CIA Case Officer Tries to Get American Student to Engage in Espionage Activities: Hilarity Ensues
February 10th, 2008This is a gross simplification of how the game works. Inside every U.S. Embassy there are some number of CIA employees who are posing as U.S. Foreign Service personnel. (All countries do the same thing with employees of their respective intelligence agencies and their foreign embassies; this is not unique to the U.S.) Of the CIA employees “on station,” some number of them will be “case officers.”
The case officer’s primary job is to lie and “compromise” people (sources/assets) in order to obtain information. There is a protocol for this behavior. The protocol is, DON’T GET CAUGHT. When an embassy staffer is outed as a spook, their “official cover” is blown and the host state will usually declare the spook “persona non grata.” Because of “diplomatic immunity,” the spook gets a one way ticket out of the country and a slap on the wrist. The same can’t be said for the agents that the case officer was “handling.” Agents who are caught spying for a foreign government may face a variety of punishments, including life imprisonment, or much worse.
Far from being an isolated incident, what happened in the story below is fairly standard. This is the bread and butter of the intelligence world. It happens every day, in most countries. (But I’ve never read an account of a case officer trying to get a room full of people to engage in espionage activities! Vincent Cooper better pack his bags and hope that there’s a desk job available back at Langley.) In this case, the official denials from the U.S. are hilarious and ridiculous.
Just a guess about what this incident might mean:
CIA probably has very limited human intelligence (HUMINT) resources available in Bolivia, and their man at the embassy got reckless in trying to drum up information.
Via: ABC News:
In an apparent violation of U.S. policy, Peace Corps volunteers and a Fulbright scholar were asked by a U.S. Embassy official in Bolivia “to basically spy” on Cubans and Venezuelans in the country, according to Peace Corps personnel and the Fulbright scholar involved.
Click here to read this article in Spanish. (Haz click aquí para leer este artículo en español.)
“I was told to provide the names, addresses and activities of any Venezuelan or Cuban doctors or field workers I come across during my time here,” Fulbright scholar John Alexander van Schaick told ABCNews.com in an interview in La Paz.
Van Schaick’s account matches that of Peace Corps members and staff who claim that last July their entire group of new volunteers was instructed by the same U.S. Embassy official in Bolivia to report on Cuban and Venezuelan nationals.
The State Department says any such request was “in error” and a violation of long-standing U.S. policy which prohibits the use of Peace Corps personnel or Fulbright scholars for intelligence purposes.
“We take this very seriously and want to stress this is not in any way our policy,” a senior State Department official told ABCNews.com.
The Fulbright scholar van Schaick, a 2006 Rutgers University graduate, says the request came at a mandatory orientation and security briefing meeting with Assistant Regional Security Officer Vincent Cooper at the embassy on the morning of Nov. 5, 2007.
According to van Schaick, the request for information gathering “surfaced casually” halfway through Cooper’s 30-minute, one-on-one briefing, which initially dealt with helpful tips about life and security concerns in Bolivia.
“He said, ‘We know the Venezuelans and Cubans are here, and we want to keep tabs on them,'” said van Schaick who recalls feeling “appalled” at the comment.
“I was in shock,” van Schaick said. “My immediate thought was ‘oh my God! Somebody from the U.S. Embassy just asked me to basically spy for the U.S. Embassy.'”
A similar pattern emerges in the account of the three Peace Corps volunteers and their supervisor. On July 29, 2007, just before the new volunteers were sworn in, they say embassy security officer Vincent Cooper visited the 30-person group to give a talk on safety and made his request about the Cubans and Venezuelans.
“He said it had to do with the fight against terrorism,” said one, of the briefing from the embassy official. Others remember being told, “It’s for your own safety.”
Peace Corps Deputy Director Doreen Salazar remembers the incident vividly because she says it was the first time she had heard an embassy official make such a request to a Peace Corps group.
Salazar says she and her fellow staff found the comment so out of line that they interrupted the briefing to clarify that volunteers did not have to follow the embassy’s instructions, and she later complained directly to the embassy about the incident.
“Peace Corps is an a-political institution,” Salazar says. “We made it clear to the embassy that this was an inappropriate request, and they agreed.”
Indeed, the State Department admits having acknowledged the infraction and assuring Salazar that it would not happen again. Yet, it was just four months later that Fulbright scholar van Schaick says he was asked by the same embassy official, Cooper, to “spy” on the Cubans and Venezuelans.
A U.S. Embassy official in La Paz, Bolivia said Cooper was referring all calls for comment to the State Department in Washington.
Van Schaick says he never considered complying with the request, fearful he would violate Bolivian espionage laws and that he would jeopardize the integrity of the Fulbright program, which yearly sends hundreds of American college graduates to countries around the world.
“Peace Corps Deputy Director Doreen Salazar remembers the incident vividly because she says it was the first time she had heard an embassy official make such a request to a Peace Corps group.”
Bullhockey! Rumors of CIA involvment with the Peace Corp go back to the organization’s founding in the early 60s! I had a friend in the PC in Morrocco who was asked to spy for the CIA back in the 70s. Rumors of CIA badgering people about becoming spies is probably the biggest reason I never joined the Peace Corp.