Can U.S. intelligence penetrate now what it could not in 1978?
Thursday, March 12, 2009 E-Mail this story Free Headline Alerts
On 2/13/2009, Leon E. Panetta became the Director of the CIA. President Obama had asked Panetta whether the man would accept this post and said: "I want someone I could trust." Panetta responded: "Throughout my 40-year career in government I have made it a point to speak honestly to my colleagues, my coworkers, my constituents, and my president."
So Panetta has had a "40-year career in government." Well, in 1978, that is, 30 years ago, I, who had "emigrated" from Russia and came to New York in 1972, published my article "What the CIA knows about Russia?" in Commentary magazine, quite prestigious at that time.
I am taking the word "emigrated" in quotes because it was a "show" emigration of several hundred Soviet citizens to show President Nixon and the West in general how free "Soviet Russia" was. Actually, selected were those who lived much better than the average. For example, I translated Russian classical literature into English (the first and last case when a Russian who had never lived in an English-speaking country translated Russian literature into English). Hence I earned enough money to buy what probably was the best country house in Soviet Russia, in which I lived with my wife and our son. Surely (the sponsors of the "show" emigration reasoned) abroad we would boast of our life in Soviet Russia! Instead, the sponsors of the "show" emigration read my articles, in which I described Soviet Russia as a slave state, millennia behind the free West socially.
As I was working on my article about the CIA, I found out that, coincidentally, the CIA held in Congress a public exhibition of its declassified intelligence reports. I rushed to Washington, D.C. Here was the Congress! The security officer quipped that I had a "beaver" (that is, a fur hat) on my head, a joke possibly a century or two old. I selected the CIA reports, to base my article on, and received the copies of them. The conclusion of my article was that the CIA does not exist as an intelligence/espionage agency with respect to the new slave states like Russia or China. The intelligence/espionage agencies of the democracies are behind the secrecy of the new slave states like Stalin's Russia, Hitler's Germany, or "China today."
As we moved into our apartment in a New York 22-story apartment building (which was owned by an American who was as a tourist our dinner guest in our country house in Russia) our neighbors asked us whether we had remained citizens of Russia and worked in the "Soviet compound" in our neighborhood. Indeed, a "Soviet citizen" could live anywhere in the United States if he could pay the rent.
In Soviet Russia, anyone had to be "inscribed" into the premises in which he or she would live, and he or she had to produce his or her "internal passport," a copy of which was kept on file by the ordinary (not secret) police, and so it would be useless for the CIA to counterfeit the "internal passport," since the authenticity of it could be verified by a telephone call.
An American in Soviet Russia could live only within the confines of the U.S. Embassy, but whenever he ventured outside, he or she would be followed. A slave state was a cage for its slaves. But it was even more of a cage for an outsider, such as an American spy, since he or she did not have the "internal passport," whose authenticity could be verifiable by a telephone call to the ordinary police.
The number of employees and the cost of the CIA are secret, but the estimated number in Yahoo! is 20,000 employees and the estimated cost for 2009 is $40 billion.
But no money and no technology of the CIA can break out of the cage of a modern slave state, be it Nazi Germany or Soviet Russia or "China today." The greatest strategic secret of 1939 was contained in Einstein's letter to Roosevelt of Aug. 2 about the possible development of atom bombs in Germany. But how could the technology of a third country read such a letter?
After my article appeared in Commentary magazine, nine of its readers, including one from the New York News World, had their letters of total approval of my article printed in Commentary.
In his "Citizens for the Republic Newsletter" of Sept. 18, 1978, Ronald Reagan devoted a full page to his discussion of the importance of my Commentary article, the New York Post published William F. Buckley's rave review of my article, Human Events devoted a page to it, etc.-in over 500 periodicals in the West.
I was invited to the "Face-to-Face Dinner Discussion" of Dec. 13, 1978, at which Admiral Stansford Turner, Director of the CIA, and 40 other VPs were present. Let me quote my Affidavit of Dec. 18, sworn to before Benjamin Denker, Notary Public, State of New York:
During the discussion Admiral Turner counter-attacked vigorously the critics of the CIA among those present, such as Mr. Marc Jay Epstein. In particular, Admiral Turner said that the writings of Mr. Epstein are harmful to the United States.
As I took the floor, I stated that my evaluation of the CIA had been presented briefly in my articles for the UPI in 1975, and more specifically, in last September's issue of Commentary. Here Admiral Turner interrupted me to say that he had read the Commentary article. I said that Western intelligence had not even approached the problem of intelligence vis-ˆ-vis totalitarian societies.
As I finished, there were several moments of silence whereupon one of those present asked Admiral Turner whether he could say something in rebuttal. Admiral Turner said: "No." There were several moments of silence again, but he said nothing else.
The tone of his answer struck me as grave and candid. Those with whom I spoke afterward had the same impression.
Nor did Admiral Turner attempt to rebut any statement of mine at any other time during the discussion. His only reference to my article of my presentation occurred when, in reply to Charles Snodgrass, House Appropriations Committee, who sat next to me (on my left), he spoke about U.S. technological (nonhuman) intelligence and remarked that "your neighbor on your right" (meaning myself) was no doubt highly skeptical of what he was saying. To which I rejoined: "Yes."
That was in 1978, and now it is 2009. But what has changed in the field so necessary for the survival of the United States and the rest of the free world? China with its population of 1.3 billion is dangerous, not Russia with its population of 147 million, and Nazi Germany was gone. What does Leon E. Panetta know that Admiral Turner did not about how to penetrate China's development of molecular nano weapons? Panetta said he had a "40-year career in government," not in intelligence, but "in government," and President Obama decided that Panetta was "someone he could trust."