LONG STRANGE JOURNEY
AN INTELLIGENCE MEMOIR
PATRICK G. EDDINGTON
Long Strange Journey:
An Intelligence Memoir
by Patrick G. Eddington
Copyright © 2011 Patrick G. Eddington
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
ISBN: 9781609844646
NO PART OF THIS BOOK MAY BE REPRODUCED IN ANY FORM, BY PHOTOCOPYING OR BY ANY ELECTRONIC OR MECHANICAL MEANS, INCLUDING INFORMATION STORAGE OR RETRIEVAL SYSTEMS, WITHOUT PERMISSION IN WRITING FROM THE COPYRIGHT OWNER/AUTHOR
Printed in the U.S.A.
Contents
Maps, Illustrations, and Photos
Glossary
Preface
One: Flashback
Two: Limbo
Three: The Analyst in Training
Four: Caucasian Maelstrom
Five: An Empire Shatters
Six: Indications and Warning
Seven: Province 19
Eight: Desert Storm
Nine: Georgetown Interlude
Ten: No-Fly Zones
Eleven: Persia Rising
Twelve: GWS
Thirteen: Targeting Options
Fourteen: Heretic
Fifteen: Road Show
Sixteen: Eyewash
Seventeen: Adieu HQ
Eighteen: Summary Judgments
Nineteen: Endgame
Twenty: The Afterlife
Twenty-one: Reckonings
Twenty-two: Politics 101
Twenty-three: Hotel California East
Maps, Illustrations, and Photos
Armenia and Azerbaijan
Iraqi invasion of Kuwait
NPIC August 5, 1990 cable on Iraqi threat to Saudi Arabia
Iraqi deployments on the eve of Desert Storm
Destroyed hardened aircraft bunkers at Ahmed Al Jaber Airfield, Kuwait
Pre-surveyed SCUD launch site imagery
Suspected SCUD storage sites under attack
“Highway of Death” overhead imagery
Kurdish refugee camp
NPIC Unit Commendation Letter from President George H.W. Bush
Patrick Eddington and NPIC Director Leo Hazelwood, May 1991 122
Tunb Islands and the Straits of Hormuz
Robin Eddington and Senator Donald Riegle, May 1994
Haiti map
Bosnia-Herzegovina
Khamisiyah Munitions Storage Facility
Glossary of Terms
AAR - After Action Review. A military term for evaluating a military operation or event.
AAV - Amphibious Assault Vehicle.
ACDA - Arms Control and Disarmament Agency. Federal Agency responsible for monitoring arms control agreements.
ACR - Armored Cavalry Regiment. A highly mobile, reconnaissance-oriented U.S. Army formation of approximately brigade strength.
ADCI - Acting Director of Central Intelligence. A CIA official acting as the Director of Central Intelligence on a temporary basis.
AFMIC - Armed Forces Medical Intelligence Center. Medical intelligence arm of the DIA.
(The) AGENCY - The CIA.
AGENT ORANGE - Defoliant used by the United States during the Vietnam War.
AG - Adjutant General.
AL HUSSEIN - Iraqi version of the SCUD missile. It had a longer range but a smaller payload than the original SCUD.
AOL - America Online.
AOR - Area of Operations.
ARCENT - United States Army Central Command. Army component headquarters of CENTCOM.
ASD/HA - Assistant Secretary of Defense for Health Affairs.
ASP - Ammunition Supply Point.
BDA - Bomb Damage Assessment.
BCW - Biological and Chemical Warfare.
BNL - Banca Nazionale del Lavoro. Italian-based bank whose Atlanta, Georgia, branch made millions in illegal arms-related loans to Iraq in the 1980s.
BW - Biological Warfare.
BZ - A hallucinogenic incapacitating chemical agent.
CAM - Chemical Agent Monitor.
C3 - Command, Control, and Communications.
C4 - Chemical explosive.
CBW - Chemical and Biological Warfare.
CENTCOM - United States Central Command. One of several regional joint U.S. military commands. CENTCOM is the supreme headquarters for all U.S. forces deployed in the Persian Gulf.
CG - Phosgene chemical gas.
CIA - Central Intelligence Agency.
CIC - Counterintelligence Center. Component of the CIA charged with exposing spies like Aldrich Ames.
COC - Combat Operations Center. Marine equivalent to the Army’s Tactical Operations Center.
CONUS - Continental United States.
CP - Command Post. Another name for a tactical military headquarters.
CS - Tear gas.
CTSS - Central Targeting Support Staff.
CW - Chemical warfare.
CWO - Chief Warrant Officer.
CX - Abbreviation for phosgene oxime, a chemical agent causing blistering and other symptoms.
D & D - Denial and deception analysis.
DATSD/PA - Deputy Assistant to the Secretary of Defense for Public Affairs.
DCI - Director of Central Intelligence.
DESERT STORM - Name given to Coalition military operation designed to expel Iraqi forces from Kuwait. Lasted from January 17, 1991, through February 28, 1991.
DESERT SHIELD - Name given to Coalition military operation designed to defend Saudi Arabia from an Iraqi attack. Ran from August 7, 1990, to January 16, 1991.
DDCI - Deputy Director of Central Intelligence.
DDI - Deputy Director for Intelligence. CIA official who heads the DI.
DECON - Decontamination.
DEPSECDEF - Deputy Secretary of Defense.
DI - Directorate of Intelligence. One of four directorates within the CIA. Produces all-source intelligence assessments for the president, the executive agencies, and the Congress.
DIA - Defense Intelligence Agency. Lead intelligence agency within the DoD system.
DIVARTY - Divisional artillery.
DNA - Defense Nuclear Agency. DoD agency heavily involved in targeting nuclear, chemical, and biological facilities in hostile countries.
DO - Directorate of Operations. One of four directorates within the CIA. Responsible for the collection of human-based intelligence.
DOD - Department of Defense.
DPSC - Defense Personnel Support Center.
DSB - DSB. Advises the Secretary of Defense on a variety of military and technology issues.
DS&T - Directorate of Science and Technology. One of four directorates within the CIA.
DUSTY AGENT - A chemical agent that has been adsorbed onto a silicate or other similar carrier. Has the consistency of fine talcum powder. Can penetrate U.S./NATO MOPP suits.
EEO - Equal Employment Opportunity.
END TRAY - NATO code name for Iraqi meteorological radars.
EOD - Explosive Ordnance Demolition.
EPW - Enemy Prisoner of War.
EXDIR - Executive Director of the CIA.
FBIS - Foreign Broadcast Information Service. Open press reporting and analysis arm of the CIA.
FM - Field Manual.
FMF - Fleet Marine Force.
FOIA - Freedom of Information Act. Federal law that allows citizens to request sensitive or classified information from the federal government.
FOX - Anglicized name for the German-manufactured Fuchs NBC reconnaissance vehicle used by American forces during Operation Desert Storm.
FROG - NATO abbreviation for Free Rocket Over Ground.
GA - NATO abbreviation for the nerve agent tabun.
GAO - General Accounting Office.
GB - NATO abbreviation for the nerve agent sarin.
GD - NATO abbreviation for the nerve agent soman.
GF - NATO abbreviation for the thickened version of the nerve agent sarin.
GULFLINK - The DoD’s World Wide Web site for the public release of declassified Gulf War documents.
GWS - Gulf War Syndrome.
GWVG - Gulf War Veterans of Georgia. A Gulf War veterans’ advocacy group.
GWVM - Gulf War Veterans of Massachusetts. A Gulf War veterans’ advocacy group.
H - NATO abbreviation for the chemical blister agent mustard.
HASC - House Armed Services Committee.
HD - NATO abbreviation for distilled mustard, a variant of H.
HMMWV - High Mobility Multiwheeled Vehicle. Nicknamed “Hummer.” Replacement for the old M-151 Jeep.
HN - NATO abbreviation for nitrogen mustard, a variant of H.
HT - NATO abbreviation for sulfur mustard, a variant of H.
HUMINT - intelligence community abbreviation for human intelligence.
IEG - Imagery Exploitation Group. A component of NPIC.
IFF - Identification friend or foe.
IG - Inspector General.
IMINT - intelligence community abbreviation for imagery intelligence.
IIR - Intelligence Information Report. Produced by the DIA as well as the individual service component intelligence organizations.
IRFNA - inhibited red fuming nitric acid. A component of SCUD fuel.
JCMEC - Joint Captured Materiel Exploitation Center. A secretive CENTCOM entity established before the war to monitor chemical incidents and munitions discoveries.
JCS - Joint Chiefs of Staff.
JWAC - Joint Warfare Analysis Center.
KKMC - King Khalid Military City. One of several “military cities” built in the 1980s in Saudi Arabia.
KTO - Kuwait Theater of Operations.
L - Abbreviation for lewisite chemical blister agent.
LAI - Light Armored Infantry.
LISTSERVS - Internet mailing lists.
LNO - Liaison Officer.
M21 - Remote Sensing Chemical Agent Alarm.
M256 KIT - Nerve agent detection kit.
MCCDC - Marine Corps Combat Development Command.
MEF - Marine Expeditionary Force. A higher Marine Corps formation generally consisting of one or more Marine divisions and associated supporting arms.
MEU/SOC - Marine Expeditionary Unit (Special Operations Capable).
MG - Major General.
MMI - Nomenclature of the mobile mass spectrometer employed on the FOX NBC reconnaissance vehicle.
MOPP - Mission Oriented Protective Posture. Term used to describe the ascending levels of protection against NBC agents. Until the Gulf War, only MOPP levels I–IV were used. The Iraqi “dusty mustard” threat led to the creation of a MOPP level V, which involved wearing a poncho over the full MOPP suit.
MRL - Multiple Rocket Launcher.
MSM - Meritorious Service Medal.
MSR - Main supply route.
NAC - Northern Area Command.
NAPP - Nerve agent pretreatment medication.
NATO - North Atlantic Treaty Organization.
NBC – Nuclear, Biological and Chemical.
NBCD - Nuclear, Biological, and Chemical Division. A component of the CIA responsible for analyzing information related to NBC warfare.
NCO - Noncommissioned Officer.
NCOIC - Noncommissioned Officer in Charge.
NESA - NESA. One of several offices in the DI. Focuses heavily on Persian Gulf security issues.
NEWSGROUPS - Internet “bulletin boards” where users post messages of common interest to newsgroup readers.
NGIC - National Ground Intelligence Center.
NGWRC - The National Gulf War Resource Center.
NIE - National Intelligence Estimate.
NIH - National Institutes of Health.
NIO - National Intelligence Officer. A number of NIOs comprise the National Intelligence Council.
NIMA - National Imagery and Mapping Agency; DoD imagery monitoring center.
NPC - Nonproliferation Center. An interagency organization located at CIA headquarters.
NPIC - National Photographic Interpretation Center. Imagery component of the CIA.
NSA - National Security Agency. Defense Department agency responsible for electronic eavesdropping.
NSC - National Security Council. Carries out presidential directives regarding national security policy.
OASD/PA - Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Public Affairs.
OCA - Office of Congressional Affairs. CIA’s Congressional liaison office.
ODSSA - Operation Desert Shield/Desert Storm Association.
OGC – Office of General Counsel (CIA).
OIA - Office of Imagery Analysis.
OMA - Office of Military Affairs. CIA office established after the Gulf War to act as a liaison between the CIA and the Pentagon.
OMS - Office of Medical Services.
OPS - Office of Personnel Security. CIA office responsible for the physical and technical protection of CIA facilities and personnel.
OSD - Office of the Secretary of Defense.
OSHA - Occupational Safety and Health Administration.
OSWR - Office of Scientific and Weapons Research. An office in the DI. Focuses heavily on proliferation issues.
OWTP - Office of Weapons, Technology, and Proliferation (formerly OSWR).
PAC - Abbreviation for the PAC on Gulf War Veterans’ Illnesses.
PAR - Performance Appraisal Report.
PDB - Presidential Daily Brief. A brief summary of key intelligence and analysis provided daily to the president and his most senior advisors.
PEG - Priority Exploitation Group. A component of NPIC.
PGIT - Persian Gulf Investigative Team.
POC- Point of Contact.
PORTON DOWN - United Kingdom chemical and biological defense establishment.
POW - Prisoner of War.
PRB - CIA’s Publication Review Board.
PROVIDE COMFORT - Coalition military operation designed to provide humanitarian relief to Kurdish refugees in northern Iraq.
PSO - NPIC Personnel Security Officer.
PTSD - Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder.
RAOC - Rear Area Operations Center.
RCA - the DoD abbreviation for Riot Control Agent (tear gas).
RDT&E - Research, Development, Testing, and Evaluation.
RFNA - Red Fuming Nitric Acid. See IRFNA.
RGFC - Republican Guard Forces Command. Higher headquarters controlling Iraq’s Republican Guard divisions and independent formations.
RPV - Remotely Piloted Vehicle.
RSCAAL - Remote Sensing Chemical Agent Alarm (M21).
RTT - Office of Resources, Trade, and Technology. An office in the DI. Focuses heavily on trade and technology issues.
SAIC - Science Applications International Corporation. A major defense contractor with close ties to the CIA and DoD.
SASC - Senate Armed Services Committee.
SCARNG - South Carolina National Guard.
SCO - Special Control Office.
SCUD - A Russian-built missile.
SEABEE - Naval Mobile Construction Battalion.
SECDEF - Secretary of Defense.
SIB - Special Investigation Branch. A component of CIA’s Office of Personnel Security that investigates individuals suspected of revealing classified information.
SIGINT - Intelligence community abbreviation for signals intelligence.
SIPRI - Stockholm International Peace Research Institute. A highly reputable Swedish think tank specializing in proliferation issues.
SOCCENT - United States Special Operations Command/CENTCOM component.
SOCOM - United States Special Operations Command. Higher headquarters for all U.S. special forces units.
SSCI - Senate Select Committee on Intelligence.
SSGT - Staff Sergeant.
SU-22 FITTERS - Russian-built Iraqi military aircraft.
SWA - Southwest Asia.
TAA - Tactical Assembly Area.
TAOR - Tactical Area of Responsibility.
TARPS – Tactial Aircraft Reconnaissance Pod System.
TEU - Technical Escort Unit. U.S. Army unit responsible for the transport of sensitive munitions such as chemical, biological, or nuclear rounds.
TF - Task Force. In this context, USMC combined arms elements operating in Kuwait
(i.e., Task Force Ripper).
TSTI - Office of Transnational Security and Trade Issues. New name for RTT.
UNSCOM - United Nations Special Commission. U.N. body responsible for dismantling Iraq’s weapons-of-mass-destruction programs.
USMC - United States Marine Corps.
VA - Veterans Administration.
VX - abbreviation for v-series chemical nerve agent.
WEL - Women’s Executive Leadership Program. Office of Personnel Management training program for women entering the managerial ranks of the federal work force.
WMD – Weapons of Mass Destruction.
YPERITE - Mustard gas.
Preface and Acknowledgments
The wind sweeps across the desert, casting up occasionally thick clouds of the pale gold-colored sand. Ar Rumaylah, a few kilometers to the northwest, is the town nearest this previously empty expanse. The engineers arrived here a few days ago. By the end of November, they’d carved out dozens of the now-familiar horseshoe-shaped packed-sand revetments. The “special weapons” arrived shortly thereafter, the stenciled skull-and-crossbones on the ammunition boxes the only sign of the hazardous nature of their contents. On this day, sand-colored Soviet-made GAZ-66 cargo truckseach bearing the distinctive red triangle of the Republican Guard Forces Commandcrisscross the area, some dropping off their deadly payloads, others departing empty.
Iraqi officers shout orders to the harried, bedraggled enlisted men struggling to finish installation of the second line of concertina wire surrounding the newly established depot. Many suspect the nature of the weapons they’re guarding, but none ask for confirmation. It is unwise to ask too many questions in Saddam's Iraq, especially in Saddam's army. Soon, the chemical decontamination crews finish laying out a V-shaped wash-down site. The multiple rocket launcher battery, also newly arrived, prepares to upload sarin-filled 122mm rockets.
Two weeks later and seven thousand miles away, an analyst sits in front of his dual CRT screens. He’d prefer to examine these specimens under his scope, but he’s rushed—his manager wants the answer yesterday. The analyst pans around on the right-hand screen, moving the joystick to view a different section of the image, pushing a button to zoom in or out. He examines every millimeter of this hostile real estate for evidence of activity. Working in a dim, windowless, cubicle-filled office with other researchers, he remains focused on the image, occasionally scooting over to his terminal to type in his observations.
The process requires him to look at previous shots of the same area on the left-hand screen, comparing the old with the new, to arrive at a firm conclusion about his latest find. At last, certain he’s scoured the new image, he returns to his keyboard and finishes his report.
His narrative describes a new ammunition depot near the southeastern Iraqi town of Ar Rumaylah, not far from the Iraq-Kuwait border. The depot’s unusual featuresmultiple chemical decontamination stations, BM-21 multiple rocket launcher units, a double fence surrounding the facility____ ___ _______ __ ________ ___ ___ ___ ____ _____ _______ ________ _______.{1}
Imagery analysts are the eyes of the American intelligence community. I was one of them. What follows is an account of what I saw and experienced: technology, people, and government at their best and worst. My journey began with an introduction to high-tech espionage.
Our culture embraces invention like no other in human history. The airplane, radio, television, personal computer, reusable spacecraft—all ensure that the 20th century will be remembered as the “age of the gadget.” Perhaps nowhere has the American fascination with technology been stronger than in the realm of espionage.
The Radio Generation—those who lived through the Second World War—was fascinated by revelations that American intelligence had successfully eavesdropped on Japanese and German military and diplomatic communications. Subsequent generationsraised with the new medium of televisioncame to understand that America’s space program had both civilian and military components. The latter was revealed openly for the first time during the Carter administration, then more fully nearly 20 years later with the declassification of the documents and imagery of the Corona satellite photography program. The confluence of high technology with secretive government operations has become the grist of novelists and movie makers.
Technological brilliance often overshadowedbut never eliminatedage-old human frailties in the intelligence business: deception, bureaucratic turf wars, politicization of intelligence estimates. Only 40 years after the end of the Second World War would Americans learn that the overweening ambition of two senior naval officers nearly wrecked U.S. codebreaking efforts against the Japanese. The late Rear Admiral Edwin T. Layton’s 1984 memoir, And I Was There, provided American audiences with the first authoritative insider’s account of the accomplishments and the embarrassments of the Navy’s radio intelligence operation from Pearl Harbor to Tokyo Bay. Layton’s message was simple and timeless: human ego, ambition, and fear always will be a menace to sound intelligence work, and to accountability when people get killed.
Reading Layton’s book as a young intelligence officer in the new post-Cold War world was a transformational experience. It prepared me for the possibility, though not the reality, of facing a similar situation in my own career. My encounter with the Gulf War chemical controversy came during an epiphany I had while working at the CIA’s National Photographic Interpretation Center (NPIC). After rising swiftly within NPIC’s analytical ranks during my first six years, I was, by early 1994, looking for a way out. The analytical and budgetary environment in the Center had deteriorated in the wake of Desert Storm. Writing original, thought-provoking military estimates on rogue states became increasingly difficult in a climate in which NPIC management was obsessed with achieving—virtually mandating—analytical conformity on key intelligence issues.
Consensus-driven tunnel vision within the pre-World War II intelligence community had virtually assured the success of Japan’s sneak attack on Pearl Harbor, costing the lives of nearly 2500 Americans and plunging the country into the bloodiest conflict in human history. I wanted no part of an intelligence culture that fostered such fatally flawed thinking in an age dominated by the specter of nuclear, biological, and chemical warfare.
My opportunity to escape came in early 1994 when a new office at CIA headquarters—the Central Targeting Support Staff (CTSS)—advertised openings for two imagery analysts to work on a multi-disciplinary team providing direct support to the American military. I seized the moment, interviewed for the job and went from the proverbial frying pan into the fire. A career that had begun with my being labeled one of NPIC’s “brightest young analysts” ended with my wife and I appearing on the front page of the New York Times, squarely in the middle of one of the sorriest episodes in the history of American intelligence.
This book, however, is about more than one man’s tumultuous, abbreviated career in technical espionage. It charts the odyssey of two people—myself, and my wife, Robin—as we have our lives changed forever by a decision to pursue the facts about the first Gulf War and its consequences for the veterans of that conflict wherever those facts led—and not surprisingly, the reader will hear echoes of previous and current conflicts and their consequences for our nation in these pages.
This book would not have been possible without the help and encouragement of many people. Several deserve special mention.
Mark Zaid, attorney and friend, conducted litigation on our behalf that resulted in the release of tens of thousands of pages of previously classified documents pertinent to both my personal experience and to the larger Gulf War Syndrome imbroglio. I could never hope to repay Mark for his skill and friendship.
Ray McGovern, a 28-year CIA veteran, was a source of constant encouragement to Robin and I throughout this ordeal. If every intelligence officer possessed both his humor and integrity, ours would truly be the greatest intelligence organization on earth.
Two veterans of different wars helped me rebuild my career and allowed me the opportunity to serve two generations of America’s wounded warriors. Charles Sheehan-Miles, Desert Storm veteran and co-founder of the National Gulf War Resource Center, brought me onboard as the organization’s executive director in September 2000. Rick Weidman, Director of Government Relations for Vietnam Veterans of America, subsequently gave me the chance to serve as his deputy at VVA and to benefit from his decades of wisdom working Capitol Hill on behalf of all those who have served in America’s wars. Our country is a better place because of the life and ministry of these two men.
My colleague and the head of Rep. Rush Holt’s legislative correspondence team, Seth Tillman, provided superb copy editing services and I am extremely grateful for his help in whipping this manuscript into shape.
The late journalist Gary Webb provided priceless feedback and advice on the early drafts of this manuscript during 1999-2000. I think of him every time I review these words.
My wife Robin is probably the most remarkable human being I’ve ever known. Her care for me and for others around her serve as a constant reminder to me about why wives are invariably referred to as “the better half” in a successful marriage. She is God’s second greatest gift to me, and I thank Him daily for her love and presence in my life.
One other person deserves recognition—J.C., for saving my sanity and my soul.
Patrick G. Eddington
Annandale, Virginia
January 17, 2011
1. Flashback
I rolled over and looked at the clock: 8:55 a.m. I’d called into work about an hour earlier, leaving a voicemail that I wouldn’t be in that day. The scratchy throat I’d felt the night before had grown much worse overnight, and I felt the tell-tale aches and fatigue of a cold coming on. Hoping it was a just a 24-hour bug, I got out of bed, made my obligatory bowl of cereal, poured a glass of orange juice, and settled onto the couch to try to catch some news.
The Today Show’s Katie Couric was just recapping what had happened moments earlier: a plane had crashed into one of the towers of the World Trade Center in Manhattan. There wasn’t a cloud in the sky that I could see as the camera focused on the burning tower. What the hell is going on? I wondered as I listened to Couric describe the impact that had occurred nearly 20 minutes earlier. Suddenly, the second tower exploded, and within seconds video from another angle revealed the cause: another airliner.
Oh…my…God…
I stood up and watched in horror, the resulting rolling explosion sending flaming debris and thick smoke out of the sides of the building.
We’re under attack.
I ran to the phone and immediately tried reaching my boss, Rick Weidman, Director of Government Relations for Vietnam Veterans of America (VVA). He was scheduled to be on the Hill that day to testify before the House Veterans Affairs Committee alongside other leaders of veteran service organizations.
All circuits are busy; please try again later.
I hung up and dialed our office.
“Ed, get Rick off the Hill…call him and get him off the Hill now! We’re under attack…” It took a few seconds for me to explain the situation to our Executive Director, Ed Croucher, but I was able to convince him to try to track Rick down and get him off the Hill—NBC was reporting that other aircraft had been hijacked and one was apparently inbound for Washington.
Over the next several minutes, I kept trying to raise Rick on his cellphone, without success. Shortly after 9:30 a.m., I heard the roar of a large jet at very high speed. I looked out the window of our apartment, which faced toward Washington. To my horror, I saw what appeared to be an American Airlines 757 jet less than a mile away, landing gear up and on a downward glidepath that was clearly taking it toward either the Pentagon, the White House, or the Capitol. As our apartment was on the second floor and a line of trees was in front of our building, I lost sight of the aircraft as it neared the Pentagon.
Boom.
The window panes shook. Seconds later, I saw a large smoke cloud rise from the area near the Pentagon. As it turned out, the plane struck the side of the building I might have been in that day, had I not been sick and my scheduled meeting with Pentagon officials charged with dealing with the Gulf War illness issue not been postponed.
Within seconds, NBC was showing images of the aftermath of the impact at the Pentagon. Like tens of millions of Americans, I spent the rest of the day and most of the night watching the non-stop coverage of the greatest and costliest intelligence failure in our country’s history. Unlike most Americans, I understood how it could have happened. I had seen multiple other intelligence failures up close.
“You are here for a specific reason. What is your testimony before this committee?”
The date was December 10, 1996. My interrogator was Christopher Shays (R-CT), Chairman of the Human Resources and Intergovernmental Relations Subcommittee of the House Government Reform and Oversight Committee. The topic of the hearing—the “specific reason” for my presence—was the latest Washington scandal. After years of repeated denials, Pentagon officials finally admitted that U.S. troops had been exposed to Iraq’s potentially lethal chemical agents during and after Operation Desert Storm.
Over the past two years, I’d become the CIA’s unsanctioned expert on the subject—much to the annoyance of Agency managers, including the outgoing CIA director, John Deutch. Now, I seemed to be annoying Shays as well. Peering down at me from his perch, his face framed by wire-rimmed glasses and receding silver hair, Shays seemed confused by my previous testimony.
I’d just spent five minutes recounting the story of a U.S. Army soldier who’d told me about chemical agent exposures in his unit. This soldier also had irrefutable documentation showing that the Pentagon knew the risks associated with even small-scale exposures to nerve agents. This was exactly the kind of information I thought would galvanize the chairman. Instead, he seemed at a loss to understand the significance of the soldier’s story.
His confusion was partly my fault. I’d told the soldier’s story and provided some key documents to Shays’ staff the day before the hearing. As I sat in the witness chair, it occurred to me that perhaps Shays had not had time to digest the material. I tried to regroup.
“My testimony before this committee,” I continued, “is that we have a very serious problem with regard to low-level chemical exposures among American forces, in addition to the entire issue of the CIA and DoD failing to make information available to the American public with regard to this issue.” I paused briefly for effect. “That information is contained in detail in my written statement for the record.”
No good.
“The purpose of your having a written testimony is to help guide this committee…”
Shays went on as I sat in the witness chair and scanned the front of the hearing room. The afternoon was waning; only Shays and Congressman Bernard Sanders (I-VT) remained on the panel. Other members had made their brief statements for the record—and the cameras—then departed for the day. Most of the press had left to file stories before their deadlines, though C-SPAN’s camera crew remained. Only the dozens of veterans and their family members seated behind me in the gallery were still fully engaged in the proceedings. As Shays ended his scolding remarks about my “non-testimony,” I asked myself the obvious: Did it really matter anymore?
In nearly nine years with the CIA, I’d witnessed a world convulsed. The largest communist empire in history had crumbled. American troops were playing an unlikely and uneasy peacekeeping role in the Balkans after NATO’s first-ever air campaign. Although a bit player in both of those dramas, my career in the 1990’s had been dominated by America’s involvement with Iraq. In August 1990, I’d co-written the warning cable that triggered the deployment of American forces to Saudi Arabia. Six years later, I was reporting on its aftermath, with some of its latest casualties seated behind me in this Rayburn House Office Building hearing room.
A life-long fascination with all things military had ended with my resignation from the CIA, followed by intense national media scrutiny of both me and my allegations. The latest act in this drama—my testimony before Shays—was turning out to be more of an interrogation than a valediction. My wife and I faced an uncertain future, our long strange journey not yet over.
How the hell did I get into this mess?
2. Limbo
“Hey man, you still lookin’ for a job?”
The voice on the other end was my childhood friend, Tim Miller.
“Absolutely. What’s up?”
“I just got a call from the campus placement office. The CIA recruiter is going to be there tomorrow. They asked if I wanted to interview with him. I told ‘em I was leaving for Fort Sill but knew somebody who might be interested.”
“Might be?! Give me a name and number!”
His timing couldn’t have been better.
It was late May 1986 and I’d just returned from my five-month Armor School training stint at Fort Knox. Having passed up an opportunity to stay on active duty, I was in dire need of a job. The prospect of actually becoming an intelligence officerright after the Army had decided I’d make a better tread-head than a spyseemed too good to be true. I called the campus placement office immediately and got the last available interview with the CIA recruiter.
Around 10:00 the next morning, I was ushered into a conference room near the placement office. I walked in and shook hands with a gray-haired man in his mid-fifties. Standing about five-foot-ten in a gray suit with a smile pasted on his face, he looked every bit the salesman. Motioning for me to sit, he launched into his spiel, using a very slick, full-color brochure to buttress his pitch.
“For security reasons, I can’t tell you precisely the kind of systems you’ll be using,” he said. “However, I can tell you that you’ll be working in the Directorate of Science and Technology, or as we call it, the DS&T.”
He pointed to a basic organization chart of the Agency, which showed four main components: the Directorate of Administration, Directorate of Intelligence, Directorate of Science and Technology, and the Directorate of Operations. Three of the four directorates had other offices listed under them. The DO didn’t; the recruiter dodged my question about the blank space on the chart.
“What I can tell you,” he said solemnly, “is that you’ll be working with national technical means.”
“Come again?”
“We collect a lot of information through the use of national technical means.” He gave me one of those “You-know-what-I’m-talking-about” looks. Then it hit me: satellites. He’s talking about spy satellites!
“Sounds good to me,” I said. At that point, any job sounded good to me.
“Great. If I could just get you to fill out some forms.”
It was the usual: name, Social Security number, address, and so on. The recruiter assured me I’d be contacted in the next few weeks to schedule a series of tests—aptitude, psychological, and others to determine whether or not I was CIA material.
It suddenly dawned on me that this was going to take a lot longer than I’d originally thought. I had two choices: start graduate school in the fall or get a temporary job until the Agency made me an offer. I chose the latter. My parents needed financial help; I also wanted to start saving money for any move to the East Coast. I got a job as a shelf stocker at a local retail store. The work was mindless and the hours abominable, but it served its purpose.
As the Agency recruiter promised, I was contacted in mid-summer for the follow-on tests. On July 19th, I made the three-hour drive to the University of Missouri in Columbia, joining about thirty other would-be spies in a large classroom reserved for the exams. The psychological tests were a hoot. Some of the questions were clearly designed to weed out would-be mass murderers. “Have you ever felt like harming yourself or someone else?” “Do you have frequent urges to commit acts of violence?” The list went on. The temptation to mark “yes” to some of them was real, but I decided the Agency probably wouldn’t get the joke.
The world affairs test was a breeze. Most questions dealt with the current political, military, or economic situations in various countries. I was gratified that my time in college hadn’t been a complete waste. After the exams, we were told we’d be contacted if the Agency had any further interest in us. I spent the drive home wondering whether I’d ever get out of my hometown and into a real career.
“This is to advise you that certain Agency officials have expressed interest in a personal interview with you in connection with possible employment.”
More than nine months had passed since that initial battery of tests. The new letter from the Agency held out hope; my escape from Springfield, Missouri seemed possible after all. When I called to confirm the travel arrangements, the CIA personnel officer told me that I’d be interviewing with my likely home office.
“And what would that be?”
“The National Photographic Interpretation Center, or NPIC, as well call it,” she replied.
As I hung up, I vaguely recalled the recruiter mentioning that organization during the interview. It didn’t matter; I was just glad the process was moving along.
The plane landed at Washington National Airport on a brisk March day in 1987. Taking a shuttle to the hotel the Agency had directed me to, I prepared myself for the interview. I had no idea what to expect. Not only was this my first interview for a professional job, but it was with an agency that was largely a mystery to me. One thing was certain: the position required a good understanding of the political and military situation in the Soviet Union. Maneuvering a $2 million tank on a firing range against mythical Soviet T-72’s was one of the few real world experiences I’d had in my life up to that point. I was banking on my military background to get me through the front door.
Several other applicants were staying at the hotel. As I discovered during early morning breakfast conversations, most were in town to interview with NPIC. A few had technical or scientific degrees, but most were like me: liberal arts or political science majors with various specializations. The unspoken question was how many of us would make the cut.
Around 7:30 a.m., we boarded a shuttle bus bound for the Washington Navy Yard. The neighborhood in southeast D.C. was shocking. I’d seen run-down areas in Springfield, but nothing like this. The streets around the Navy Yard were lined with dilapidated public housing projects: dull red brick tenements with broken windows and missing screen doors. A liquor store with an accompanying open-air drug market was right across the street. Trash, empty beer cans, and the occasional discarded hypodermic syringe littered the street adjacent to the Yard. Several abandoned vehicles and discarded tires added a final touch of urban decay to the scene.
This is where I might be working?
The shuttle pulled into the fence-secured and guarded front parking lot of our destination building, a rectangular six-story structure. All the windows were boarded up except for those on the top floor. A guard stepped aboard the bus to verify our identities, then directed the driver to the main entrance. Disembarking, we were herded into a holding area inside the entrance where an NPIC personnel officer awaited us. A security guard signed us in and issued each aspirant a small red badge which read “Visitor: Escort Required.”
After some brief introductory remarks, the personnel officer told us that we’d soon be taken to the various components of NPIC that had requested interviews with us. Within minutes, a slender, slightly balding gentleman with light brown hair and glasses came over and offered me his hand.
“Hi there, I’m Ron! You must be Pat.”
I nodded. “Nice to meet you.”
“Let’s head on up.”
Ron led me through the wide main entrance corridor and around a corner toward the elevators. One thing struck me immediately: with the exceptions of the rest rooms and exits, nothing was clearly marked. Most doors leading to offices had gloss black signs with white letters and numbers on the right side of the doorframes, lying flush against the wall. You had to be facing the entrance to see the signs. They were also cryptic: “ESG, 1C920” told the casual observer absolutely nothing about what lay behind the door.
Arriving on the fourth floor, Ron turned and led me down the hallway toward a ramp that ended at double cipher-lock doors. The sign read simply “TFD, 4S1300.” Ron punched in the four-digit code, and upon opening the door shouted: “Red badge in the area!” A small metal pole with a flashing red light was located in the middle of a four-way intersection. The attached sign read “Warning: Uncleared Personnel in the Area.”
I glanced around. Several East European national flags hung from the ceiling. Posters of Lenin and several Red Army banners, along with photographs or drawings of Soviet military hardware, were mounted on nearly every wall. A large glass display case sat along the left wall of the main corridor, containing dozens of perfectly painted models of Soviet tanks, artillery, and other equipment.
Ron led me down the first walkway and around to the left, past the secretary’s modular workstation and a large number of cubicles on the right. Leading me into a room off of the corridor, he motioned for me to sit. The atmosphere was relaxed; Ron was extremely congenial.
“So, you want to be a military analyst?” he asked, smiling.
“Absolutely.”
“Let me give you a general idea of what you’d be doing here.”
Ron spent the next several minutes describing NPIC’s basic mission, being careful to keep his statements general to avoid disclosing anything I wasn’t supposed to know.
“We use what we call ‘national technical means’ to do most of our work.”
“You mean like Cobra Judy? Systems like that?” I’d seen unclassified references to these satellite systems but had no idea whether or not they were the ‘national technical means’ he was talking about.
“Something like that,” he said with a smile, flipping through what appeared to be a personnel folder. “I see here you have a military background. Tell me about that.”
I went into some detail about my experiences in the National Guard and at the Armor School. Ron smiled occasionally as he took notes. After I finished, he began to talk in greater detail about NPIC’s role.
“As you can probably guess, our main emphasis here is military analysis, particularly on the Soviet threat. I guess you learned quite a bit about the Soviet army at Fort Knox?”
“Yes. Our training focused heavily on vehicle recognition so we’d know friend from foe.”
“That’s a good skill to have,” Ron said. He spent a few more minutes discussing NPIC’s general mission, then wrapped up our session by encouraging me to continue with the interview process. When it was over, he took me back downstairs to Security, where I waited for the rest of the interviewees to reassemble for the ride back to the hotel. I left Washington the next day with no clearer idea of where I stood in the hiring process than when I’d arrived.
“Looks like you got another letter from you-know-who!”
My mother winked as she handed me the envelope. The return address was suitably cryptic: “Office of Personnel” and a P.O. box in Arlington, Virginia. I tore open the envelope and read the letter, dated September 17th: “It is my pleasure to inform you that you have been selected to continue processing for employment with this Agency…”
They wanted to fly me out to Washington again for additional tests.
“Per the enclosed schedule, we have scheduled you for the medical and polygraph examinations on 28-29 October 1987.”
Lovely: they think I’m a criminal.
I called “Georgeann,” my new Agency Personnel Office contact, to find out what crime they suspected I’d committed.
“Have I done something wrong?” I asked, anxiously.
“No, this is a standard part of our recruiting and hiring process,” she said.
“OK, count me in.” I hung up and contemplated my upcoming inquisition. I wasn’t looking forward to being strapped in and asked whether I was a homosexual or a communist, but if it got me out of retail . . .
It was rather frosty when I got off the plane at National Airport in late October. Sleep eluded me for a few hours that night as I contemplated the stakes: blow this and you’re condemned to small-town oblivion. I finally drifted off sometime after midnight.
Over breakfast at the hotel, I struck up conversations with some of the other applicants. They weren’t too hard to pick out: about my age, bereft of the nametags that normally identify conventioneers. Some were reviewing their travel instruction letters, which bore the CIA seal. I picked out a table with two women and another man slightly older than I and pulled up a chair.
It was an interesting mix. Some were from working-class backgrounds like mine; others were from Ivy League schools that served as the Agency’s traditional recruiting grounds. I recognized a few from my first trip in March. One thing struck me. They were all white. At the time, I wrote it off as a fluke. I’d learn better later.
After breakfast, we gathered for transport to our polygraph exams. Everybody was nervous, many fretting about the most trivial things. Should I tell them about the time I didn’t report a $20 bill lying in the street that I’d casually pocketed? What about that smoke bomb I set off in high school my freshman year? Some were in a near panic. That was the effect the “poly” had on you, even before you were sitting in the chair answering the questions.
As we sat in the waiting rooms, we watched the door nervously, dreading the moment when our names would be called. Some applicants breezed through on their first try in about an hour; others were in the room for two hours or more. A few had to come back because of “inconclusive” results.
My turn came. A secretary led me back to a room that measured about 15 feet by 15 feet. The polygrapher was seated at a small table, the dreaded device directly in front of him. The examiner was cordial enough, but there was no getting around the sick feeling that the deepest, darkest secrets of my life were about to be exposed. I sat down in the chair and noticed immediately that it wasn’t a Lay-Z-Boy.
This will be fun.
After hooking me up—pressure cuff on my right arm and around my chest, electrodes on my fingers—the examiner began by establishing a baseline response: asking me my name, where I lived, and so on. Then he asked me something he knew was untrue, if my age was 16. In theory, this helps the examiner get an idea of how an individual responds to questioning. I’d always been uncomfortable with the idea of polygraphs, feeling they were little more than electronic Ouija board. What I thought was also completely irrelevant. If I wanted the job, I had to get past that black box and its operator.
Having established his baseline reading, my examiner got down to business.
“Have you ever committed a crime?”
“No.”
“Have you ever been a member of the Communist Party or any other subversive organization?”
“No.”
“Have you ever experimented with drugs?”
“No.” I shifted in the chair.
“Try to remain as still as possible, please. Have you ever engaged in homosexual activity?”
“No.” My hands had started to sweat ever so slightly.
And so it went for roughly two hours. The Examiner asked every question in the same monotone. I responded as calmly as I could while strapped to the contraption. I was told my time in the chair was about average. I left the session feeling I’d done OK, but knew it would be months before I’d learn if I’d actually “passed.”
I returned to my dead-end retail job in Springfield, praying every night that God would liberate me from the tedium of telling customers “Check aisle four . . .” or “We’re currently out of stock...” By late November, I was contemplating starting graduate school in the spring, convinced that I’d flunked the polygraph or that something had turned up in my background investigation. During the summer, several of the references I’d listed on my security clearance forms had called to let me know that someone identifying themselves as a “Defense Department investigator” had been around asking questions. Those inquiries and my polygraph were the last solid indicators I’d had that the Agency was still interested.
On December 4, 1987, I pulled a double shift at work. I’d been sleeping just over four hours when the phone rang, a little before 5:30 p.m. My mother woke me.
“I think it’s the CIA on the phone!” she said.
Eight weeks had passed since my encounter with the “Examiner” and his little black box.
“Hello…this is Pat . . .” I was still groggy as the young woman on the other end began speaking.
“Mr. Eddington? Hi, this is Georgeann from CIA Personnel. I’m calling to let you know that if you’re still interested in working for the Agency, we’re prepared to make you an offer.”
All fatigue vanished.
“Yes, absolutely!” I shouted. “When do I start?”
“Report to headquarters for your orientation on February 16th,” she said. “Any questions?”
“No, at least not for now. Thanks!” I hung up the phone and ran through the house screaming with joy.
Three weeks later, the official offer arrived in the mail:
I am pleased to confirm our offer of employment with this Agency as an Intelligence Research Specialist—Imagery Analysis as a GS-7, step 5, $20,806 per year. You should report to the receptionist at our Visitor Control Center of our Headquarters Building, McLean, Virginia (off Route 123) at 9:00 on 16 February 1988.
God had rescued me from retail.
3. The Analyst in Training
That first week at Langley involved the usual kinds of things you’d expect upon joining any large corporation: filling out insurance forms, setting up a retirement account, learning where the cafeteria is, etc. Walking the corridors of CIA headquarters, I usually had no idea where the office I was looking for was located until I was practically on top of it. There were general schematics of the corridors posted at the ends of the major hallways, but these simply said “C corridor” or “H corridor.” Room numbers and office designators were nowhere to be found on these generic diagrams. Despite the “urban shooting gallery” quality of NPIC and its environs, it was preferable to working at Headquarters. Wandering the maze of corridors at Langley made me feel like a lab rat.
Like most Americans, my impressions of the Agency were formed largely from what I’d read in the papers or seen on television, which meant I had an imperfect idea of what the Agency did and why. My comfort level increased as I learned that in many respects, the CIA was organized like the military, with four basic components:
The Directorate of Administration (DA), which handles all of the Agency’s personnel, security, facilities maintenance, and other housekeeping functions.
The Directorate of Intelligence (DI), which produces “finished” or so-called “all source” intelligence for the President, cabinet, Congress, State Department, and various elements of the Pentagon. The DI’s functions are analytical; the majority of its analysts are college graduates with advanced degrees in various disciplines.
The Directorate of Science and Technology (DS&T), responsible for running a number of technical intelligence programs, including my soon-to-be home office, NPIC.
The Directorate of Operations (DO), responsible for both human intelligence collection and, when so ordered by the President, covert actions.
’