We know that the young man with the bomb in his pants had been exposed by his own father to the CIA at the U.S. Embassy in Nigeria. Twice. Yet there was a complete failure to connect the dots as the information was not shared with other U.S. security agencies that might have put this information to good use by not allowing him to board the plane in the first place. We are left to wonder how, after being humiliated for failing to connect the dots in so many other instances, this behavior was repeated yet again.
We like to think of the CIA as a group of dedicated professionals who really are top- notch. All evidence is to the contrary, however. Along the way the CIA has missed a few things, like being caught totally off guard when the Soviet Union fell, despite the fact that the Soviets were the focus of their attention. Because of this failure, we were unable to capitalize on a great opportunity to win the peace and now find ourselves drifting back toward an adversarial relationship. Recently the CIA lost seven agents after allowing a double agent to walk right into their headquarters without being searched. He wore a suicide vest containing a hi-tech explosive used by our “friends” of the Pakistani intelligence agency.
I would ask you all to look up (Google/Bing) “Operation Acoustic Kitty,” which dates back to the 1960s and is now declassified, for some enlightenment about CIA “thinking.” Believe it or not they spent five years and $15 million to implant microphones, transmitters and train a cat to eavesdrop on Soviet conversations in a park. Sadly, the cat ran into traffic and was turned into road kill on its first mission. The program was abandoned shortly after this as it dawned on them that cats are not easily trained. Most 5-year-olds are aware of this, but they forgot. There are many other examples such as “Project MK-Ultra” or “The Stargate Project.”
Human nature plays an even bigger role in explaining their continued inability to cooperate with other agencies. I”ve experienced it firsthand. While working for Meteorology Research, Inc. in the early ”70s, it was my job to maintain weather and smog monitoring stations. Having assisted in this a few times, it was finally time to head out to Wasco, California, on my first solo assignment. Arriving at the station, I found the entire system fried due to lightning striking the 300-foot tower, which smoked all the sensors and instruments. Instead of just calibration, changing charts and batteries, I needed to start from square one. I called back to “Field Operations,” the department I worked for but found the only one who could help me gone for the day. I next asked for engineering, figuring the guy who designed the system could help, which he did. I worked for hours, followed his instructions to the tee and was as proud as I could be to have rebuilt the entire station from top to bottom using spare parts stored at the site.
When I walked into the office, I was shocked to find my boss, just retired from 28 years in the Navy, seething with anger. He was upset that I had spoken with someone in engineering and didn”t keep things “in house.” I explained that I thought we were all part of the same house and that my job was to resurrect the station. After driving three hours to get there I was not about to leave until I had the job done. A few tense days later he called me into his office and apologized, which cemented a friendship that goes on to this day.
So here we have the CIA, the NSA, the TSA, and the FBI, all looking to protect their turf and prove that they are the cat”s meow so to speak. Maybe we have too many agencies all sharing the same turf and need to simplify by cutting a few layers of needless bureaucracy.
Lowell Grant is a weekly columnist for the Record-Bee. E-mail him at c21vintage@aol.com.
