"Mr. X" is gone

The Gift of the Wise Man: George F. Kennan's Clear-Eyed Worldview

Barton Gellman Washington Post

The first time I set out to find George F. Kennan, in 1982, I had just turned 21, begun my final semester at Princeton University and noticed with astonishment that the senior thesis deadline had crept to within four months. It occurred to me that Kennan might make a worthy subject, and that the thing to do was go and tell him so. That had occurred to others, I found. At last count, the university archives hold 13 undergraduate theses with Kennan's name in the title.

Kennan, who died Thursday, declined the honor, and two years passed before we met. He had a pitiless rule against speaking to undergraduates. A Pulitzer Prize-winning historian and perhaps the best-known diplomat of his times, he had made the Institute for Advanced Study, a mile from campus, his home in exile from a government that had its fill of him decades before. He saw himself, at 79, as a man with his most urgent work before him and all too little time.

Early in 1984, I sent Kennan the manuscript of a book I wrote, based largely on 38 boxes of his papers stored at Princeton's Seeley G. Mudd Library. (Another six boxes, more personal, were restricted until after his death.) Could he possibly look the book over, if only for errors? Some weeks later an envelope arrived, addressed in an elegant script gone wobbly with age.

"Compelled by weariness to lie down for a time," Kennan had taken a grudging break from work and picked up my manuscript. Though he was flattering enough, he admitted that there were passages to which he was tempted to reply. He did not. It was not proper, he said, to seek influence over the book.

That self-restraint should not be confused with lack of self-regard. World events, Kennan believed, had taken two disastrous turns, military and environmental. Kennan was sure he understood the truth and was tormented by failure to explain things clearly enough for others. John Lewis Gaddis, Kennan's authorized biographer and the only person yet to read his private diaries, said yesterday that they remind him of John Quincy Adams -- "lacerating himself" for "not living up to the standards that a very tough and demanding God might expect."

Not long after his letter arrived, Kennan invited me to the first of several lunches. He presented himself, rather ruefully, as an anachronism. Tall, blue-eyed and gravely dignified, with Wisconsin Presbyterian roots, he described himself as a guest of his times, a better fit for the 18th century than the 20th. He was nonetheless absorbed in -- oppressed by -- contemporary affairs.

Ever the outsider, even at the peak of his influence, Kennan had sunk into gloom. Modern industrial society, in thrall to the pernicious automobile, was poisoning the air and water in ways that might already defy repair. President Ronald Reagan, stepping up confrontation with the Soviet Union, was taking what Kennan saw as reckless risks in deploying new nuclear weapons to Western Europe.

What maddened Kennan was that Reagan, like his forebears since Harry S. Truman, prosecuted the Cold War in the name of Kennan's own seminal doctrine, "containment." In his "Long Telegram" of 1946 from Moscow, reprised in the pseudonymous "X article" in Foreign Affairs the following year, Kennan answered frustrated superiors who demanded to know why the Soviet Union -- so recently an ally -- was proving intractable after Hitler's defeat. He transformed the prevailing view of the communist government, describing it as implacably hostile, ambitious to expand, and yet fraught with internal contradictions that would lead to "the break-up or the gradual mellowing of Soviet power." America's task, he wrote, was to buy time for that collapse, confronting the Soviets "with unalterable counterforce at every point where they show signs of encroaching upon the interest of a peaceful and stable world."

Former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger said Kennan came "as close to authoring the diplomatic doctrine of his era as any diplomat in our history." After reading through Kennan's papers, and speaking to him at length, I became convinced that Kissinger was no more than half right. Kennan also had the misfortune to be credited with a doctrine he did not recognize or approve.

Kennan's containment was not a military endeavor. In lectures at the National War College, he spoke not of "counterforce" but "counterpressure." Containment's primary instruments, as Kennan saw them, were political and economic. As early as 1948, he took vehement exception to the creation of NATO, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, predicting that it would cement the division of Europe into opposing military blocs. He bitterly opposed development of the hydrogen bomb, which multiplied the destructive power of atomic weaponry. And he despised the Truman Doctrine, which called for military support to governments threatened by communist insurrection, liberally defined, anywhere in the world. Later he became an early critic of the Vietnam War, called for abolition of nuclear weapons and disparaged President Bush's war in Iraq.

By 1950, Kennan's successor as chief of policy planning in the State Department, Paul Nitze, had redefined containment -- in a classified report known as NSC 68 -- as a major military buildup against a Soviet military threat. Thus it remained, with ups and downs, until Mikhail Gorbachev dissolved the Soviet Union. Kennan's prediction had come true, but he took scant pleasure in the means.

When I heard the news of Kennan's death, I reread one of his most striking metaphors.

"I sometimes wonder whether . . . democracy is not uncomfortably similar to one of those prehistoric monsters with a body as long as this room and a brain the size of a pin," he wrote. " . . . He is slow to wrath -- in fact, you practically have to whack his tail off to make him aware that his interests are being disturbed; but, once he grasps this, he lays about him with such blind determination that he not only destroys his adversary but largely wrecks his native habitat."

Kennan was describing the roots of World War I. It occurred to me yesterday that Kennan's sardonic metaphor might have struck him anew in the "war on terror" he departed in progress at the age of 101.

Dan Rather, leaving by the high road

Anchor wraps up 24 years at 'CBS Evening News' with final telecast



Tom ShalesThe Washington Post

WASHINGTON - Emptying out his cubbyhole office in the CBS News building on West 57th Street in New York, wading through stacks and boxes of memorabilia accumulated over the years, Dan Rather came upon a piece of framed embroidery made and sent to him a couple decades ago by a nun who was, one might say, among the faithful -- a regular and loyal viewer.

"Be thou a soul to fullness grown," says one of her meticulously embroidered mottos. "Arise to gain thy dreams." Rather's voice warms. "Pretty nice, huh?" he says. Among the other embroidered words of wisdom: "Today's trials were meant to make you strong."

With a few parting words and possibly -- but unlikely -- a few parting shots, Dan Rather will make his last appearance tonight as anchor of "The CBS Evening News," 24 years to the day since his first telecast as anchor and a full year sooner than he planned. As virtually all of our world knows, Rather agreed to step down in the wake of a scandal involving a discredited "60 Minutes Wednesday" story on George W. Bush's supposed preferential treatment while in the National Guard.

The case, which resulted in four of the top people in CBS News being told to leave, has caused a tremendous schism within the organization, ruining Rather's exit not only by moving it up a year but also by hanging a dark cloud over it. Rather, who's had many trials and certainly seems a soul to fullness grown, is told it's a shame he couldn't be leaving on a high note.

Rather: 'Leaving on a high note'

"First of all, from where I sit, I am leaving on a high note," Rather says, "and a higher note than I deserve and certainly a higher note than I ever thought possible when I walked into this job. Secondly, what's gone on these past few months, it all goes with the territory, as the cliche goes. It's part of the turf, particularly if you're determined to at least try to be an independent reporter. And I understand that very well."

(Rather's amazing 42-year career at CBS News, including a discussion of the flawed Bush report, will be recapped in a fascinating and evocative documentary, "Dan Rather: A Reporter Remembers," produced by Judy Tygard and airing at 8 tonight, after Rather's farewell newscast.)

In addition to the indignity of leaving the anchor chair prematurely, for weeks Rather has had to endure attacks from not only outside but inside CBS News -- like a combination of Davy Crockett and Julius Caesar. In a devastating Ken Auletta piece for the New Yorker, such venerable CBS personalities as Mike Wallace and Walter Cronkite were quoted as saying they preferred watching Peter Jennings over Rather and basically dismissed him.

Then on Monday, just two days before Rather's farewell, old man Cronkite, the anchor Rather replaced, had the stupefying temerity to say that he thought Bob Schieffer, the "Face the Nation" host who'll fill in on the "Evening News" until a remodeled program is hatched later this year, would have made a better anchor. "I would like to have seen him there a long time ago," Cronkite said of Schieffer on CNN. He also said Rather "gave the impression of playing a role more than simply trying to deliver the news to the audience."

Talk about bad form. "A codgerly old ass," one Rather loyalist, asking not to be identified, said of Cronkite. "He stayed alive just so he could see this moment." However pathetic Cronkite's remarks make him seem, they enforce the image of "Dan Rather -- Alone at the Top." Unlike some of Rather's adventures over the years -- the coolest anchor, he's one of the few men over 60 who can successfully still wear jeans -- this one is dead serious.

Rather will not be dragged into a mud fight. "I've said consistently to everybody that I'm not going to respond to that," he says. But he agrees to continue.

"First, this is parenthetical, but I've been moved, and I like to think I'm not moved easily, by how many people, particularly people who make the place go -- technicians, editors, writers, researchers, producers, people I've worked closest with -- have taken the time and trouble and had the grace to come up to me and say encouraging and supportive things. And that means a lot to me. . . . . Now, close parentheses." Rather often includes punctuation in his remarks.

"This is no big deal, but when you ask me about those specific quotes from those specific people, this is what I have to say, and it's all I have to say: That the accomplishments of these men speak for themselves. Individually and collectively, they've had some of the truly great careers in television news, at CBS or anywhere else. Since that's the way they feel, they're entitled to express their opinions. They've earned the right to voice them. Period."

Although Cronkite's later comments made things worse, Wallace said yesterday he and Rather are still friends, and that Auletta's piece was originally going to be about changes in network news generally, not just Rather and CBS. "I wrote a note, and Dan wrote a note, and I wrote a note, and Dan and I have it all straightened out now," Wallace said yesterday from his home in New York. "It has to be remembered, too: He's just the best damn reporter there is."

There may not be lots of other CBS News veterans coming forth to cheer Rather, because one says he was threatened with the loss of his own job if he did. Rather is obsessive in his loyalty to CBS News, but it begins to seem like unrequited love.

"My attitude is, I want to move forward now," says Rather. "I want to get through Wednesday as gracefully and as classily as I know how and then take a little time to myself and then move right into the next phase of my work. Thank God my health is good, I feel vigorous, feel strong, and I want to get into both '60 Minutes Wednesday' and '60 Minutes' and try to do some great journalism."

There are possible problems even with that plan, however. Leslie Moonves, the CBS president who charged into the scandal and has not been even slightly supportive of Rather or of CBS News, has implied "60 Minutes Wednesday" may be canceled if its ratings don't improve. And there is some question how welcome Rather will be at "60 Minutes" in the wake of the scandal, even though he's an alumnus (1975-81). Some insiders think Rather should have done more to protect the discharged employees and should have threatened to leave if they were let go.

The major flaw of the original story was that documents used to support its allegations were not thoroughly verified. Rather likes to think of himself as a "reporter-anchor," but he hardly has the time to go rummaging through files and halls of records to check on the authenticity of documents that are decades old.

Dogged by bias allegations

All this has been argued to death and could be argued until doomsday. One of the sad things about it is that it gave the right wing, which has had its sights on Rather for years now, something to cheer and dance in the streets about. Over the years, ultra-conservatives have made Rather their public enemy No. 1. They deluged him with hate mail, founded a Web site called Ratherbiased.com and were the prime suspects when a computer was used to jam his phone lines. He says he doesn't know how he became such a lightning rod for controversy.

"What I do know is that it's not something I worry about," he says. "I've never worried about it. I am independent as a reporter -- determinedly independent and, when I think it's necessary and advisable, I'm fiercely independent. And I think the determination to stay independent is part of what's made me what you call a 'lightning rod.'

"There's always somebody of some political persuasion or some ideological belief and/or partisan political agenda who takes the attitude, 'If you don't report the way I want you to report, if you're not going to reflect my biases, then I'm going to try to hurt you, ruin you if I can, by hanging some negative label on you and calling you names like 'biased.' And at that point, you're in the classic fight-or-flight situation. Now I'm guilty of a lot of things, and I've made a lot of mistakes -- but I haven't made that mistake -- of running, backing away. I haven't done that, I'm not doing it and I'm not going to do it."


Former CBS and CBS News president Sir Howard Stringer, just named chairman of the entire Sony empire, was once the executive producer of "The CBS Evening News" and remains a Rather admirer. He used to talk about the unique experience of walking down the street with Rather and feeling all eyes upon them, of Rather's magnetism and "larger than life" persona.

Near the end of "A Reporter Remembers," Stringer says that whatever mistakes were made with the National Guard story, Dan Rather has compiled "an extraordinary body of work." The question is whether he will be able to keep compiling it. Obviously if the decision is entirely his, he will.

News — and a news giver

Rather has always been the news as well as being a news giver. Over the years, he appeared in headlines more often than any of his competitors -- whether for his on-air shouting match over Iran-Contra with George H.W. Bush, his tiff with a Chicago cabdriver or his mugging by a mysterious psychotic who reportedly uttered the seemingly meaningless "What's the frequency, Kenneth?" while clobbering Rather on a New York street.

Some doubted the story's veracity, but years later the same man murdered an NBC stagehand and inadvertently revealed he had attacked Rather, an expression of his clinically paranoid-schizophrenic delusions that people on TV were sending out invisible signals that controlled his life.

On the documentary tonight, Rather points out the man never actually said "What's the frequency, Kenneth?" though that later became the title of an R.E.M. song. The mugger did ask "What's the frequency?," though, and at one point "addressed me as 'Kenneth,' " Rather says. It's sort of like "Play it again, Sam," one of those famous quotes that was never said.

Some of Rather's fans breathed a sigh of relief when the man was finally found and the story thus verified, because Rather does seem to run on an electrical current that is his alone. There is, inescapably, a tension in his appearances on the air -- thus shock-jock Don Imus's irreverent observation at the 1996 Radio and Television Correspondents' Association dinner that Rather delivers the news "like he's making a hostage tape." But is it tension, or urgency? Rather believes the news is serious business. He's not going to lean back in his chair and deliver it to viewers conversationally. He's not trying to be your friend.

For that reason and others, his departure from the evening-news wars tonight may mark the end of more than one era. The networks love the revenue that news programs like "60 Minutes" bring in, but they hate the messiness of news, the trouble news causes, the awful unpredictability of it all ("reality" prime-time shows, entirely different, are carefully packaged and controlled).

CBS News, having weathered many a crisis, has hit a larger than usual iceberg this time. Andrew Heyward, president of the news division, is considered by many to be much more loyal to the corporate side than to news. For years, the great CBS News presidents -- Richard Salant, William Leonard, Fred W. Friendly -- saw part of their job as standing up to incursions by bottom-liners from the corporate side. Heyward has been all but invisible since the scandal broke and never publicly offered to resign.

Instead, he and Moonves have been consorting on a revamped "Evening News" that could move the broadcast in the direction of "The Today Show" and other morning magazines -- something lighter and more fun and tailored to attract the 18-to-34-year-olds who rarely watch now. The great days of network news, days Rather lived through first as a devout radio listener and then as one of the troops -- may be long over. "Look for it only in books," as is said of the South in the prologue to "Gone with the Wind."

Asked if the old-style news president is an extinct species, Rather declines to answer, the only question he wouldn't even entertain. But on the matter of network news being in terminal decline, he says he sees the dangers but doesn't think the situation is irreversible.

"Some people conclude the sun is rapidly setting on what was once considered solid broadcast journalism," he says. "And what makes some people concerned about it is bloggers, paid political operatives posing as White House journalists, paid hucksters hustling political programs all lumped together in a soup that's served up as professional punditry.

"The concern is that we'll reach the day, if we aren't careful, that the premium is no longer put on journalists getting to the truth behind official policy statements but rather making sure that reporters, and the press in general, trample on no toes that would result in the denial of access to those wearing the shoes."

Without mentioning the current Bush administration and the attitudes toward the press it encourages, Rather says, "I confess that I am concerned that we may be reaching the point where too many members of the press fear being labeled unpatriotic or partisan if they challenge the actions or decisions of political leaders of any persuasion.

"What the country doesn't need, particularly just now, is a press that's docile -- never mind obsequious or intimidated. I don't agree with those who say, 'Dan, it's already happened,' but I do recognize there's some danger."

Rather, 73, still has plenty of fight left in him, more than a lot of us ever have at what we imagine are our best moments. Surely it has occurred even to him that it would be nice to just get up from the anchor desk and walk away -- leave all the aggravation and warfare behind. Rather confesses that he and his brilliant and strong-willed wife Jean -- whom he usually refers to as "Jean Rather" -- did consider this option.

"We did discuss it. Jean Rather presented that case in an eloquent way. I don't want to mislead you; she did not say, 'This is what I think you should do.' She did say, 'In making a list of things to consider, you should consider this, and I know you better than any other living person and if I don't mention it, you might not think of it.' She fixed some of her famous Jean Rather Prison Chili and we had about two spoonfuls' worth of time discussing it. And that was pretty much it."

Dan Rather is not going gentle into that good night. He's not the type to go gentle, for one thing, and as far as he's concerned, night hasn't fallen by a long shot. And that's part of our world, Wednesday, March 9, 2005.

Arise, Dan Rather, to gain thy dreams...

© 2005 The Washington Post Company

No Secrets: Eyes on the CIA

Newsweek - Aviation obsessives with cameras and Internet connections have become a threat to cover stories established by the CIA to mask its undercover operations and personnel overseas. U.S. intel sources complain that "plane spotters"—hobbyists who photograph airplanes landing or departing local airports and post the pix on the Internet—made it possible for CIA critics recently to assemble details of a clandestine transport system the agency set up to secretly move cargo and people—including terrorist suspects—around the world.

Google searches revealed that plane spotters Web-posted numerous photos of two private aircraft—one a small Gulfstream jet and the other a midsize Boeing 737—registered to obscure companies suspected of CIA connections. Some of the pictures were taken at airports in foreign countries where CIA activities could be controversial. When the 737 last year went through a change of tail number and ownership—a suspicious company in suburban Boston apparently transferred the plane to a similar company in Reno, Nev.—Internet searches of aviation and public-record databases disclosed details of the plane's new owners and registration number. One critical database, accessible via Google, was a central aircraft registry maintained by the government's own Federal Aviation Administration. A U.S. intel source acknowledged that the instant availability of such data and photos on the Internet is not helpful "if your object is clandestinity." (To see how it works, check the Web for info on a business jet carrying the Liechtenstein tail number HB-IES. The search should turn up pictures of that plane at a European airport, as well as public records and news stories describing how the plane, registered to a company called Aviatrans, once belonged to Saddam Hussein.)

Intel sources say the CIA's own lawyers years ago decreed that under U.S. law the agency must register its aircraft—including their tail numbers and the front companies that own them—with public authorities like the FAA, even though this could provide clues to clandestine activity. Agency officials and lawyers have discussed the possibility of changing U.S. laws and regulations to make it easier for the agency to hide its activities. That may be difficult, so for now, plane spotters can keep their eyes on the CIA.

—Mark Hosenball

© 2005 Newsweek, Inc.

The Man Without a Face

An interview with Markus Wolf

For nearly 30 years, Markus Wolf headed the international intelligence gathering arm (HVA) of East Germany's Ministry for State Security (MfS), or Stasi. Known to Western intelligence as "the man without a face" for his ability to avoid being photographed, Wolf developed one of the Cold War's most effective espionage operations. Under his direction from 1958 to 1987, HVA ran a network of about 4,000 agents outside East Germany, infiltrating NATO headquarters and the administration of West German Chancellor Willy Brandt. After German reunification Wolf was sentenced to six years in prison for espionage and treason. Later, however, the conviction was overturned, and he received a suspended sentence on lesser charges. Wolf was interviewed for COLD WAR in January 1998. The text has been translated from German.

Supreme Court Rules Cold War Spies Cannot Sue CIA

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A Soviet-bloc couple recruited to spy for the CIA cannot sue the agency for reneging on a promise of lifetime pay for their Cold War services, a unanimous U.S. Supreme Court ruled on Wednesday.

The high court ruled in an opinion written by Chief Justice William Rehnquist that the husband and wife's lawsuit cannot proceed. It said courts are barred by a 130-year-old precedent from reviewing claims over payment for spying.

The Supreme Court cited as the basis for its ruling its 1875 decision that the heirs of William Lloyd could not sue to recover money promised by President Abraham Lincoln in 1861 for spying on Confederate troops during the Civil War.

``The possibility that a suit may proceed and an espionage relationship may be revealed ... is unacceptable,'' Rehnquist wrote in the 10-page opinion.

``Forcing the government to litigate these claims would also make it vulnerable to 'graymail,' i.e., individual lawsuits brought to induce the CIA to settle a case (or prevent its filing) out of fear that any effort to litigate the action would reveal classified information that may undermine ongoing covert operations,'' he said.

The ruling was a defeat for the couple who have been identified only by the pseudonyms John and Jane Doe. Former citizens of a Soviet-bloc nation, they defected to the United States and became U.S. citizens.

The couple said the CIA recruited them during the Cold War to spy after they expressed interest in defecting to the United States. The husband was a high-ranking diplomat.

They said they had been assured that if they spied the CIA would arrange for their eventual resettlement in the United States and ensure their financial and personal security for life. They said they carried out their end of the bargain, but the CIA reneged and abandoned them.

After the couple came to the United States, they eventually resettled in the Seattle area. Beginning in 1987, the husband got a job with the assistance of the CIA, which gave him a false resume and references.

The couple received as much as $27,000 a year from the CIA until the husband began earning more than that in his job. But he lost his job at a bank in 1997 as a result of a corporate merger.

The couple said the CIA told them that they had already been paid enough for their services and further support would not be provided.

Their lawsuit sought a court order that the CIA pay them financial support, pending review of their case by the agency. A federal judge and then a U.S. appeals court based in San Francisco ruled their lawsuit could go forward.

But the Supreme Court said the appeals court was wrong in holding that the its 1875 decision does not require dismissal of the couple's claims.

Rehnquist said that in the case of a former spy, the core concern of the 1875 decision -- preventing the disclosure of the spy's secret relationship with the government -- applies.

The 1875 ruling held the president had the power to bind the United States to contracts with secret agents, and that allowing a former spy to bring a lawsuit to enforce the terms of the contract would be incompatible with its secret nature.

Rehnquist rejected the argument that the case could proceed with other protections to ensure classified information is not disclosed.