Who Now Will Read To The President In The Morning?
By Ray McGovern
Saturday 05 March 2005
Senate skids have been greased for John Negroponte to be confirmed as the first director of national intelligence. Never
mind that he deliberately misled Congress about serious human rights abuses in Honduras where he was ambassador from
1981 to 1985.
That dissembling enabled the White House to circumvent the congressional restrictions that would have denied use of
Honduras as the primary base for the "Contras"-the counterrevolutionaries organized and armed by the US to overthrow the
government of Nicaragua.
Negroponte's opposite number in Washington during those rogue-elephant, Iran-Contra days, then-Assistant Secretary of
State Elliot Abrams, was convicted for lying to Congress but then promptly pardoned by George H. W. Bush, who explained
that Abrams was motivated by "patriotism." No less "patriotic," Negroponte had simply been luckier, in that he was not
required to testify as frequently to Congress.
Abrams is now deputy assistant to the president for national security affairs, and it is a safe bet he had a hand in
recruiting his erstwhile partner-in-crime, so to speak- for the top intelligence job. On the day Negroponte was
nominated, Fox News Channel commentator Charles Krauthammer noted that Negroponte "was ambassador to Honduras during the
Contra War...and he didn't end up in jail, which is a pretty good attribute for him. A lot of others practically did."
Mornings With Bush
That our supine Senators should choose to ignore all this is scary enough. But it is the scene visualized by President
Bush for his morning briefing routine, once Negroponte is confirmed, that stands my hair on end. And White House Chief
of Staff Andrew Card has said that Negroponte's portfolio will include responsibility for producing, as well as
briefing, the President's Daily Brief. At the announcement of Negroponte's nomination, the president made it clear that
Negroponte would control who and what gets to the president, adding:
"He will have access on a daily basis in that he'll be my primary briefer. In other words, when the intelligence
briefings start in the morning, John will be here. And John and I will work to determine how much exposure the CIA will
have in the Oval Office. I would hope more rather than less."
Bush did some backtracking yesterday during his visit to CIA headquarters, saying "Porter Goss comes every morning with
the CIA briefer to deliver the briefing. And that, of course, will go on." But the president then immediately noted that
Negroponte had not been confirmed yet, raising once again the question as to how much longer the CIA director will have
daily access to the Oval Office.
Small wonder that Goss allowed himself just the day before to complain publicly that the intelligence reform rushed to
passage by Congress in December has "a huge amount of ambiguity in it," and that he was not sure what his relationship
with Negroponte is supposed to be. The president's remarks have not been much help. He may be waiting for Vice President
Dick Cheney to tell him how to sort this all out.
The President's Daily Brief
Until now the PDB has been not only CIA's premier intelligence publication, but also its best assurance of access to the
White House. That entree gave intelligence officers unique, first-hand insight into the most pressing foreign policy
concerns of senior US policymakers and made it possible for those concerns to drive both collection and analysis.
I did such morning briefings for the Vice President, the Secretaries of State and Defense, the Chairman of the Joint
Chiefs of Staff, and the National Security Assistant from 1981 to 1985, each of them one-on-one-a procedure begun under
President Ronald Reagan at the suggestion of then-Vice President (and earlier CIA director) George H. W. Bush. Our small
team of briefers was comprised of senior analysts who had been around long enough to earn respect and trust. We had the
full confidence of the CIA director, who, though himself very opinionated, rarely inserted himself into the PDB process.
When I first learned that former director George Tenet had chosen to piggyback on those briefings, hitching a ride to
the oval office with the morning briefer, I asked myself, "What is that all about?" The last thing we briefers needed
was the director breathing down our necks. And besides, didn't he have other things to do in the morning?
We were there to tell it like it is and, perhaps best of all, in those days we had career protection for doing so. And
so we did. If, for example, one of those senior officials asked if there was good evidence of weapons of mass
destruction in Iraq, and we knew that professional analysts we trusted thought not, we would say "No sir."
But, you ask, "Even if the director had said it was a 'slam dunk?'" Yes. Even after the director had said it was a slam
dunk. But bear in mind that in those days the task was not so heroic. We did not have the director looking over our
shoulder.
The president's assertion that his "primary briefer" will be Negroponte-the man farthest removed from substantive
intelligence analysis, not to mention from the sourcing and other peculiarities of the PDB articles chosen for a given
day-is cause for concern. Is the director of national intelligence to be super-analyst as well as intelligence czar
reigning over 15 intelligence agencies? Will he not have other things to do in the morning?
President Bush reportedly does not read the President's Daily Brief, but rather has it read to him. Will Negroponte
choose which items to read on a given day? Who will do the actual reading? Will Goss be there? Does he, too, not have
other things to do in the morning? Will there be a senior analyst there, with career protection, should it be necessary
to correct Negroponte when he attempts to answer the president's questions?
And, with Negroponte as gatekeeper, who else will get an early-bird crack at the president? Is it likely that
courtiers/partisans like Elliot Abrams will be there to "help" at the PDB briefings? And who is the president more
likely to listen to concerning, say, the status of Iran's nuclear program?
It is impossible to overstate how much rides on the answers to those questions. Someone should tell President Bush to
listen to what his earthly father has to say on all this. He knows.
*************
Ray McGovern, a CIA analyst from 1963 to 1990, is co-founder of Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity.
Originally an analyst of Soviet foreign policy, he spent several years preparing and briefing the President's Daily
Brief and chairing National Intelligence Estimates. This article appeared in abbreviated form as an op-ed in Friday's
Miami Herald.