Round Table on
"Intelligence and National Security
at the Beginning of the 21st Century"

Dubrovnik, Croatia, October 27-28, 2000.

Session IV

Ethics and legal norms for Intelligence and national security

Intelligence and policy makers; Intelligence and the public; ethics in special operations and misinformation; Intelligence and responsibility; national security and human rights; etc.

Moderators: General Todor Boyadjiev, General Marcus Wolf

Wolf:

It's hard to find a starting point forthe discussion, because you may all have different points of view on the problem of legal and ethical norms. On the one hand, I think it is necessary to talk about international law as a precondition for the problems of legal regulations or legal terms in the services. But if we do that, we have some problems, because this would mean that national governments are adjusting their actions to international law, and the rules and decisions of the United Nations. We know that in practice there are some points of difference. Even existing international norms, conventions and treaties are not respected in an honorable way. This morning I used the example of bacterial weapons, and we know there exists an international convention against them, signed in 1975 by 143 states, but the weapons still exist. Many conventions are not respected, for a variety of reasons; one is because they are being used peacefully for scientific studies and research. In the morning, we discussed the problem of terrorism. What is terrorism? Of course the issue of terrorism or international crimes must be included in the judicial and legal rules for the services. We can at least begin the discussion with very simple but important questions: human life. Who has the right to kill, to give such an order? Or should it be totally banned? I remember problems and discussions that arose after the retirement of Willy Brandt, in connection with the case of Guillaume, who was under my responsibility. Is it possible to establish a zone of protection around leading persons, presidents, or prime ministers, an area the services are prohibited from entering? It was said that Honecker told German Chancellor Helmut Schmidt during a meeting that if he had known this agent (Guillaume) had existed, he would have given the order to remove him. But I never got an order not to recruit agents in the Chancellor's office. These are just some examples we can use to direct our discussion about the ethics and legal norms for Intelligence and national security, but now I will give Todor a chance to speak about this issue.

Boyadjiev:

I would like to mention a book in my introduction, not to make an advertisement, but because this book is directly connected with our current discussions.
The name of the book is "THE INTELLIGENCE". It was published in Bulgaria in May of last year, and it was number one on the best selling list for several weeks in a row.
The book is unique in several ways; first, because it is a collective effort of half the people in this room. It includes the autobiographies of Dick Stolz, Dick Kerr, General Shebarshin, General Leonov, General Asparuhov, and myself.
Each autobiography answers four principal questions: "How and why did I join the Intelligence service?"; "What was I doing in Intelligence?"; "How did I leave Intelligence?", and "What am I doing now?"
This approach allowed us to collect and compare individual fates, preserving at the same time the individuality of each person. The unostentatious conclusion reached is that Intelligence is a profession with a human face, that people in working in Intelligence have high motivation and morals, are patriots, professionals with strong intellect and comprehensive, encyclopedic knowledge; ethical and tolerant; prepared to look beyond the confines of their special services and assess the qualities of those who, based on their ideologies, were their opponents and even enemies.
The contributions of Admiral Pierre Lacoste and Professor Miroslav Tudjman come from this structure.
Admiral Pierre Lacoste wrote an excellent piece about his vision of Intelligence in the 21st Century. My very dear friend, Professor Tudjman, wrote a very interesting biography - the biography of the Croatian Intelligence. And General Markus Wolf, whose autobiography has been published in more than a dozen languages, supplied the forward. The only authors that are not in this room are General Brigo Asparuhov - my colleague for many years and the last Director of the Bulgarian National Intelligence Service, the "spy of the 20th Century" Kim Philby, whom I had the privilege to know for many years, the CIA Director George Tenet, and the director of the Russian Intelligence, Viacheslav Trubnikov, now First Foreign Deputy Minister of Russia.
All these authors' papers offer an open and reader-friendly vision of this worthy, though high-stress, profession "on the edge".
The book achieved its purpose. It gave the readers in Bulgaria, who have been manipulated for quite some time into believing that the special services are an "unnecessary evil", to learn for themselves that Intelligence is a noble profession with a human face.
The second part of the book comprises 75 pages, and begins with interesting reflections of the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency Director, George Tenet. Although the reflections address the rhetorical question "Does America need the CIA?", they go far outside the national parameters of an Intelligence service, and provide a serious and profound insight into the future of this profession under new, existing conditions.
What follows is a "virtual" "round table. There are seven independent subjects of discussion in several sections: How do Intelligence agents come into the world, or Education for Intelligence; Women in Intelligence; In what way is control exercised over Intelligence; What does "friendly" Intelligence mean, or how to steal economic, financial, and technological secrets of allies, partners, competitors and opponents; Is there any room for cooperation between state and private Intelligence; Is Intelligence becoming a part of the new business culture, and how can we make it smarter; Are there ex-agents in Intelligence and what do Intelligence veterans do after they cease their active work. And the last topic is "Cooperation in 'the game without rules', and should there be any rules for this game?"
The "round table" participants do not know each other personally; they don't meet face to face, and do not answer questions at the same time, but with a time delay of several months. Physically, they are separated by a distance of thousands of miles and by an ocean. Nevertheless, they are united by their common interest in the topics of this discussion and by the organizer. In this case, that was my privilege. I was the only one who met all 38 participants, asked the questions, and used authentic quotes from the answers received for the virtual "round table".
Gathered around this "table" were well-known politicians, legislators, professors, journalists, publishers, businessmen and, of course, Intelligence officers - retired and active - from the United States and the Russian Federation. Discussions were held in New York, Moscow, and Washington.
You probably know most of the participants, but I would like to name those who spoke about the topic we are going to discuss now:

Ed O'Malley -FBI

Ambassador Lukin
Professor Richard Haas
General Vladimir Kruchkov
Tom Finger - State Department
Valery Kantorov
Laurence Block - the Grandmaster of American criminal writers
John Millis - the brilliant professional who decided (God knows why) to leave this world for a better one.
General Vadim Kirpichenko
Frank Margiotta - Brassey Publishing House
Professor Roy Godson - Georgetown University
General Leonid Shebarshin
Douglas Roberts - Executive Director of Communication Control Systems Inc.
Army General Philip Bobkov
Victor Iliuhin
Professor Jefferson Adams -Sarah Lawrence College
Professor Allen Goodman - Georgetown University
Professor Richard Betts - Columbia University, NYC

I am not going to read or translate their discussions on our topic. I hope you will help us to publish this interesting book in English, French, Russian, German and other languages, and then you will have the chance to read it yourself.
I am sure our discussion is not going to radically deviate from the conclusions in the book. Yes, we will need some new set of rules: written or unwritten, ratified or just mutually accepted and observed.
I would like to add three more "provocative" questions to those listed in our program:
Will we have some sort of Vienna Convention for the rules of the game, which are very often characterized as "games without rules?"
Will we have some type of International Intelligence Community on a government and state level, on a transnational level, or an NGO level?"
Are we going to revisit the old - new slogan, "Proletarii vseh stran obediniates" - in our case "Spies of the world, unite", to fight common evils, or will we keep to the old Bulgarian proverb: "Friendship is a good thing, but cheese costs money". Or will it be a combination of both?
Now you have the floor.

Shebarshin:

Concerning rules of the game and the possibility of a legal convention, I think a convention is possible if major world powers decide that it is necessary. It would hardly work otherwise, because every party involved would find ways to circumvent it. The same thing would happen, in my view, to a hypothetical joint Intelligence service. National services will survive under a different guise. Regarding rules of the game, the only rule is a ratio between expected results and operational-political risks. The ratio is different in times of war or confrontation than in times of peace. There exists a sinister trinity in the fighting of common enemies: narco-traffic, organized crime, and terrorism. Undoubtedly, there is a wide field for cooperation, but I should note that the components of this trinity have different significance for different countries, and consequently for their Intelligence organizations.

Kerr:

Let me look at it from the American perspective. I find it difficult to imagine the United States agreeing to all-encompassing rules that regulate its behavior in this particular area, or another area, or to have an international Intelligence community that is truly supportive. I can see one that maybe assisted on the margins, but I can't see a complete commitment. It seems to me that for a variety of historical reasons, the United States still has difficulty with the concept of the United Nations. Sovereignty issues are very dominant issues, and I don't see that mood changing in the foreseeable future on issues of this sort, not just on Intelligence, but on issues of internationalism. I don't see that from a country that thought World War I, from a popular point of view, was Europe's problem. It was a problem the United States didn't want to be involved in. The view was basically the same on World War II, and it was only the actions of the Japanese that drew in the United States. So I think from the U.S. perspective, I don't see these themes gaining wide support. There will be a certain group that will support them, but I don't see them gaining national approval. It may even go in the other direction. I think it's equally likely that there will be people who will become disenchanted with internationalism because of its obvious failures in various places, and will look to a more independent way as the logical way. I don't know what my American friends wouldsay about that or whether they agree.

Smith:

I agree to that, and I've never agreed to any set of rules which regulate Intelligence.

Dedijer:

Wait until Chinese capitalists start producing Chinese Coca-Cola; then you'll agree with them like you did with the Russians.

Boyadjiev:

I appreciate your opinion on that matter. Wilhelm, after you pointed out that the only field where there is no co-operation in United Europe is in the field of Intelligence, I would like to ask you if you think this is going to continue forever, or can we expect something else?

Agrell:

There is a discussion that's been going on for decades about Intelligence co-operation to enhance common goals. Now we see that practically nothing has come out of that. I don't think that we will see any quick progress in this area.

Tuđman:

Maybe we can discuss that from another point of view. If we all share the same legal and ethical rules there will be no problems. But there is an immediate problem when the rules of the game that exist in one country are imposed on the others, and the other countries or agencies are forced to observe them. Today we see that sometimes agencies violate or disrespect the laws of another country, but at the same time are observing those of their own country. That is also an ethical and moral dilemma. If somebody is acting to satisfy national interests and national objectives, but is not following the rules and legal standards of the opponent or hostile country, is this a moral dilemma?
When I held a course in the Intelligence Academy on the ethics of Intelligence, I asked the students two questions: first, is spying a moral activity, and second, what motivated them to join the service? The students could be divided into two groups based on their responses. For those who believed that spying was a moral activity, the main motive to join the service was patriotism. The other group was not convinced that spying was a moral activity, and their answers were very pragmatic: wages, security, personal success, etc. Those answers assisted me in clarifying many misunderstandings, especially among beginners in the services.
On the other hand, if the international Intelligence community exists, then what are the legal or ethical norms for that community? There are some forms of multilateral co-operation among Intelligence agencies. There is the Middle European Conference, which represents a certain type of co-operation, at least among the heads of the services. There is increasing co-operation among two or even three services acting in joint operations.
Obviously, some problems cannot be avoided, but I believe in certain areas we can establish more effective co-operation among the services on a multilateral level. Because if the bilateral co-operation does not include a third country which has a direct involvement in the issue, then there will be consequences which will impede the effectiveness of the Intelligence operations. So I believe there will be changes from bilateral to multilateral cooperation, but that changes will go more slowly than we would expect. That is the logic of the globalization process, which will be the driving force for multilateral cooperation. But at the some time, that cooperation will be defined by national or group interests, because globalization is an interaction between entities that are striving to protect and promote their personal, group, and national identity and interests. Globalization means accepting common rules, but for the benefit and development of their own national interests.

Boyadjiev:

I'm afraid I might ask questions that may take us away from the more serious discussion, but I would like to rephrase one of the questions. When we are talking about Intelligence, we are talking from the position of Intelligence against. But very often Intelligence is Intelligence for. I wouldn't mind, for example, if there were CIA officers in the CIA station in Sofia advising the American government about the current situation in Bulgaria, the trends and developments. In this way, they could promote a more positive American policy toward Bulgaria. This is acceptable. But don't you think that there is a need for some rules governing Intelligence activities? Maybe not written and formally ratified, but mutually accepted and mutually followed. Maybe not in the immediate future, but after a certain period of time.

Stolz:

You pushed my button when you said written. I think that Miro is talking in general, ad hoc, about cooperation on certain issues such as narcotics, crime and terrorism, about cases where one can help the other for common objectives, but if you start writing things down, in my opinion you have lost it, you've lost the secret. Once you start writing something down, it's lost, Dusko Doder will find it. Second, the lawyers will take over. I think that the rules can be discussed, but to get down to the point of writing a document, I don't think that's going to happen.

Kerr:

I agree with what Dick said earlier. He agrees with most of the things that I say, and I agree with most of the things he says. But I think he's been even more even restrictive than I would have been. I think that it would be very unwise to tie your hands, to say that you will not act when there could be a situation calling for action at some other point in time. I think even in an area where we have much common agreement, terrorism for instance, or nuclear proliferation, I personally would argue that the United States should not tie its hands and prohibit action against terrorists or people in the proliferation business who have violated someone else's sovereignty. If it was sufficiently important from a national perspective, is that intrusive and is that violating someone's sovereignty, and could you agree on that in an international law? Could you write a law that would allow that exception? I can't believe you could. So my argument would be you can't do that.

Agrell:

Most laws have that. If there is no supreme national security interest.

Kerr:

Then the law becomes meaningless.

Wolf:

Let me say something about this. I don't know why I have to moderate this topic. I am a notorious optimist, but I am not so optimistic as to believe that we can find any basis for legal or ethical norms. I think what Dick Kerr said is realistic. Of course we can discuss, as everyone can, the ethical norms of Intelligence services, and I think that the most realistic way to reach some respected norms, legal ethic norms, is via public opinion. If we return to the question of terrorism in Germany, there are great misgivings about the newly-legislated right of the services and police to use special and technical measures to more closely control a room by going in with microphones and so on. I think this is very characteristic, because there are grave misgivings in our countries in Europe about the abuses by internal services, Intelligence services, and police as well. I think it's the same in America.

Kerr:

No, I actually think it's going the other way in America. I think we're being allowed to be more intrusive. Police and the FBI are being allowed more leeway. And do you agree with wire tapping and the intrusiveness into what we would call our first amendment rights?

Wolf:

I think we have to keep in mind that this is an open discussion that's taking place in most countries.

Dedijer:

Intelligence organizations are going to listen to what the government tells them. And when the government tells them, look you've got to make an international agreement on Interpol or money laundering, the United States is going to agree on that, and then the Intelligence organization just goes and does it. There is no discussion.

Wolf:

Let me just say two things. The question is, do we have effective, democratic, parliamentary control of the services? I am asked this very often by the public. My answer is different from yours, but I said no, there's no effective control in some areas; financing, for example. In Germany, there is legislation prohibiting the export of weapons to crisis areas. It's a very clear law, but they were nonetheless exported, and the German Intelligence service participated and, therefore, there is a lot of suspicion about the behavior of the services. Of course control is possible, but not absolute control, and such control is necessary. So we must discuss legal and ethical norms, but without illusions about the possibility of adopting an international convention. This may happen in coming decades, but not now.

Lacoste:

I wrote several articles about that specific point, ethics for Intelligence service people. We have had to deal with sensitive situations in the history of my country. We have had to manage periods of great danger, dealing with terrorism, upheavals, and revolutionary groups. I remember, for example, that the end of the Algeria war provoked a political and military revolt during which a group of "lost" soldiers tried a kind of "pronunciamento" against De Gaulle's government. The OAS conspirators had contacted members of the mob, criminals and murderers. Some people in the legal government proposed recruiting other criminals to fight against them. I strongly opposed such a strategy; it is a terrible mistake to make contracts with organized crime to conduct clandestine, government-sponsored tasks. Sooner or later you will lose control of them.
It's still a big issue in the contemporary world. In Africa, in Bosnia and Kosovo, Islamic "mujahedeens" from Afghanistan were recruited, as well as Albanian Mafia godfathers, to fight against Serb criminal militias. It is a a very dangerous policy. I believe Intelligence services should never cross that line.

Stolz:

I was going to comment on where we differ on the parliamentary democracies control of Intelligence services. In our case, one of the basic reasons that they can do it is money. The budget comes, technically, from the House of Representatives, but the Congress in the last 15 years will not sign the appropriations without knowing the specifics of some cases. What's this for? What are you going to do with this? And then they say they will not give you the money for this, but they will give you the money for that. So I'm basically optimistic, and this is a area where we're on the right track.

Doder:

I wanted to add to this because I think Dick is right and, in fact, they are subject to scrutiny. For example, export of weapons. Politicians were behind it. And even then they could only use the CIA as a back-up. They went to the National Security Council. They sent Dexter and North out there, and it was Casey who engineered the whole thing. But the agency was not involved. Kennedy said, "Well, you know, they should assassinate Castro." It was not the agency that came up with the idea to go assassinate Castro. But unless you have a presidential order, they will not act. Although sometimes if your director is a political director, you can get the the president to say "you do this", and then it gets done.

Lacoste:

In France there is practically no political control by the Parliament, but there are several administrative controls; namely, to preserve individual rights. We are very strict about unauthorized use of listening devices by police and Secret official services; they do verify that those few people whose private life is under surveillance for criminal or security reasons are registered in the short lists specifically authorized by judges or top governmental authorities.

Leonov:

I would like to say a couple words about ethics in technical means of collecting information. In the morning session, we mentioned the globalization of information. We see that information sources are multiplying from year to year. The access to them is protected by electronic protection systems, which are only one element in the historical competition between aggressive weapons and passive protection. Their most dangerous enemy is the computer hacker. For years now, hackers have circumvented sophisticated protection systems. Sometimes they have done it illustrate their ability to humiliate the inventors of defensive systems, but on other occasions, they entered information banks of financial institutions and stole large sums of money. We have examples of penetration into secret information sites of sensitive military and administrative institutions. The hackers usually work alone, but they are often internationally organized, hold congresses, and exchange experiences. They might even have their own newsletters and magazines. Meanwhile, if they are operating by themselves, the danger is relatively small, but one cannot be sure that some of the Intelligence structures are not utilizing the genius of hackers to obtain sensitive information from highly protected sources linked with national security. This sort of hacker is protected and supported by the state, and oriented toward the Intelligence structure; he may even be an element of future Intelligence. Intelligence ethics were always very relative. In the years of the Cold War, we had several contacts with the CIA and, as far as I know, the only thing we agreed upon was not to use violence against each other. It was the beginning and the end of ethics. So I think that if breaking codes is condoned as legal, why shouldn't the skills of the hackers be accepted one day as well? Cryptography serves the same function as electronic protection systems. The use of hackers may be economically beneficial, effective, and low risk. Maybe it is time to elaborate a written or tacitly approved code of ethics in Intelligence activities, a code outlining prohibited activities, such as blackmail, physical violence, intentional misinformation, hacking, and so on.

Agrell:

We are actually discussing two different things, although they are linked on some levels. One is a problem on the national level, the problem of parliamentary control of national laws applying to Intelligence and security agencies. Since the 1970's, most Western European countries have had some form of parliamentary control over Intelligence and security agencies, but with little success. In Norway in the mid 1990s, the so-called Lund Commission was formed to investigate the internal Intelligence and security services in Norway, from 1945 all the way to the mid 1990s. One of the findings was that the majority of secret Intelligence operations were directed against Norwegian citizens. But the most important finding was that parliamentary control over the Norwegian security service had been absolutely ineffective, since it was simply a formal structure lacking insight into the actual operations. That was a bit discouraging. It's a long road from formal parliamentary control to real citizen control. I don't think we've even started down that road. Now when we come to the international level, we are not talking about parliamentary control, but about norms and international conventions. We have seen little of that, although we do have one international agreement between the United States and the Soviet Union on avoiding incidents at sea, which is basically an agreement on Intelligence activities within a specific area, in order to avoid mutually dangerous situations. So here you have a mutual interest in regulating a specific case of Intelligence gathering, which prohibited, for example, flying your aircraft over the other side's naval vessel, which could be perceived as a threat. In other areas, such as killing people, there were unwritten rules during the Cold War. For example, most of the western services knew the identities of the Soviet Intelligence officers working in their country, but they were not expelled because that was part of the game. In the mid 1980s, the Thatcher government expelled Soviet Intelligence officers from Great Britain on a massive scale. This was a violation of the rules of the game. The Brits had done something that you were not allowed to do according to the unwritten rules of the game. In the good old days of the Cold War, we had a lot of these Vienna Conventions. Now the problem is the hackers, the new entities, criminals, and all those people in the gray zones. Today it is much more difficult to get an unwritten consensus on anything. Of course we can outlaw hackers. We have a law in Sweden against hackers, but how can we apply it? Where is the crime by the hacker committed? In his bedroom where he sits in front of his computer, or whatever place in the world that he has invaded? So we can write all kinds of laws, but they don't mean anything.

Kerr:

I'm following up on this issue of information and hacking. I think it's going to be very attractive for countries with limited resources to turn to information hacking, because it is easy to hire the people. It is not resource intensive and can be very effective. It seems to me that it is a very attractive weapon to use, particularly for those who are unequal in other areas of weaponry. I think there are laws in nearly every country against hackers at this stage, but it would be almost impossible to prevent hacking from occurring.

Leijonhielm:

I think in most countries you do have laws on that, and we also have a legal tradition in this field, which has shown that the hackers are usually tried and sentenced in their own countries; at least that is the case in the Nordic countries. So I don't think there would be a problem creating a convention on this issue. I have a few remarks on Intelligence towards third countries. Sometimes there are different legal problems and laws in these areas, so I am hesitant about the possibility of creating a convention. It would be useless in practice. As far as efforts to coordinate Intelligence are concerned, I wouldn't be as pessimistic as Wilhelm Agrell was regarding a combined European effort in the Intelligence field, because the existence of a European common security policy, and the creation of a military capacity involving some 250,000 soldiers, will force the European Union to create some sort of working Intelligence unit. It would seem logical, although I admit it's not in the pipeline yet. Another point to consider is that Intelligence cooperation in Europe has started to develop from the bottom up; for example, in the case of police Intelligence, which is important since Russia is also involved. The transition countries everywhere have been forced into expanding cooperation, because they are all plagued by rising criminality.

Doder:

But I've been always under the impression that the majority of KGB resources were diverted into stealing technology.

Leijonhielm:

Russia, I believe, is among the most rapidly advancing nations in this area. At least a hundred institutions in Moscow are dealing with information warfare, and are making a substantial contribution to that field. It is a new problem and possibly also a worrying one to Russia, because it feels vulnerable, which can be seen in the way they treat this problem in their military and security doctrines. It is an interesting subject to discuss; whether technically less developed nations are more or less vulnerable to information warfare. In Sweden, we have initiated IT, or information warfare units, in order to use them in operations, which is a combination of offensive information warfare or operations, and Intelligence.

Jackovich:

Just to go back for a second to something that Mr. Agrell said. I found that through the crystalization of the entire discussion, we really have been at two different levels; one is national coordination within a particular state, or oversight by government and legislative bodies, and the second, entirely different, is coordination among national Intelligence agencies which, it would seem to me, boils down to ad hoc situations when we are unable to codify things, but can coordinate things internationally. But often, the oversight exists on paper but not in reality. You also have to make certain that responsible bodies are performing the oversight. I know in the United States, the concern is always who you brief on a particular committee. Which committee do you brief? It's not so much when to brief but who it is, and what the political motivations might be for subsequent actions if that happens. But in different countries, it might work in different ways. If you have, for example, a presidential commission, in some countries it might work and in some it might not. You have to have a very responsible president or prime minister or someone to whom the Intelligence services answers. The commission or body has to have a certain amount of autonomy or independence, not only in terms of oversight and briefings, but in terms of rooting out corruption. I'm not that familiar with the Russian Duma's oversight of Intelligence services, but I am familiar with the public report that stated that, between 1995 - 99, there were 200 convictions of Intelligence services personnel for abuses under the law. That's very interesting. I am not that familiar with the Far East, but I know that in Hong Kong, a presidential, prime-ministerial commission was created and given free rein to clean out the Intelligence services and ensure that corruption and abuses were not prevalent, and, in fact, it was very successful during a 20-year period. Now that's a very long period of time, but if you can turn around a situation in a particular entity or country in 20 years, that means that after one generation, you have not only cleaned up the act of an Intelligence service, but you have instilled confidence in a certain institution. Maybe that is self-evident, but it is extremely important, because once you lose that confidence, once people look upon whomever the authority figure is - a policeman, politician, or an Intelligence figure - and assume that there is something wrong, that this person is doing this or this person is doing that simply because of his position, then the pillars of society begin to unravel.

Smith:

What hasn't been discussed in great detail is cooperative action. I'd be interested in hearing the views of various players, the French, the Russians, the Bulgarians, on covert action and whether they favor using covert action, and if so, when they favor using covert action? It seems to me it's a very important Intelligence weapon that should not be discarded. Covert action can be publishing a book, or putting articles in the newspaper. Mr. Milošević would be an example of when covert action might be used, if you have an outlaw government which is causing great difficulties to its people and also potentially to you. Is it justifiable to use covert action to attempt to change the situation?

Doder:

I would volunteer an answer, though I've never had anything to do with covert action. As a matter of principle, I would try to keep covert action to a minimum. I think it's much more effective to have an analyst write an open piece and try to place ideas he wants to promote in the Washington Post or the New York Times.

Smith:

Let's go to something that's a little bit more active.

Doder:

Let me come to the point. The problem with covert action is: who initiates it? It has to be the president and nobody else. Then it seems to me there's never been a clear mandate on what is permissible and what is not. In another words, is the killing of a foreign leader permissible? In the law it's not.

Smith:

That's not covert action. You can't hire someone to shoot somebody. It's really not possible to kill people. You have to organize a political movement or use armed force, or minimal armed force. Saddam Hussein would be an example.

Doder:

Let's take Greece, for instance, which we are both acquainted with. A sustained effort in Greece was not the right thing, because during a period of years, we encouraged and supported the government, and it basically did not reflect the will of the Greek people. We supported it.

Smith:

Well, we supported it insofar as we were there, we dealt with it; we didn't support it.

Stolz:

I would disagree. There is no such thing as covert action anymore, and it plays into the hands of people like Milošević. The United States government is adrift; we said we're going to get rid of Milošević, and not by killing him, but by spending money, and the same in Iraq. So what did Mr. Milošević do? You see! He could and does claim that his opposition is controlled by the CIA.

Tuđman:

May I just quote what U.S. Ambassador William Montgomery said when he was on Croatian TV this year in August? He was asked where he was going after Croatia. He answered that he would be located in Hungary as the American government representative, and his task would be to get rid of Milošević. He said he would be in Hungary because that is the best location to establish contacts with the opposition, Serbian opposition, to support NGO's, and all the other people working to get rid of Milošević. We see several ethical and moral problems here. Even if the main objective is politically acceptable, the means and methods are questionable. What kind of support of opposition political parties should be allowed from abroad? Is it legal and moral for NGOs to be involved in domestic affairs per the instructions of a third country, and financed by a third country? What was the legal, political, and moral position of Hungary, whose territory was being used for covert operations? There was a lot of discussion in Hungary about Ambassador Mongomery's position in Hungary, because he was using its territory to facilitate American activities in another country. We can say that there's no covert action anymore as part of an Intelligence operation; basically, an Intelligence operation is designed for collecting Intelligence, and covert operations are not collecting or producing Intelligence. We can say, no, we don't have any moral dilemmas, because somebody else is doing the job.

Stolz:

Regarding Ambassador Montgomery, whom we all regard favorably, that is not what we are talking about. That was a government policy - however wise or unwise - where the ambassador wants to meet with people. And it's not a secret. He maybe made a mistake, but that's not covert action.

Smith:

Dick pointed out correctly that it was not covert action when we announced that we were against Milošević, and would encourage his overthrow. Covert action would have been if we were able to contact someone from the Yugoslav military and arrange for them to remove him from power without our hand showing. That would be covert action.

Dedijer:

I'm 30 years older than any one of you, so allow me to talk to you as an older professor. Gentlemen, we're moving toward an enlightened capitalist system in the world. All countries, Latin America, Asia, everywhere except Cuba - and Castro is even vacillating - he's bringing out Coca Cola and so forth - are going that way. Second, of 180 countries in the world, according to a United Nations report, 95 are democracies, 45 are partial democracies, and 30 are dictatorships. We're moving toward a democratic world where all these problems will come up to confront the entire population. It's not a question of American interest, or another interest. It doesn't matter what's good for the United States, but what's good for General Motors.

Kerr:

I don't agree with you, but I think it's hard to find specific data during the last several major confrontations that the United States or its allies have been involved in, where business had an influence on the policy or the outcome. I think it's striking how little influence big business has had on policy. It didn't have any impact on Kosovo, on Serbia; it had very little impact on issues, even though people would argue that in the Middle East, it was a major force. We say it was all done for oil, but in my view, it was not all done for oil; it was done for a whole variety of reasons. But the companies' involvement, the involvement of the economic leaders of the world has been surprisingly quiet in these major policy adventures. Why do you think they are going to change? Money.

Dedijer:

Because democracy is growing everywhere, and they are going to force them. Now we have global economics, social globalization, and legal globalization. Scientific, technological, and ethical globalization are on the way. Don't think in exclusive terms.

Shebarshin:

Anyone who doesn't go along with globalization is going to get a bump on the head.

Jackovich:

Just a short comment. Actually getting back to something that we started with, the covert action discussion. The irony is that if you go through a lot of regulation or a lot of coordination, then you can't undertake the covert action, because too many people know about it. It is no longer covert and everything becomes violated and then it becomes silly. That means, basically, that if you want to take effective action, you don't go through the coordinated process; but then, by definition, you have a renegade operation, and that's not to be condoned, either. I think we have some societies, and some national Intelligence services who have put themselves in that situation. Just a quick comment on what we did in Budapest. It's generally not a good idea to set up a shadow embassy, or a shadow operation on the territory of the neighbor country that you're trying to deal with, but this was exceptional. The situation in Serbia and Yugoslavia was exceptional, but I would also have to agree that the action we took - and a lot of other things - could have been done a lot earlier. Doing it in 1999 was a little late; we could have done it at any time. Not speaking in covert terms, but in terms of dealing with people, dealing with the democratic elements in Serbia in this case. We could have set up a operation; we could have done that very early on.

Wolf:

I think we've gotten off the topic, but that's not surprising because it is a very difficult and broad subject. The question is, was this our specific topic, because we could discuss globalization until tomorrow morning. Would you like to speak or express an opinion?

Lacoste:

I have observed that is more difficult than ever for official Intelligence services to perform covert actions, especially in the U.S., because of the very intrusive oversight of the two powerful Congressional commissions. It is difficult in Bosnia or Kosovo because of the widespread press coverage. So there is a temptation for governmental services to call on the private sector, not only for Intelligence tasks but also for military and covert action. The same thing happens in Ruanda, and Central or Western Africa. That temptation is not as present inside the services themselves, because they are professionally cautious and have their own ethical imperatives, but it can be found among the politicians. I have observed that in my own country; I might remind you that it also happened with the Watergate affair, when Nixon asked amateurs to perform a break-in of the Democratic party offices. I know of some examples of former Intelligence officers or retired members of special forces who have hired themselves out for dubious causes in return for financial gain. I think that nowadays, the specific topic of privatization of Intelligence activities should be very carefully considered.

Wolf:

If you all agree I will try to bring this to a conclusion. I don't dare try to summarize our discussion on this topic. We have a common opinion, I think, that at this time it's impossible or perhaps makes no sense to attempt to write a Convention on the rules and ethics of this work, but these are very important points and will continue to be important, and I think our discussion is constructive. Of course, we who worked in the Intelligence services, specifically those at this round table, are all former members, and this is our privilege. We are able to discuss and talk about everything, which would become more difficult if a government decides to impose rules of cooperation on European Intelligence. I believe our opinions and discussions can be of some importance. I think we have come to an end, and I would like to ask Miroslav to make the final statement.

Tuđman:

I would like to thank you all, because I believe that during these two days we have had interesting discussions. Of course it was not our intention to reach any spectacular conclusions or send messages to the rest of the world, but I believe that we introduced certain issues, and because of the experience and knowledge of the participants, these views and opinions will also interest the general public and professionals who are dealing with these subjects. Our intention was to record this meeting and prepare the contents for publication, and I hope that these discussions will lead to other discussions and deeper insights. I would like to thank you all for your efforts.