Selection of Leon Panetta for Director of the Central ...
By Colonel (ret.) Monte R. Bullard, PhD
The selection of Leon Panetta, former Chief-of-Staff to President Clinton, to be the Director of the Central Intelligence Agency raises a question about the selection criteria for key intelligence leadership positions. Senator Dianne Feinstein (D, Ca) and others have questioned publicly whether or not Mr. Panetta lacked grounding in intelligence matters. My initial reaction to the announcement was to agree with Senator Feinstein, but after rethinking based on my past experiences I strongly support the appointment of Mr. Panetta as CIA Chief. Although he lives less than ten miles from where I live in Carmel Valley and I worked with him briefly when he was the Congressman from our district and I was Commandant of the Defense Language Institute, I do not know him well. I also support his appointment in spite of the fact that I disagree with many of his political positions. I do have profound respect for his intellect, integrity and professionalism.
Since I was directly or indirectly associated with the intelligence community as an intelligence producer and consumer for over 50 years I feel qualified to pontificate on this issue. I received formal training in human intelligence, some technical intelligence (photo interpretation and communications intelligence) and counterintelligence. I now teach on-line counterterrorism courses for Henley-Putnam University, a new on-line university for intelligence and law enforcement professionals. I served as an intelligence analyst, counterintelligence agent, human intelligence operations officer, commander of three separate intelligence units, including a military interrogation prison, and U.S. Army Attaché in Hong Kong and China. As a consumer of intelligence I have written hundreds of intelligence reports and studies, two books, one e-book, several op-eds, and many academic articles that were based upon intelligence information.
I base my support for Mr. Panetta based on a number of instances when I, as a career intelligence officer, worked for an outsider who was assigned as my commander based upon leadership and managerial skills and had little or no experience in my field. Prior to 1962 intelligence was not an official career branch in the Army and most officers were reservists and relatively narrow specialists in one of the intelligence disciplines. Intelligence unit commanders were mostly drawn from the regular army infantry, artillery and armor branches. Few had any experience in intelligence. While there were exceptions, the vast majority of those "temporary" intelligence officers provided important professional leadership and discipline in the organization. After 1962 career intelligence officers began to take over leadership of intelligence units and there was not a perceptible difference in the quality of the organizations.
It is important to remember that early training in human intelligence collection begins with the statement that what we were doing (spying) was fundamentally illegal in the eyes of our target countries. We had to develop "plausible denial" stories and be prepared to lie to prevent discovery or embarrassment. Placing a West Point infantry officer, who had been socialized with an honor code that did not permit lying, in charge of such activities immediately provided a balance and prevented many activities from becoming excessive. It forced us to think twice about any actions that might be considered unethical. In short it provided a check on those who would operate in too fast or loose a manner, a tendency most of us had since we were operating outside normal military structure and norms (off base, in civilian clothes with no rank apparent). In retrospect the combat arms officers who were placed in charge because of their leadership skills provided necessary structure and discipline.
A second period that left a profound impact on my thinking was when I was assigned as Army Attaché in Beijing. I had just graduated from Berkeley with a PhD in political science (focus China) two years earlier. I was confident that I knew a lot about China and that substance was necessary to accomplish the job. When I heard that the Ambassador was a political appointee who knew virtually nothing about China I was prepared to resent him from the beginning. His background was as head of the United Auto Workers Union.
