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The spook left out in the cold

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Cover Design By Andrew Nunez (119905)
Cover Design By Andrew Nunez

“…Sterling was not only employed by the C.I.A., but he worked as an operations officer—meaning he worked clandestinely. Thus, the factual details of the case, which would otherwise be unremarkable, (redacted) potentially, compromise the C.I.A.’s operations…”

-from the actual redacted lawsuit filed by Jeffrey A. Sterling against the C.I.A.

Former Central Intelligence Agency case officer Jeffrey Alexander Sterling was convicted on nine felony counts of unauthorized disclosure of classified information in an Alexandra, Va., federal court on Jan. 26. The guilty verdict stems from his relationship with a news reporter, with whom he allegedly shared information about a secret mission to disrupt Iran’s fledgling nuclear weapons program.

Sterling, a lawyer and graduate of Washington University’s (Saint Louis) nationally rated law school, previously had an unblemished (criminal, financial, and otherwise) record prior to his employment with the spy agency.

It bears remembering the case is impacted by the present political climate, in the wake of the security leaks by National Security Agency employee Edward Snowden, and U.S. Army soldier Bradley Manning. The Obama administration is in the midst of a crack down on potential security violations by government officials in inappropriate exchanges with the journalism community.

This particular legal suit is further complicated, however, by allegations of unfair treatment during Sterling’s employment with the government and the specter of race. Sterling was one of the few African American case officers or “spy managers” charged with the recruitment and management of intelligence sources.

According to his attorneys and other interested onlookers, Sterling’s real offense may well have been an Equal Employment Opportunity (EEO) lawsuit he filed against the government some 10 years prior.

It sounded like a good plan, at least on paper.

Use a defected Russian scientist to offer flawed plans for a bogus atomic weapon to Iranian government officials eager to gain entry into the elite cadre of countries possessing atomic weaponry. In a classic “cloak and dagger” tradition, the Russian, code named “Merlin” (the same name for the whole operation) moved to the United States from his homeland in the wake of the Cold War, returned to Europe for a meeting with Iranian emissaries to the International Atomic Energy Agency in Vienna, Austria, during the tenure of President William J. Clinton.

In return for monetary compensation, he would turn over blueprints for a nuclear triggering device he’d purportedly stolen from his previous job at the Soviet research center at Arzamas-16 (the Russian counterpart to Los Alamos, N.M., the birthplace of America’s Atomic Bomb). These plans, however, were actually provided by the C.I.A., and contained subtle design flaws that hopefully would set the Iranians on a path of futile research, tying up manpower and resources for years, but ultimately would leave the Iranians with a contraption no more lethal than a paperweight.

The jury is still out on the relative success of the mission. Author James Risen, who has written on government and security issues for the Los Angeles Times, and the New York Times, went so far as to suggest that this charade was an absolute failure, and the information the Russian passed on may well have accelerated Iran’s quest for nuclear armament in his 2005 book “State of War.”

Originally slated as an article for The New York Times, Risen’s piece on Operation Merlin used “insider” data gained from operatives involved in the mission. In its accusation of treason, the government states that such information could only have come from Sterling, who acted as the case officer or “handler’ for Merlin

For his part, Risen has steadfastly refused to identify his sources, in the tradition of good journalistic standards. He has continued his refusal in the midst of threats of legal government reprisals. There is no question however, that he and Sterling were well acquainted. The two men collaborated on an article about Sterling’s EEO lawsuit. Sterling maintains that his involvement with Risen ended there, while the prosecution insists that this was merely the start of a relationship that eventually led to the revelation of classified material by a disgruntled secret agent hell bent on exacting revenge against his former spy masters.

“…within the CIA as well, there are very few African American operations officers, and he (Sterling) was told at one point, after he was trained in Farsi, that he was too big and Black to go to places where Farsi was spoken.”

-Mark Zaid, Jeffrey Sterling’s attorney during his EEO lawsuit.

“…the image of the CIA officer throughout the world is certainly not one of color. Generally the upstanding White gentleman with the blue blazer(s) and tacky pants. I travel in many places throughout the world and no one ever suspected me as working for the CIA. I don’t fit the profile.”

-Jeffrey Sterling in an interview with Australian journalist Damien Carrick

From the turn of the century through the timeline of the events chronicled in Risen’s book “State of War,” Sterling’s relationship with his own superiors was strained, with people like David Cohen (recently appointed by Barack Obama as Deputy Director of the C.I.A.) who relieved Sterling from overseeing Operation Merlin (stating that “his performance was extremely sub-par”). Sterling countered in his lawsuit, that he was saddled with unrealistic expectations “far above those required of non-African American (operations officers).”

Sterling’s vocalized concerns about how the operation was being run in turn, aggravated the C.I.A. hierarchy in Langley, Va. (Agency headquarters). This was an especially sensitive period for the agency, as a security breach led to the collapse of virtually the entire American espionage network throughout the country of Iran. At the same time, President George W. Bush and his administration were embroiled in their quest to prove that first Iraq, then Iran, were on the verge of acquiring weapons of mass destruction, allegations that later proved to be inconclusive.

The fact that one of their ranks expressed his dissatisfaction via the legal system was supposedly hard for the brethren in Langley to take, in and of itself. The fact that he toiled in such a sensitive locale and the site of very public embarrassment may have prompted officials to take the hard line. The publication of Risen’s book and his depiction of the agency’s decision makers as incompetent screw-ups added fuel to the fire, as government onlookers attest.

Other Black C.I.A. employees have had less than pleasant working relationships during their tenures with this venerated organization.

As a 27-year veteran of the C.I.A. Clandestine Service (his tenure ended in 1984), Leutrell Osborne views his career in an overall positive light, although he insists that discrimination was an ever-present hindrance to his advancement, just as it is in contemporary society. Due to the nature of the business, he is reluctant to give details about the manifestation of this racism, though he does recount an abrasive relationship with a Japanese American station chief who felt that Osborne had been given an easier time getting through spy school then the station chief did.

Osborne reached out to Sterling as the latter’s EEO lawsuit was under way, although he never actually testified. Giving the younger man the benefit of his experience, Osborne appeared on CNN along with Mark Zaid, Sterling’s lawyer during his discrimination lawsuit.

Andrew Warren, formerly a rising star who occupied the coveted chief of station position in Algiers, Algeria, fell from grace after his conviction on a battery of charges, starting with his alleged drugging and rape of Muslim women during his posting, then, upon his return to the States, arrested for possession of a Glock semi-automatic pistol during a crack cocaine-induced stupor at a Norfolk, Va. Ramada Inn.

His story was documented in a Rolling Stone article by Michael Hastings (“The Spy who cracked up in the Cold,” dated March 28, 2013). Hastings, best known for another Rolling Stone article that provided fodder to relieve NATO Commander Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, died in a fiery collision after his Mercedes Benz crashed into a palm tree in Los Angeles’ Hancock Park neighborhood, on June 18, just two months after the piece ran on Warren.

Sharon M. Scranage, described as a nice, church-going lady by those who knew her growing up in her native Virginia, eventually earned a post in Ghana as a secretary. As a result of a romantic fling with a native Ghanaian to whom she allegedly turned over sensitive documents, Scranage was tried and convicted in a scandal that resulted in the death of at least one field operative in 1985. Her alleged paramour, Michael Soussoudis, was a suspected intelligence officer and relative of former Ghanaian head of state Jerry Rawlings, who engineered the 1979 coup d’état. Information she leaked eventually reached communist countries in the Soviet Bloc.

“…it (the conviction of Sterling) seems to be a concerted effort to ensure that those who formerly served with them, keep their lips shut tight.”

-Mark Zaid.

“This information in the wrong hands could easily lead to the death of a U.S. citizen and conceivably contribute to the deaths of millions of innocent victims of a foreign nuclear weapons program.”

-Condoleezza Rice

One person who did testify in the espionage trial was Condoleezza Rice. Recalling her days as Bush’s high-profile National Security Advisor (she later served as Secretary of State), she was instructed by Bush to convince Risen’s editors at the New York Times not to run his article on Operation Merlin. The newspaper folded under pressure, and Risen had to wait three years to tell the story, when “State of War” was published.

Discrimination in the workplace is a tedious state of affairs at best.

In Sterling’s case, a seven-foot-tall barrier and other physical amenities were used in the court room to shield witnesses’ identity from spectators, and the witnesses themselves were often listed only by their first names and the initial of their last names. Of the seven men and seven women in the jury, none were African American. Most of the documents presented before them were heavily “redacted,” meaning vast passages were blacked out with no indication of the data withheld.

In a nutshell, the saga of Jeffrey Sterling is a case of racial discrimination, which mushroomed into a convoluted mess by the introduction of national security issues, with the CIA invoking the privilege of state secrets at least partially to prevent further damage to its tarnished reputation.

Meanwhile, Sterling is facing the possibility of decades behind bars.

Sterling’s sentencing date is set for April 24.

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