SpyTalk

Many decades ago in South Vietnam, I was running a spy targeted on communist troops headquartered in the jungles about 15 miles away from my office in Da Nang, a bustling former French colonial port on the central coast. When I arrived on scene in late 1969 we didn’t know much about Mr. Dao, a man twice my age, other than he’d worked for the French before us and was a fervent anticommunist. That was good enough for my predecessor, who had hired him a month or so before I arrived. I assumed Dao had been vetted, starting with a records check with the South Vietnamese police, and mission testing to see if he would carry out an assignment without question or raising suspicion. Frankly, I don’t remember whether I asked in my nervous first days. My job was to keep him and his network of informants gathering information on the enemy—and they were good at that—and to elicit more about him during our first secret meetings in ramshackle downtown hotels.

It turned out, though, he’d never been polygraphed, so we started with that.

Hi there. I don't know about you, but when I fork over a few bucks to a worthy person or cause, I feel a lot better about myself. That’s just the way it works. The recipient may be a homeless person hanging out at the 7-11. Or a valiant medical group braving savage Russian missiles in Ukraine. Or, closer to home, a worthy publication here on Substack. M…

Loyalty Tests: “Let’s be clear on what the vetting system is and it isn’t,” Samantha Vinograd, a top counterterrorism official in the Obama administration, told Face the Nation on Sunday, in relation to ​​Rahmanullah Lakanwal, the former Afghan CIA asset facing murder and other charges for his Thanksgiving Eve assault on two West Virginia National Guard troopers in Washington, D.C. As President Trump and his minions predictably blamed the Biden administration for the tragedy, Vinograd explained that the vetting of a foreigner employed by the U.S. includes “an individual’s identifiers — their biographic information, iris scans, fingerprints, facial images,” which are “run against data sets of information about individuals with ties to terrorism and criminal history,” all of which would normally have been applied to Lakanwal when he was recruited for the CIA’s Zero Unit anti-Taliban kill teams. Lakanwal, who was evacuated from the chaos in Kabul in 2021, “applied for asylum in 2024,” CNN reported, which was granted by the Trump administration earlier this year. “The vetting system,” Vinograd pointedly added, “is not predicative of whether an individual with no derogatory information is or is not going to become violent.”

“Having a CIA ID would have put him in the ‘vetted’ category,” Jennifer Griffin, Fox News Senior National Security correspondent said on X. “I am told there was nothing in his background when he arrived in the US on Sept 8, 2021 that suggested links to terrorism.”

Except the CIA’s own brand. The Zero Units effectively performed as highly violent death squads, according to their many critics.

Maggie Goodlander’s self-description on LinkedIn includes the phrase “Standing up to Bullies since 1986.” This would appear to make the first term New Hampshirite member of Congress, former Naval Reserve intelligence officer and Democratic Party insider particularly well-suited to battle President Trump and his MAGA minions. Or perhaps it was her grandfather’s friendship with the pugnacious Red Sox power-hitter Ted Williams.

It’s a tough day for a lot of people—especially the sick and poor, the lonely and wanting. I’m taking the liberty of re-posting a Thanksgiving Day reminiscence of a few years back. Its message remains true: It’s better to give than receive.

Share

Subscribe now

A SHORT TIME AFTER the vaunted Maj. Gen. Meir Dagan was appointed head of the Mossad by Prime Minister Ariel Sharon in 2002, a cabinet meeting was convened. Dagan, then 57, short and stocky, walked into the room with a limp—the result of wounds sustained in Israel’s 1967 and 1973 wars against Arab states and Palestinian terrorism. He was Sharon’s favorite warrior.

At the meeting, Dagan sat quietly at the far end of the conference table, as if he were trying to make himself invisible.

“Come sit next to me at the head of the table,” Sharon called out to him. Dagan replied with the dry, cynical humor that would become his trademark: “Mr. Prime Minister, wherever I sit is the head of the table.”

The room froze.

A short time after the vaunted Maj. Gen. Meir Dagan was appointed head of the Mossad by Prime Minister Ariel Sharon in 2002, a cabinet meeting was convened. Dagan, then 57, short and stocky, walked into the room with a limp — the result of wounds sustained in Israel’s 1967 and 1973 wars against Arab states and Palestinian terrorism.

Dagan was Sharon’s favorite warrior. He took at seat at the far, quiet end of the conference table, as if he were trying to make himself invisible.

“Come sit next to me at the head of the table,” Sharon called out to him. Dagan replied with the dry, cynical humor that would become his trademark: “Mr. Prime Minister, wherever I sit is the head of the table.”

Author’s Note: If you choose a career in international human rights, expect the intelligence community to show up at your doorstep. Sometimes their agents will wine and dine you if they think you could serve their interests. Other times, they will intimidate and harm you if they think you could be a threat. Usually they are indifferent to the consequences of their actions. These are my stories.

THE ONLY PERSON I EVER THREATENED IN MY LIFE was the CIA station chief in Addis Ababa, back in the 1980s.

The Reagan administration, which took office in January 1981, spoke of “unleashing” the CIA worldwide, which I would soon see led to reckless programs in Ethiopia.

Its government was a Marxist-Leninist military dictatorship aligned with the Soviet Union. Posters of Lenin hung everywhere and security was tight. My husband, David A. Korn, was the chief of mission (or permanent chargé d’affaires—there was no ambassador) and the political environment was hostile.

The regime had expelled the U.S. Information Agency (USIA), the soft power arm of U.S. foreign policy that used cultural exchanges to promote a friendly view of America by local populations. Nonetheless, I soon witnessed something that made me think an American public affairs program could flourish amid the official chill.

Split Verdict: Sen. Mark Warner (D-VA) and Rep. Jim Himes (D-CT), the top two Democrats on the congressional intelligence committees, said after administration briefings this week that U.S. intelligence on the drug connections of boat runners blasted by military strikes was pretty persuasive, but still knocked the strikes for a lack of a legal basis and possibly killing innocents. “I don’t worry there’s not some connection of these boats to trafficking,” Himes told reporters. But “what I’m not sure about is whether we have the same architecture to make sure innocents aren’t killed…”

After a briefing with Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, Warner said, “I think our intelligence assets are quite good,” explaining that he believes the administration does have “visibility” into the transport of illegal drugs. “But he said that making more information available about the strikes would help instill confidence in the US’s actions in the region.” (CNN)

Is President Trump trying to get foot soldiers in his MAGA Army to assassinate Democratic members of Congress?