her. The new date for the update on the website is sometime in 2004. Was it cleaned up after others listed this information about Wilson and Plame also? Why hide what was already in the public realm, except to prevent others from finding out how sloppy evidence in this case was from the beginning?
Kincaid futher quoted from a Human Events article that Romerstein had a hand in drafting the current law that supposedly was broken. Romerstein pointed out that whatever "cover" she had from her bogus employment was "light" and not the type of cover intended for the law. In other words, it was one of "convenience" and not what is commonly called a "deep cover" necessary for a real covert agent. Romerstein likewise pointed to her contribution to the Al Gore Presidential campaign listing the bogus company as her employer. That would be poor or non existent tradecraft if she were really covert.
Kincaid, along with Romerstein, also pointed out that the issue was why Wilson and Plame were involved in attempting to undermine the President's Iraq policy. Romerstein also asked about the nepotism issue of Plame recommending Wilson for the trip in the first place. Of course, Patrick Fitzgerald, the so-called independent investigator in thisc case, has his own issue with the Administration over the connection between Al Qaeda and Iraq, chose not to look at that issue. The prosecutor who is famed for investigating everything remotely connected to the central issue, even if a crime has not been commited central to the original investigation, chose instead to look at two key people close to the President and Vice President who publicly contradicted the indictment Fitzgerald was central in changing against Bin Laden. Originally, that indictment had wording that Bin Laden had ties to Iraq.
However, MSNBC, on June 16, 2004, reported that Fred Fielding, a Republican member of the commission, prodded witnesses about their conclusion about minimal connections between Iraq and Al Qaeda, citing a 1998 indictment of bin Laden that alleged links with the then-Iraqi leader. They then immediately pointed out that U.S. Attorney Patrick J. Fitzgerald of Illinois said that while such claims were contained in the original indictment, they were dropped when later charges were filed. Is there a pique here by a prosecutor seemingly contradicted by the Administration?
Then, there is the issue of her cover company. The Wall Street Journal, on October 8, 2003, in an article by Phil Kuntz, may have actually hit upon something, even if they did not realize what they did. The article, "Unsolved Mystery: Is Brewster Jennings Linked to the CIA? " talked about the name of the company. It was listed by Plame as Brewster-Jennings & Associates. It so happens that no such company existed at the location given on Plame's FEC required information when she contributed to Gore. Kuntz wrote, "Efforts to find a trace of the company thus far have been fruitless... As it happens, a man named B. Brewster Jennings was a major energy industry figure in the 1940s and 1950s as head of the company that became Mobil Oil Corp., now part of Exxon Mobil Corp...He came from an oil-industry family, including two grandfathers who provided start-up capital to John D. Rockefeller for Standard Oil, the trust that spawned the major American oil companies, including Mobil. His death in 1968 merited a two-column obituary inside the New York Times." It is probably coincidental that the Middle East Institute, where Wilson is listed as Adjunct Scholar, has an interest in oil issues, inside Saudi Arabia, who helps to generously fund the institute. Their site, on November 9, 2005, when this was copied, said:
" Stable oil prices are a major factor in world economies and, as such, create a high demand for a clear understanding of the role Middle Eastern suppliers play in the global energy marketplace. The rapid increase in oil prices has not been seen since the early 1980s and is partly due to insufficient supplies to match rapidly increasing demands, especially in developing economies like China and India. Natural gas exploration is on the rise but will involve investment in infrastructure and political stability. Central Asia looms as a new source for energy exploration. Nuclear energy and alternative sources present other political and economic challenges. Middle East Institute analysts and scholars explain and analyze energy trends and dispel misunderstandings through their programs, writings and briefings, including video conferences with OPEC Ministers, regional leaders and US and international corporations. "
Was this, as Kuntz wrote, "the name could have been some spook's idea of a very obscure joke." Or, was it really to show the connection between this unofficial CIA policy between the Saudis, MEI, Plame, and others?
Of course, Saudi Arabia has an interest in the outcome of the Iraq controversy, and their interests do not necessarily coincide with our interests, and in fact, quite often severely clash with the interests of the United States and it's official policy. It seems like a huge conflict of interest to send someone tied in this organization, funded by those whose interests conflict with ours, to examine a story of such importance. Likewise, who in the CIA asked for an examination of a "leak" that a first year law student or a minor league CIA official would know to be bogus within 24 hours of the inquiry request. Who in the CIA, if they are still employed, cooperated in this travesty?
To illustrate this last point, in a Friday, October 28, 2005 article in the San Francisco Chronicle, Matthew B. Stannard, a Chronicle Staff Writer, in his article, "Ex-CIA agents differ on import of outing Plame," quoted Andrew C. McCarthy, a former federal prosecutor and a senior fellow at the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies:
"It can't be ambiguous that outing a covert agent is a major big deal..." Then Stannard added... "That said, McCarthy sided with those who argue that Plame's identity was hardly sensitive, citing her regular presence in Washington, court filings he said suggested her identity was known to the Russians and Cubans in the 1990s, and Plame's appearance with Wilson in a two-page Vanity Fair photo spread after Novak's column ran." He added, " In that case, McCarthy said, outing Plame might not be a criminal offense at all...."
So who outed Plame? We probably need to look no further than Joe Wilson himself. On Saturday, November 5, 2005, WND writer Art Moore wrote that:
"Maj. Gen. Paul Vallely told WorldNetDaily that Wilson mentioned Plame's status as a CIA operative in at least three, possibly five, separate conversations in 2002 in the Fox News Channel's 'green room' in Washington, D.C., as they waited to appear on air as analysts." The General has repeated the charge in many other venues. That would go along with all the previous knowledge from Maureen Dowd (hardly a Bush conservative) to G. Gordon Liddy (hardly a fan of the CIA) to Robert Novak who said the CIA even told him that Plame worked for them.
What was the reason behind all this? A complicated scheme going back to the days of Cherry, we believe.
On January 13, 2004, a group of “intelligence professionals” wrote a piece for http://tompaine.com/feature2.cfm/ID/9758 entitled SUBJECT: Your State of the Union Address: which began:
“We write this, our fifth such memorandum to you since our critique of Secretary of State Colin Powell's United Nations speech last February, out of concern that the same advisers who served you so poorly in drafting the Iraq section of last year's State of the Union address will embarrass you again.”
In this article, they urged the President to appoint a committee with Brent Scrowcroft on it to evaluate the intelligence on Iraq. One point they made on this recommendation: “A ready lesson can be drawn from what President Lyndon Johnson chose to do when he began to realize he had been misled on Vietnam by his closest advisers. Just weeks after the surprise Vietnamese Communist Tet offensive in early 1968 (another major intelligence failure), Johnson asked Clark Clifford to convene a panel of "Wise Men" to review the entire Vietnam situation de novo and develop its own policy recommendations.“
It is ironic that they use this example since one of the people involved in this group, David MacMichael of Linden, VA, was apparently involved in at least parts of or had good knowledge of Cherry, aimed against the very same President Johnson. MacMichael worked out of the embassy in Bangkok. When the SF CPT in question, John J. McCarthy Jr., approached MacMichel in 2001 with proof of the rogue nature of Cherry, MacMichael did not respond until the day after a lawsuit against the CIA attempting to open up the records on the CIA Cherry operation and restitution for unlawful imprisonment of McCarthy was thrown dismissed because of the Feres Doctrine. Previously, in 1994 MacMichel admitted to McCarthy to running Khemer Serei operations out of Thailand. That, in itself, was contrary to the policies as outlined by both Presidents Kennedy and Johnson.
The connection between these two events is found in the following:
The Institute found at http://www.asticles.com/asticles/whoforged.htm the following by Seymour Hersh - no hawk this guy :
"Another explanation was provided by a former senior C.I.A. officer. He had begun talking to me about the Niger papers in March, when I first wrote about the forgery, and said, 'Somebody deliberately let something false get in there.' He became more forthcoming in subsequent months, eventually saying that a small group of disgruntled retired C.I.A. clandestine operators had banded together in the late summer of last year and drafted the fraudulent documents themselves.
'The agency guys were so pissed at Cheney,' the former officer said. 'They said, ‘O.K, we’re going to put the bite on these guys.' My source said that he was first told of the fabrication late last year, at one of the many holiday gatherings in the Washington area of past and present C.I.A. officials. 'Everyone was bragging about it—‘Here’s what we did. It was cool, cool, cool.' These retirees, he said, had superb contacts among current officers in the agency and were informed in detail of the sismi intelligence.
'They thought that, with this crowd, it was the only way to go—to nail these guys who were not practicing good tradecraft and vetting intelligence,' my source said. 'They thought it’d be bought at lower levels—a big bluff.' The thinking, he said, was that the documents would be endorsed by Iraq hawks at the top of the Bush Administration, who would be unable to resist flaunting them at a press conference or an interagency government meeting. They would then look foolish when intelligence officials pointed out that they were obvious fakes. But the tactic backfired, he said, when the papers won widespread acceptance within the Administration. 'It got out of control.'"
Further, at Counterpunch, where these guys hang out, is this admission online on March 13, 2003:
"We appeal to those still working inside the Intelligence Community to consider turning state's evidence. Daniel Ellsberg, one who knows, recently noted that truth telling, in time, can stop a misguided march to war. Ellsberg and our former CIA colleague, Sam Adams, spoke out courageously to expose the lies of the Johnson administration and to put the brakes on the war in Vietnam--but, sadly, not in time. Sam is now deceased, but Ellsberg recently appealed to insiders at intelligence agencies 'to tell the truth and save many, many lives.' We Veterans Intelligence Professionals for Sanity join in that urgent appeal."
The Institute knows about both Ellsberg and Sam Adams. Both were misguided people who used specifically culled material which pointed towards a phony conclusion about points of the Vietnam War and did not care who or what was exposed in order to prove their points. Classified programs were exposed by Ellsberg, potentially exposing many cross border operators to undue harm. Adams used material that basically only he had faith in to slander other CIA and intelligence personnel about the numbers of enemy this country faced in Vietnam. This is the same strategy of Cherry in the past and those who admitted to Hersh their strategy in these current times.
The one thing that has not been investigated and needs to be aired is the question - Did Plame have contact with these people and did the one who urged the investigation also have contact with these former disgruntled operatives. That is the primary question that should have been asked and investigated, not who outed a non covert agent, previously flouted in public by her husband.
The Agency, at this writing, is still keeping details of the Rogue activities, Cherry , classified, against the law since only authorized activities can be classified. The same Agency that undercut and defied President Johnson is the apparent namer of Wilson as their agent to check on reports the White House wanted, knowing his wife was a CIA employee, and her identity was bound to be known, since Wilson already publicly identified her by name. Indeed, the Agency willingly identified her employment, noting she worked as CIA for another governmental agency. None of this meets the definition of covert since it was known in the media about US government interests in the subject matter and Ambassador Wilson has hardly unknown as having ties to the US government. Further, only the President can direct that covert missions be undertaken, and working undercover for the Agency at another government agency is outside the Agency’s charter and mission.
Our position is that the current controversy is an attempt by the Agency to further undercut President Bush, as President Johnson was defied, utilizing the same type of tactics as was utilized in Cherry. That aspect needs to be fully investigated as well, including all documents pertaining to Cherry. The defiance and violation by the CIA and State Department of a Presidential Directive, backed by previously issued National Security Action Memoranda of two Presidents, in Wartime, is nothing less than Treason (not to mention the other felonies outlined in the previous studies). The same can be said of the Niger controversy.
Larry J. O’Daniel
928-859-3819
John J. McCarthy
310-397-1143
To learn more about the Rogue Operation Cherry, press here
To See First Open Letter to Senators Kyl, Shelby, and Attorney General Ashcroft, press here
To learn about CIA possible felonies in wartime, press here