MELVIN GOODMAN INTERVIEWED

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP99-01448R000401990001-5
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 11
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: May 22, 2012
• Sequence Number: 1
• Publication Date: March 1, 1995
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

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Sl H I FROM Panasoni c PPP
V
7~1/REPORTS
PUBLIC AFFAIRS STAFF
The Diana Rahm.Show
March 1, 1995 10:38 AM
Melvin Goodman Interviewed
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Washington, D.C.
STEVE ROBERTS: I'm Stave Roberts, sitting in for Diane today.
We're back with Melvin Goodman from the CIA.
? president Clinton has selected retired Air Force General
Michael Carnsa to lead the CIA. Carne has a daunting challenge as
he takes over an agency facing budget Cuts, with its mission ill-
detined and its credibility and morale undermined by the Aldrich
Ames case.
Joining ma to talk about some of the steps General Carns could
take to deal with these proble>r~s and reform the CIA is Melvin
Goodman. He's a former Soviit policy analyst at CIA, now a
professor at the National war.Cal.leq~ and author of regular op-ed
gaga pieces on this subject.
Nice to have you with us.
MELVIN GOODMAN: Good morning. It's nice to be here.
ROHERTS: Mr. Goodman, why don't we start -- we mentioned that
Admiral (sic] Carns is about to take over. What's he up against at
this agency?
GOODMAN: He's up against an agency that is demoralized and,
I think, in a certain amount of bureaucratic peril. When you look
at the damage that was done to the agency in the 1980s by Sill
Casey and Sob Gates, a lot of that damage has not been corrected as
yet. That includes the Ames afrair and the inability to track Amas
over a ten-year period. And that also would include the
politicization of intelligence in the 1980x. A lot of the people
who were responsible !or not tracking Ames in a more expedient
fashion and a lot of the people who were politicizing intelligence
are still in very important jobs. And Woolsey dfd not remove them.
in fact, he promoted some of them.
So, that's the first thing that a new Director must deal with.
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ROSERTS: Let's take these two subjects individually. The
Aldrich Ames case, of course, there's been a lot of publicity.
What's the lasting impact? is it more on morale? Is it also o!
practical impact on the assets around the world that might have
been compromised? What -- as this rippling fallout continual to
develop, what are you seeing?
GOODMAN: Well, I think the impact on resources has been
exaggerated, because the interesting thing is that within a couple
of years the CIA had created new resources. In fact, one of the
reasons why they didn't track Amss more carefully is because they
began to get new agents and they thought they were dealing with an
aberration rather than a serious systemic problem. So the
resources returned. And that had more to do with the decline and
tho collapse of the Soviet Union than it did with the power of the
CIA.
The real lasting impact is that for ten years you had no
accountability and responsibility in the CIA itself. And if it
weren't for a brace of people at rather medium-level positions who
had a certain amount of courage and tenacity, I don't think the CIA
ever would have tracked Rick Ames, despite all of the clues.
So, the serious problem is one of integrity and accountability
of the agency. And that a new Director can deal with very quickly.
ROBERTS: Now, the second question about the politicization of
information. Of course, William Casey, the Director during the
Reagan yearn, was well known for his strongly held political views.
And what was the lasting impact there? When you say
politicisation, ware they skewing the information? Wers they
providing information that buttressed a particular point of view?
What era we talking about?
GOODMAN: We're talking about three kinds of politicization.
In one case, they made up fntalligenc? out of whole cloth. That
was the "Papal Plot" memo, that the Soviet Union was responsible
for the attempt to kill the Pops. That was created out of nothing.
In soma cases, they slanted intelligence. That was done for
Casey to show that Bill Casey's favorite covert action programs
ware going vary well.
GOODMAN: Ths Contras, aid to the Mujahideen in Afghanistan,
?id throughout Central America and 8outharn Africa.
And in the last case, you have the suppression of
intelligence. And that, of course, is the greatest intelligence
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failure that the CIA has ever bean responsible for, the failure to
track the strategic retreat and capitulation of the Soviet Union,
even before the collapse. And that was because of suppression of
intelligence, and it was Sill Casey and Bob Gates who suppressed
that intelligence.
ROBERTS: Well, that of course is a central issue. There was
the cliche for so many years that Americana saw the Soviets as
being ten feet tall. In tact, they turned out to be about three
feet tall.
What accounted for such a miscalculation or a series of
misjudgments there?
GOODMAN: Well, several factors are important here. One is
the failure of the Social sciences. Our mind-set was wrong. It
was larger than a failure of the intelligence community. I think
it was a failure of the media, of the pundits, of the professors,
of places where I studied Soviet studies and Russian studies.
There was no scenario, there aas no concept for the fact that this
system may not hold together, that the ideology is flawed. And we
tended to exaggerate the Soviet Union and it became a justificatiots
ror very large defense budgets and particularly the defense
increases in the 1980s, when President Reagan added $1 1/2 trfliion
to a very large defense budget.
So, I think the mind-set was indeed a problem. But in the
case of the 1980s, when the evidence began to come in that the
Soviet Union was much weaker than we had perceived, there was a
great deal of suppression of very good evidence about the weakness
of their weapons systems.
ROBERTS: Deliberate suppression.
GOODMAN: That is deliberate suppression, particularly on the
part of Sob Gates, because he was the filter for Bill Casey~s
ideological perception.
ROBERTS: Of course, I remember in the 1984 presidential
campaign Ronald Reagan -- one of the major ads hQ ran was "the bear
in the woods." His whole strategy was to continue to focus and, I
guess, exaggerate the Soviet threat.
cooDMAN: That~s true. But that was consistent in American
politics. Remember, Eisenhower had to stand up to the so-called
bomber gap, but he did. Kennedy was responsible for the so-called
missile gap, which was a fraud. Richard pipes from Harvard came in
and tried to create an intentions gap, that the Soviet Union was
actually building a weapons delivery system for first-strike
capability. And then Casey added to it with the idea that the
Soviets ware indeed ten feet tall and responsible for all of the
terror around the world.
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So, its a rather concistsnt strain in American politics. But
the CIA was dissociated from those accusations until Casey and
Gatos drew them in.
ROBERTB: Now, Melvin Goodman, in writing about James Woolsey,
the outgoing Director o! the CiA, you wrote, somewhat critically,
that he was still a cold warrior. liven though a Democrat, Mr.
Woolsey had been involved with Republican Administrations in the
past, as well.
Is it time for a new mind-sat at the CIA? Is it propitious
that someone like Woolsey, who you describe as a cold warrior, is
now leaving. And can we get a new look now at the top of the
agency?
GOODMAN: Woolsey is a man of great integrity and tireless in
terms of the energy he devoted to the CIA. But I do think he was
part of an old mind-set.
And one of the unfortunate things about the Aspin Commission
is, before you can reform the intelligence community and the CIA,
i think you have to look at the international arena tv see how it
has changed over the past ten years and decide what era the
objectives of a new American foreign policy in this new arena. And
then you should try to reform the intelligence community.
But failing that, yes, the intelligence community has to take
a vary hard look at the international arena and the international
agenda and look at the nontraditional sources of problems. And
this fs what Woolsey failed to do. Woolsey was extremely
traditional. Ha looked at the world in terms oP adversarial
relations. His metaphors were wrong. Ha talked about the fact
that we had slain the dragon but there were still more dangerous
snakes out there in the international community. Well, the fact
is, the American national security position has Haver bean stronger
since the end of World War Ii, and wa should acknowledge that.
That moans we can spend lass on intelligence, just as we spend less
on defense. And a new Director will have to tackle that.
ROBERTS: You mentioned that 75 percent of the CiA budget, if
Ism not mistaken, was directed at the Soviet Union, at the Warsaw
Pact, at China, and that this is one area where you think savings
can be made.
GOODMAN: Yes. But Z think that reorientation has already
been accomplished. i think the 75 percent figure would now be less
than 20 percent. But the fact fs, the mind-set that you study
military systoms, you study the weapon system is still the primary
mind-set. Wheroas the real threat, I think, to American security,
or ^ystemic throats, are nontraditional problems: ethnicity,
nationalism, ethnic wars, religious militancy, separatism,
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dissidence, ecology problems, environmental problems, energy,
economic problems.
These are the very problems that Bob Gates said should no
longer bs done or examined by the CIA, that should qo back to other
agencies. I think these are the problems that threaten the
interests of the t7nited States on a global basis.
ROBERTS: And are ws equipped or is the agency equipped, say,
to provide intelligence on s situation like Hosnia, to take one
example? Or, another one, the rise o! Islamic fundamsntaiism in
countries like Algeria? Which to at least -- while at the moment
era contained within national borders, but do have at least the
potential for threatening our interests in other places.
GOODMAN: I believe the CIA doss.
Ons of the remarkable things about the CIA is it's the most
impressive collection facility or collection agency in the world.
They can collect data on problems, on institutions, on economic
matters that no other agency can deal with. They do have that
centralized and highly sophisticated facility. That's why they
were able to monitor arms control agreements over the past 30
years. That's why they were able to monitor trade restrictions on
the Soviet bloc over a 40-year period. So it's a remarkable
collection facility.
What is missing is the inability on the part o! the CIA to
attract outside scholars to come in for short periods of time to
research very specific issues. And the reason they are unable to
do that i? because of the emphasis on clandestine activity and
secrecy and security, which makes it very hard to bring in an
established scholar for a short period of time. And that's why the
CIA has to become more open in this post-Cold War environment to
attract outside expertise.
ROBERTS: We're talking with Malvin Goodman, who teaches at
the National War Collsgs. He's a former Soviet policy analyst at
the War College -- or at the CIA. And you can join our
conversation for the next ten minutes or so, up until the eleven
o'clock hour. Our phone number, as always, is 202-885-8860....
You're talking about, Melvin Goodman, about the new tasks, the
new challenges in front o! intelligence agencies. And of course ws
had the very graphic demonstration of this in the last few days
with the whole fracas with the French and the expulsion of American
espionage agents from -- or alleged espionage agents from France.
And it must bs -- when you talk about mind-sate, it must bs rather
difficult to now see allies who were military allies in that long-
standing confrontation with the Soviet bloc now seen as rivals in
the whole area of economic competition. And of course you just
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take the area of aircraft sales, a major export item. The United
States and the French of course are bitter rivals.
Is the cIA doing a good job in adjusting to that? The favt
that they got caught in Franca emblematic that they're still not
doing it very well? What's going on there?
6O0DMAN: Well, I'm not shocked by the fact that they were
caught. I'm shocked by the fact that the French brought ft to our
attention and wa didn't quietly remove the agents. That is the
traditional way of handling matters of this type.
The important thing is, there were agents out there
collecting, I think, intelligence that was important to the
interests of th? United States -- that is, sconomic intelligence.
z hope we weren't paying too much, however, for secrets dealing
with France's position on GATT affairs, because you could pick up
The Economist every week and get a lot of that intelligence for
about $3 an issue.
ROHERTS: I remember Jim Woolsey, when he testified during his
confirmation hearings, did talk about the growing importance of
using the CIA on behalf of American national interagts in the
commercial realm and not just in the military realm.
GOODMAN: Yes, but that showed the lack of political
sophistication of Jim Woolsey, because he roads headlines all over
the world, particularly in Japan, with his emphasis on sconomic
espionage.
If we are going to discuss and collect sconomic data, that
requires a great deal of sensitivity, because you are creating
problems for domestic political entities around the world with that
kind of collection. I think they know the CIA is doing it. We
know the French era doing it. Hut this should be done quietly.
And I think this is where clandestine becomes very important in
your activities.
ROBERTS: I should tell our listeners who haven't been
following the news on Capitol Sill that our information is that
Senator Dols has recessed the Senate today....
Let's qo to a couple of our callers, Malvin Goodman. We've
got John on a ear phone....
JOHN: I just tuned in and I only caught the very last part of
the comment on whether or not we Head to reduce intelligenoe in the
post-Cold War era and the comment on why the CIA can't hire trained
academics.
One point on the academics. My recollection is that they did
at one point try to hire, at least Nadaav Safron (?), who fs a
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Middle Eastern expert, and he subsequently, when hie connection to
the CIA was discovered, I believe he. lost his position at Harvard.
So that's one reason why I think the CIA can't get trained
professionals, that there's a taint to it. Whether the taint is
proper or not ie another iisue.
As regards the poet-Cold War era, it seems to me that we would
need to increase our intelligence in the post-Cold War era, rather
than cut it down. We don't need to focus on the Soviet Union or
the Warsaw Pact, but certainly all the intra-country lights and the
potential !or regional conflict is still tremendous.
And I'd like a comment on that, please.
ROBERTSs Thanks for your call, John.
Melvin Goodman? ?
GOODMAN: Wall, I would agree with a lot of what he said. Hut
the problem fs, we just do not lace the same threats we did in the
1950s and 1960s. Now, the threats are more complicated, in many
ways, and more convoluted, but they represent less of a threat to
American national interests. Therefore, you havQ the resources,
you have the budget authority. Certainly the CIA has a great deal
of money to spend, and it should qo public with that figure. Sut
they need to reorient what they do, not to add to what they do.
And there's too much of an emphasis on intelligence that's
collected by clandestine moans.
There is this accusation I always see, or defense of
clandestine intelligence that this is the only way to get into the
minds of world leaders. Well, we don't do a very good job of
getting into the minds o! world leaders. That's why there have
been so many intelligence failures over the past 40 years.
ROBERTS: Okay. Let's go to Alice from Arlington....
ALZcE: I wanted to ask il, since Casey was involved in
setting up the Heritage Foundation, whether or not he continued his
activity with that group while he was Director of thQ cIA.
ROHERTS: I don't know the answer to that.
Do you, Melvin Goodman?
GOODMAN: I just don't know. I think he was rather busy doing
what ha was doing at the CiA.
ALICE: Well, he was rather busy when he was Director of SEC
and he had time to handle the legal work for setting up the
Heritage Foundation at that time. And since the lour people who
were initially involved in that ware very heavily involved in
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delense contracting, it seems to me that that's where their
interest was.
ROBERTS: Okay. Thank you. Thank you, Alice.
I don't know more about that particular story. Do you3
GOODMAN: No. No, I don't.
ROBERTS: Let's go to Miks....
MIKE: I was the Director o! the White House Situation Room
during the second Reagan Administration and I'm pretty lamillar
with what Casey and Gates and the CIA did during those years. But
I'm concerned that there are -- that you're missing other voices,
other views of the CIA, perhaps that dirfer from Mr. Goodman and.. .
ROHERTS: Well, that's why we're glad you called, Mike. Go
ahead. Give us your views.
MIKE: I'm not prepared to give my view. I'm just hoping that
NPR would invite two sides, invite people to tell two sides o! the
story on a show like this.
MIKE: There are people that have just the same experience as
Mr. Goodman, perhaps credentials that are even more polished, that
could o!!er a di!lerent view of the CIA in the last few years. And
I think the listeners would benelit from two sides of that story.
ROBERTS: Well, I -- we try very hard on this program and all
through NPR to do that, and all views do get a chance to bs heard
here. That's one o! the reasons why we take calls. But we're
happy to hear what your main criticism o! Mr. Goodman is, if you
want to tell us.
MIKE: I have nothing that I'd like to air publicly. I'm just
suggesting that everyone has a bias in this town, and when you
invite somebody to a show like this they're going to give you their
views. And 2 think the other side of the story should be heard
simultanQOUSly.
ROSERTS: Weli, I'm sorry you don't want to givQ us your
views, because that's why we have call-ins. But I do appreciate
your call.
MIKE: Sure. Thanks.
ROSERTS: Thanks.
Let's go to Line One, Ambassador Kelmans?
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[No response]
ROBTRTS: Let's qo to Charlie from McLean....
CHARLIE: I, many years ago, spent a short time with the
agency and = have tremendous respect for it and have followed it
ever since. I probably was there before Mr. Goodman joined.
But my question is a very simple one. Would Mr. Goodman -- I
like what ho says and it sounds very reasonable. would he accept
it a position if General Carns offered it to him as a senior
position in the agency?
ROBERTS: [Laughter] What about that, Melvin Goodman?
GOODMAN: I'm very happy at the National War College, thank
ROBERTS: But is there a problem of recruiting good people to
the CIA today? Has it lost some of its appeal? One of the earlier
callers pointed out that Nadaav Safron -- and I don't know the
dotails of that case -- as a scholar, suffered from his association
with =the. CIA.
GOODMAN: Well, that, in part, was Safron's fault, because he
covered up some of the sources of financial support he was getting
from the CIA.
The fact of the matter is, Woolsey recruited Joseph Nye to
come down from Harvard, and Nye in turn recruited Eric Vogel from
Harvard. But then they stopped, and they should have done more
outside recruiting. And they have the National Intelligence
Council, that i think should ba based, in part, on the expertise of
outside scholars. In that way, you reenergize the CIA and you
reenergize intelligence analysis.
ROSERTS: We only have time, just one more minute, Mr.
Goodman.
If you could sum up your advice to the new Director o! the
CIA, Admiral Carns, what would you tall him? What two or three
things you would tell him to do?
GOODMAN: Well, the two most important things are restoring
the integrity and the credibility oP the CIA. And you restore the
integrity by moving out the people who were responsiblQ for the
scandals of the 1980s. And you restore the credibility by a real
policy of openness, in terms of declassified documents from the
1950s and the 196os, allowing the State Department to publish its
foreign relations series with materials from the CIA archives, and
you qo open on the budget figure. The whole world knows the CIA
spends about $3 billion a year, and I thought it was foolish for
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Woolsey to continue this charade of keeping secret the budget of
the CIA.
There is a real problem on how a secret soci -- a secret
agency conducts its a!lairs in a democratic society. And I think
the General is going to have to confront that problem.
ROBERTS: Thank you so much, Melvfn Goodman, who now teaches
at the National War College and a former Soviet policy analyst at
the CIA.
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