The Threat on the Horizon: An Inside Account of America's Search for Security after the Cold War

550 Pages·2011·1.92 MB·English

by  Loch K. Johnson

The Threat On The Horizon
Also by Loch K. Johnson
INTELLIGENCE, 4 vols. (New York, 2011), editor
NATIONAL SECURITY INTELLIGENCE (Cambridge, UK, 2011).
THE OXFORD HANDBOOK OF NATIONAL SECURITY
INTELLIGENCE (New York, 2010), editor.
INTELLIGENCE AND NATIONAL SECURITY: THE SECRET WORLD
OF SPIES; AN ANTHOLOGY. 3d. ed. (New York, 2010), edited with
James J. Wirtz.
STRATEGIC INTELLIGENCE, 5 vols. (Westport, CT, 2007), editor.
HANDBOOK OF INTELLIGENCE STUDIES (London, 2007), editor.
SEVEN SINS OF AMERICAN FOREIGN POLICY (New York, 2007).
WHO’S WATCHING THE SPIES? ESTABLISHING INTELLIGENCE
SERVICE ACCOUNTABILITY (Washington, DC, 2005), edited with Hans
Born and Ian Leigh.
AMERICAN FOREIGN POLICY: HISTORY, POLITICS, AND POLICY
(New York, 2005), with John Endicott and Daniel S. Papp.
FATEFUL DECISIONS: INSIDE THE NATIONAL SECURITY COUNCIL
(New York, 2004), edited with Karl F. Inderfurth.
BOMBS, BUGS, DRUGS, AND THUGS: INTELLIGENCE AND
AMERICA’S QUEST FOR SECURITY (New York, 2000), German edition:
BOMBEN, WANZEN UND INTRIGEN: AMERIKAS GEHEIMDIENSTE
(Düsseldorf, 2002).
SECRET AGENCIES: U.S. INTELLIGENCE IN A HOSTILE WORLD (New
Haven, CT, 1996).
AMERICA AS A WORLD POWER: FOREIGN POLICY IN A
CONSTITUTIONAL FRAMEWORK (New York, 1995).
RUNOFF ELECTIONS IN THE UNITED STATES (Chapel Hill, NC, 1992),
with Charles S. Bullock III.
AMERICA’S SECRET POWER: THE CIA IN A DEMOCRATIC SOCIETY
(New York, 1989).
DECISIONS OF THE HIGHEST ORDER: PERSPECTIVES ON THE
NATIONAL SECURITY COUNCIL (Pacifi c Grove, CA, 1988), edited with
Karl F. Inderfurth.
THROUGH THE STRAITS OF ARMAGEDDON: ARMS CONTROL
ISSUES AND PROSPECTS (Athens, GA, 1987), edited with Paul F. Diehl.
A SEASON OF INQUIRY: THE SENATE INTELLIGENCE
INVESTIGATION (Lexington, KY, 1985).
THE MAKING OF INTERNATIONAL AGREEMENTS: CONGRESS
CONFRONTS THE EXECUTIVE (New York, 1984).
The Threat On The
Horizon
loch k. johnson An Inside Account of
America’s Search for Security
after the Cold War
1
2011
1
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Johnson, Loch K., 1942-
The threat on the horizon : an inside account of America’s search for security
after the Cold War / Loch K. Johnson.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN-13: 978-0-19-973717-8 (hardcover : alk. paper)
ISBN-10: 0-19-973717-7
1. Intelligence service—United States. 2. National security—United States.
I. Title.
JK468.I6J67 2010
355'.033073—dc22 2010016333
9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Printed in the United States of America
on acid-free paper
To Les Aspin,
who led the way,
and to
Leena and Kristin,
who inspire
“All we are trying to do, I suppose, is to tell it true.”
—Hollis Summers
American novelist
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contents
Preface ix
Acknowledgments xix
A Glossary of Terms xxiii
part i T he Beginning 1
chapter 1 Uneasy Birth 3
chapter 2 Starting Up 35
chapter 3 Seeking Answers 60
part ii S eeking Answers 97
chapter 4 A New Intelligence Chief 9 9
chapter 5 Down on the Farm 130
chapter 6 Weighing the Value of Estimates 157
part iii L eadership Transition 187
chapter 7 The Death of a Chairman 1 89
chapter 8 Wobbling Forward 217
chapter 9 Brown at the Helm 2 44
part iv E nd Game 275
chapter 10 A Second Retreat 2 77
chapter 11 The Final Stretch 3 08
chapter 12 T he Commission Reports 345
part v R eform Unraveled 363
chapter 13 I n the Commission’s Wake 365
chapter 14 I ntelligence Reform Redux 385
Appendix 405
Notes 411
Index 483
viii | contents
preface
Entering the Shrouded World of Intelligence
I
first became interested in the subject of intelligence in 1975. That
year I read in the newspaper that Senator Frank Church (D-ID) had been
askedby the Senate majority leader, Mike Mansfi eld (D-MT), to chair an inves-
tigative panel that would look into charges of domestic spying by the Central
Intelligence Agency (CIA). With a research trip to Washington already planned
for the following week, I decided to use the occasion to drop by the Capitol and
offer my good wishes to Senator Church, for whom I had worked as an American
Political Science Association congressional fellow fi ve years earlier.
We sat in his Russell Senate Offi ce Building suite, which was dominated
by an oil portrait of his childhood hero, Senator William Borah (R), another
Idaho and former chair of the august Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
Unlike Church, an internationalist, Borah had been a leading isolationist. As
Senator Church told me about his new assignment, I became more and more
intrigued. At the end of the visit, I ventured to ask if he needed any help with
the investigation. He picked up the telephone and told the staff director of
the new committee to sign me up and begin a background security clearance,
a procedure required for all staff members participating in what was to
become one of the most sensitive inquiries in the history of the Senate. The
panel’s focus, Church explained to me, would be the question of whether the
CIA had spied on American citizens, in violation of its 1947 legislative
charter. My job, he continued, would be to prepare him for committee meet-
ings and hearings, write speeches for him, take part in the committee’s
research and investigative work, and help write the fi nal report.