The Human Factor. Ishmael Jones
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the Twins—American professors who taught science at an American university and worked for the Agency as access agents. A couple of months before, at a conference in Istanbul, they’d marked my colleague Loman as a spy. “Something didn’t seem right” about Loman, they wrote; his cover “didn’t seem believable in that venue.” The Twins had met Loman before and knew he was an Agency officer. HQs scolded Loman. A month later he was given a one-way ticket home from his assignment in Eastern Europe to a cubicle at Langley. There were other factors involved, but the Twins had undeniably played a major role.
Keeping out of the Twins’ line of sight as best I could, I methodically covered the room, like a farmer plowing a field, eyeballing each nametag, on the lookout for people who might make good sources. A target from North Korea, Iran, Libya, Russia, or China would be ideal. If I couldn’t see a nametag clearly, I’d get as close as I had to. Finding no one of special interest, I strolled over to the conference’s poster area, where scientists display their latest papers. During evening sessions, the authors stand next to their posters and discuss and defend their ideas.
I glanced over the papers until I came to one belonging to a nuclear scientist from a rogue state—Dr. B—.
I returned to the main hall, inspecting the attendees’ nametags closely again for Dr. B—. No Dr. B—anywhere. At the reception table they said he’d been unable to attend. That was perfectly normal. Scientists often had funding or scheduling problems that forced them to cancel their plans. Scientists from rogue states had to obtain government approval for all travel, which made their plans doubly uncertain. By signing up for the conference, though, they could get their papers posted on the board even if they didn’t show up.
Dr. B—’s telephone number was listed on his paper, so I pulled out my cell phone and gave him a call.
“Hello, Dr. B—, my name is Ishmael Jones from Acme Software Solutions. I’m calling from the conference in Paris.”
“Yes, I had hoped to attend, but I had trouble scheduling it at the last minute.”
“I saw your paper at the poster session. I had been hoping to meet you here. My company has a technical problem with one of our products, and reading your paper, I realized you may be the one to help us with a solution.”
We exchanged email addresses and, soon thereafter, emails. I invited him to visit me, at my expense, and we set an appointment to meet in Warsaw. Dr. B—could be an excellent source of intelligence—information that might prevent the advancement of his nation’s nuclear weapons programs. If my relationship with Dr. B—went well, the effects might alter the world for the better, perhaps even save lives.
But first I had to cover my tracks.
HQs didn’t know I’d be attending the conference. I had, however, been cleared to be in Paris that morning. I’d tell HQs I just happened to walk by the conference because I’d had a cover business meeting nearby. HQs would rather hear that my attendance was serendipitous than that I’d specifically targeted it. There should be no fallout from having dropped by. I’d done a good job of avoiding the Twins and hadn’t recognized any other CIA people, so I didn’t expect my name to come up in anyone’s after-action report.
I wouldn’t tell HQs how I’d closely eyeballed everyone’s nametag. That broke an unwritten Agency rule from back when many spies were embassy diplomats. Diplomats don’t charge into scientific conferences and scrutinize nametags. They’re expected to sidle up casually to people at cocktail parties, make small talk, and set a date for tennis.
Few at HQs had ever met a rogue state weapons scientist. HQs didn’t even realize how approachable they were. The scientists’ occupations—creating weapons of mass destruction for use by tyrants—made them intimidating, but I knew they sat next to a phone just like anyone else. They liked to communicate with people, indeed had to, if they wanted to keep informed within the scientific community. Most had relatives in the United States, and all of them wanted to come to the States to study. Nearly all spoke English and enjoyed speaking with Americans.
As for me, I was merely a businessman. I wasn’t at the conference for fun—I was working, and attendees fully expected strangers to read their nametags. No reason to be shy about it.
The biggest problem would be explaining to HQs how I’d managed to arrange the meeting in Warsaw. By telephoning Dr. B—as he sat at his desk in his office, I’d broken an ironclad rule. No officer may ever contact anyone in a rogue state without prior approval.
Approvals from dozens of bureaucratic turfs and layers of Agency managers were needed before I was allowed to make a telephone call to anyone, let alone a rogue state scientist. Protocol required that I first write a memorandum with the proposed content of the telephone conversation, then get the go-ahead from several tiers of managers at my home station, several in Paris, several in Warsaw, several at the European Division at HQs, several at the Eastern European Division at HQs, several representing Dr. B—’s home country, and several others for the HQs division of Dr. B—’s home country. As a weapons scientist, Dr. B—’s activities also came under the rubric of Counterproliferation Division, meaning several layers of management from that division, too, would have to review and approve the request. Within all of these layers were offshoots responsible for counterintelligence and security. There was yet another set of layers just for dealing with my own office. If anyone, anywhere along the way, considered my request a bad idea, the operation wouldn’t go forward.
I solved this problem by claiming that Dr. B—called me. Dr. B—didn’t need approval from the Agency to call me, of course, since we had no control over him. I told HQs that I’d seen his paper and left my card with the conference organizers, who had passed it to Dr. B—. I described all communication with Dr. B—as having been initiated by him: He called me and told me he planned to visit Warsaw. He emailed me his travel details.
And he invited me to visit him in his country. This was an impossibility. HQs was afraid even of making phone calls there. A CIA officer visiting a nasty rogue state to conduct an intelligence operation was out of the question.
Having established contact with Dr. B—, my request to meet him in Warsaw now had to be approved through all the above-mentioned layers. I wrote my request to make it seem completely devoid of risk. In truth, I planned to start prying secrets from Dr. B—as soon as I could, in the interests of American national security. In my request to HQs, I made it sound as though he and I would just exchange pleasantries.
Layers of management above me weakened my proposal even more in their edits emphasizing how incredibly light my contact with Dr. B—would be. In the end, it sounded like we’d be two ships passing in the night. That way, HQs would perceive the proposed meeting to be absolutely harmless.
The request to meet Dr. B—percolated through the layers at HQs. It didn’t seem to be meeting any resistance, but the sheer number of layers and hurdles meant the pace was slow. I had several weeks before Dr. B—’s arrival in Warsaw, but still the approval hadn’t come in by the time he left his home country. I decided to get on an airplane and fly to Warsaw, approval be damned.
At the airport in Warsaw I met the portly Dr. B—.
“Hello, my friend,” he said, “it is a pleasure to meet you.”
We dropped off our suitcases at the hotel and strolled through Warsaw. The old town center, obliterated during the war, had been completely rebuilt. We sat at an outdoor café and ordered large glasses of beer.
After making polite introductory conversation, we discussed the scientific problem I needed to solve, a commercial application in Dr. B—’s specialty, then adjourned to my hotel room to work on the problem. This was a key step, as it placed us in a businesslike setting. I asked questions and took notes.
In discussing the technical problem, I learned much about Dr. B—’s background and education. While describing his past work experience, he unwittingly furnished interesting information of clear intelligence value.
His field was nuclear weapons. I had wanted to give him a technical problem that would not arouse his suspicions, then allow him to steer