Right Words for a CIA Leader

The Senate Intelligence Committee manhandled Anthony Lake when it finally held hearings on his nomination as director of Central Intelligence, so bruisingly that President Clinton’s former national security advisor withdrew his name in frustration and anger. With director-designate George J. Tenet, by contrast, the committee has engaged in a virtual love fest.

The difference has a lot to do with Tenet’s essentially nonpartisan background. For the last two years he has been deputy director of the CIA. For five years, ending in 1993, he was staff director for the committee now considering his nomination, and he earned respect from all sides. The only bump in the road to his confirmation is an apparently minor financial disclosure problem that, committee members say, ought to be easily resolved. With that, Tenet should become the third head of intelligence chosen by Clinton and the fifth director in the last six years.

Those numbers tell a troubling story of a lack of continuity at the apex of U.S. intelligence activities and of profound internal problems at the CIA. Among those problems have been two turncoats discovered in high places, sagging morale and a wrenching readjustment to post-Cold War intelligence priorities.

The director of Central Intelligence oversees 13 different intelligence agencies, employing about 80,000 people and spending close to $30 billion a year, about 10% by the CIA itself. Tenet is an intelligence insider who believes, as he told the committee this week, that covert action “is a critical element of U.S. foreign policy,” but one that should be part of broader diplomatic and military efforts, one that “should never stand alone, never be the last resort of a failed policy.” To what ends might covert actions be directed? One answer comes in Tenet’s assertion that such threats as terrorism, narcotrafficking and arms proliferation have to become primary concerns for the CIA.

These are the right things to say. The real test lies in how well the intelligence services respond. The United States does very well in technical intelligence--spy satellites, communications monitoring and the like. A far greater challenge comes in trying to penetrate terrorist cells or drug trafficking or the trade in unconventional weapons. Here there is no substitute for human resources. The risks of getting involved are great. The failure to get involved, as Tenet suggests, could be devastating to national security.