Washington Decoded

Drugs, Corruption, and Justice in Vietnam and Afghanistan: A Cautionary Tale

 

Print

By Merle L. Pribbenow

    

    On October 27, 2009, The New York Times published a dramatic article about Ahmed Wali Karzai, the brother of the president of Afghanistan, Hamid Karzai. The article alleged that the president’s brother is a major Afghan drug trafficker as well as being a paid asset of the American Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). The byline to the article listed three names, including that of James Risen, the well-known author of State of War, a recent and controversial book about US intelligence operations under the Bush Administration. And like the sensational allegations Risen made in State of War, the Times article was based almost entirely on anonymous sources.

    While noting that Ahmed Wali Karzai categorically denied any involvement in drug  trafficking, and that he also denied being a paid agent of the CIA, the article went on to quote unnamed U.S. “military and political” officials as stating that the Agency’s relationship with Karzai had become a source of “anger and frustration among American military officers and other officials of the Obama administration.” While admitting that the evidence against Wali Karzai was “largely circumstantial,” the article charged that Karzai’s alleged involvement in the opium trade meant that Karzai was viewed as a “malevolent force” in Afghanistan (a peculiar and incendiary choice of words). The article also repeated critical comments made by anonymous US Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) sources about the US government’s failure to take action against Karzai and his alleged narcotics connections.

    As a retired CIA officer who served in South Vietnam, the Times story struck a very familiar chord with me.  Several decades ago, strikingly similar wartime allegations were made against a powerful government official, Lieutenant General Dang Van Quang, who was very close to South Vietnamese President Nguyen Van Thieu. Although I retired from the CIA more than a decade ago and have absolutely no personal knowledge, one way or the other, about the accuracy of the charges made against President Karzai’s brother, I believe that before the press, the American public, and senior Obama administration officials blindly accept as accurate the charges made in the Times article, it might be useful to review the earlier Vietnamese case. Lessons from General Quang’s case may be applicable to the allegations being made about President Karzai’s brother.

Richard Nixon's Own Deep Throat

The article should have noted that in 1999, Slate’s Tim Noah mentioned in two articles the relevance of the 19 October 1972 conversation to the (then) on-going controversy about Deep Throat’s identity.

Footnote 3 in “Richard Nixon’s Own Deep Throat” was corrected on 5 November.

Concocting the Dots

Due to an editing error, the article originally stated in footnote 2 that journalist Daniel Schorr did not provide a source for a quote used in his 1977 book, Clearing the Air. Schorr did cite a source for the quote; it was a paragraph from Book V of the Church Committee’s Final Report. The  larger point about the apocryphal nature of the quote, however, was accurate.

Footnote 2 in “Concocting the Dots” was corrected on 11 January.

Underwood Hoax

On December 15, the Lyndon B. Johnson Library provided the list of passengers who were aboard Air Force Two, which also returned to Washington from Dallas on November 22.  Underwood was aboard this back-up airplane, and the article was revised to reflect this new information.

On December 18, Washington Decoded obtained a 1979 profile of Martin  Underwood that had been published in the Baltimore Sun. Since this  article shed further light on how Underwood fabricated stories over time, “The Underwood Hoax” was again revised to incorporate this new information. 

Still Guilty

Because of an e-mail breakdown, Mel Ayton’s essay was not vetted by its author prior to publication, which is standard procedure. Some points in the version posted 11 May 2008 required clarification. A revised version was posted on 14 May, and several minor corrections and additions were also incorporated in the revision.

 

Civics Lesson

The 11 February 2008 review of The Commission stated that Philip Zelikow drafted the “Talking Points” rebuttal to Shenon dated 1 February 2008. Zelikow has denied primary authorship, claiming that Christopher Kojm, his former deputy on the 9/11 panel, “held the pen on that . . . document.”

Washington Decoded is certain only that Zelikow distributed the “Talking Points” memo immediately after it was written.

“Civics Lesson” was corrected on 19 February to reflect that fact.

Doubt and Disbelief

The 11 January 2008 article about the January 1967 conversation between President Johnson and Justice Abe Fortas was published before Gene Roberts was able to respond to queries about The New York Times’s investigation into the Warren Report. On January 22, Roberts clarified some aspects of the newspaper’s inquiry.

Roberts was the reporter in charge of the investigation, which involved several other reporters, including Peter Kihss and M.S. Handler. After extensive interviews of everyone on the Warren Commission who was willing to talk, and a thorough review of many of the questions that had been raised by critics of the report, “we didn’t come up with anything really new,” Roberts recalled. Ultimately, it was Harrison Salisbury’s decision not to run even one article, but every reporter involved in the investigation, according to Roberts, concurred in that judgment.

“Doubt and Disbelief in the Warren Report” was corrected on 22 January 2008 to reflect these clarifications.

Deep Throat 3.0

The 11 May 2007 article on Deep Throat erred in ascribing to Ben Bradlee a role really played by Leonard Downie, Jr., Bradlee’s successor as executive editor of The Washington Post. It was Downie who insisted that the guessing game was over with publication of the Vanity Fair article.

“Deep Throat 3.0” was corrected on 20 May 2007 to convey Downie’s role accurately.

The article also stated, incorrectly, that the 20 June 1972 article by Woodward instigated Zeigler’s remark about a “third-rate burglary.” Ziegler’s characterization was uttered on June 19, before the article appeared.

The relevant sentence in “Deep Throat 3.0” was corrected on 8 July 2008.

Richard Nixon's Own Deep Throat

Print

The Washington Post’s supposedly best-kept secret during its Watergate coverage—the identity of its inside source—was no secret to Richard Nixon

By Max Holland

    When W. Mark Felt unmasked himself as Deep Throat, in May 2005, the ballyhoo was dampened by a distinct feeling of anticlimax. As the FBI’s number two man in 1972, Felt was the first real suspect: speculations that he had been Washington Post reporter Bob Woodward’s über-source appeared in print as early as 1974. And despite 30 years of denials, he never lost his status as the most likely leaker in most observers’ eyes. His eventual admission was less a thunderbolt than a confirmation of what was already widely believed.[1]

    Much more surprising is that the Nixon White House knew about Felt, with a degree of certainty far beyond mere suspicion, almost from the start. On  October 19, 1972, H. R. “Bob” Haldeman, Nixon’s chief of staff, told the president that Felt was the Post’s primary source. This conversation was revealed in November 1996, when the National Archives released the so-called “abuse of governmental power” tapes.[2] In hindsight, it should have been seen as an important clue about Deep Throat’s identity. However, it received little attention, probably because it conflicted with the popular narrative of the scandal, which holds that Felt was both principled and incognito.[3]

   Haldeman, of course, turned out to be right, which begs the question: how did he know? The answer is that the White House had its own secret sources, including one who had access to The Washington Post’s inner workings. We might think of him as Nixon’s Deep Throat.

    Uncovering the identity of this Deep Throat is a thornier matter. While it was one of the lawyers working for or in proximity to the Post on Watergate-related matters, apart from that fact, it may be that nothing more definitive can ever be said. Even so, exploring the possibilities one by one helps illuminate how Washington worked then, and probably how it still really works. As Benjamin Franklin once observed about keeping confidences, “Three may keep a secret, if two of them are dead.”

                            •                                    •                                    •                                     •                                    

What Haldeman Knew

   On October 10, 1972, The Washington Post published what Woodward would later describe as “perhaps [the] most important” Watergate story he and Carl Bernstein ever wrote.[4] Stretching over three columns on the upper right quadrant of the front page, the piece began,

FBI agents have established that the Watergate bugging incident stemmed from a massive campaign of political spying and sabotage conducted on behalf of President Nixon’s re-election and directed by officials of the White House and the Committee for the Re-election of the President.

    Until then, the Post’s coverage had been piecemeal and inchoate: a steady drip of articles with intriguing information but unclear implications, whose ins and outs could be followed only by dedicated lawyers or political junkies. The October 10 story was the first to put the break-in in context. With it, Watergate became a story of national import.[5]

    Nine days later, Nixon and Haldeman had a desultory but revealing afternoon conversation about Watergate coverage. Nixon had sensed for weeks that someone, somewhere, was supplying the Post with its incremental but relentless scoops.[6] The FBI was high on his list of suspects, even though several factors argued against its involvement. L. Patrick Gray, the acting director since J. Edgar Hoover’s death in May 1972, was beholden to Nixon for his appointment, and the Bureau had  a reputation for discipline insofar as sensitive White House matters were concerned. It seemed especially hard to conceive that the FBI would leak information contrary to the interests of a president who seemed certain to win  re-election a month hence. But Haldeman’s information, captured on the president’s voice-activated tape recorder, left little doubt.