Yet it appears that many veteran spies do not love John Deutch. Brought in to revive the Company after the Aldrich Ames scandal–an Ames damage report is due this week–Deutch is having a hard time reforming the secretive spook culture. Last month, when he entered “the Bubble” at Langley (the agency’s leakproof auditorium), the assembled troops did not stand for the di-rector, a shocking breach of protocol. As Deutch urged his men to be more aggressive in covert action, many laughed derisively. Since the director had just announced he was dismissing two top covert-action officials for failing to tell Congress about an agent’s human-rights violations in Guatemala, the operatives thought Deutch’s exhortation hollow. After the speech, case officers in the Latin American division began wearing black armbands to show solidarity with the fired officials.
Deutch is unusually open for a spymaster. In an interview with NEWSWEEK, during which he began undressing to change into his jogging clothes, Deutch made clear he wants an agency bold at, as he puts it, “stealing secrets.” But he also wants accountability to Congress and the White House. “No cowboys,” he says. He has brought in the former staff director of the Senate Intelligence Committee, George Tenet, to be deputy director, and–even more shocking to Company hands–a woman, Nora Slatkin, to oversee all CIA operations. Deutch’s lieutenants are sensitive to appearances. Recently, Deutch ordered the operations directorate to “scrub” its assets–to weed out agents who might embarrass the ClA. Disqualifying factors include “environmental abuse,” such as toxic waste dumping by a foreign dictator on the CIA’s payroll. “If your asset has stepped on some poison ivy, he’s out,” sighs one former station chief. Operations are now vetted with an eye toward their acceptability on Capitol Hill. As a result, says a veteran spy, “We’re not working anymore. There are no more operations.”
Deutch’s aides scoff at this. But they are worried about being forced to confront yet more scandals. One, NEWSWEEK has learned, involves a case officer who was assigned to penetrate Islamic terrorist groups in the late ’80s. One of his devices was to sell them visas to the United States. He took prostitutes for payment and pocketed some of the terrorists’ cash. While Deutch’s predecessor, James Woolsey, hemmed and hawed about firing the agent, the man finally retired. And Deutch is now trying to resolve a fight between the CIA and the FBI over the files of the Stasi, the East German intelligence agency, which the CIA obtained after the Berlin wall fell in 1989. FBI officials say Langley is trying to cover up CIA embarrassments–the East Germans were adept at “doubling” agents, and the files will reveal that the Stasi repeatedly fooled the CIA during the cold war.
The CIA has long been better at stealing secrets–especially by satellite–than sharing them with its “customers” in the rest of government. Deutch is well suited to bridging that gap. His vacation buddies include Sandy Berger, the deputy national-security adviser, and Strobe Talbott, the deputy secretary of state (whose children fondly refer to Deutch as “Big Guy”). But the CIA’s old hands remain skeptical. They crack that Deutch is “not a spymaster but a spinmaster” and joke that counter intelligence has found a new mole: John Deutch. According to close aides, the former MIT professor is already looking forward to leaving the agency, even if Bill Clinton is re-elected.
