International Relations 360
INTELLIGENCE AND INTELLIGENCE AGENCIES
Spring Semester 2001
Thursday 6:10-9:30 p.m.
Please read this syllabus very carefully. It contains not only the course outline, but also important information you will need throughout the course. I will refer to it often and will assume you have kept a copy for easy reference.
The following texts are required.
Intelligence: From Secrets to Policy, Lowenthal, Mark (CQ
Publishers) (available at University Bookstore)
Fixing the Spy Machine, Hulnick, Arther (Praeger, New York, 1999)
(available at University Bookstore)
Additional readings can be found on the course web site
The following web sites have the best collection of links on strategic, military and economic espionage and intelligence. You will find both extraordinary sites, but some of the links require special authorization to enter. Others, however, contain recently declassified intelligence documents from around the world.
http://www.loyola.edu/dept/politics/intel.html
http://www.fas.org/irp/index.html
I rely on email to stay in touch with students, make appointments, and in general, provide students with up to date information. As part of the course, I will enroll you in several email lists normally reserved for intelligence professionals. At least once a week (and usually more often) you will receive emails with current intelligence news. This is required reading and is subject to examination.
Although the course will examine intelligence agencies of other nations including the Soviet Union, Germany, Israel, and the United Kingdom, it will concentrate on the American intelligence community. It does so for two reasons. Firstly, more has been written about American intelligence than any other country and secondly, because one of the themes throughout the course will be to analyze how the United States should balance the need for secrecy in intelligence versus the public's “right to know” in a democracy.
In preparing for this course I was, frankly, surprised at the amount of materials which has been declassified at the end of the Cold War. This information is useful in understanding the role of intelligence from the perspective of those charged with its collection and analysis. We also have a rich collection of materials written by foreign policy officials who are users of the intelligence collected and whose perspective often differs from that of the intelligence community.
The course will provide an historical review of intelligence during and following World War II. It will examine the four major functions of intelligence, as well as intelligence as part of the foreign policy process.
Finally, the course, having looked and both successes and failures of intelligence, will look at the policy requirements of the United States in the 21st century and ask the question, “What kind of intelligence establishment is required?”
I am a retired Foreign Service Officer who served in the Department of State for 30 years. As both an Ambassador overseas and a policy maker in Washington I was a consumer of intelligence on issues ranging from the Soviet Union's strategic nuclear arsenal to efforts to ending apartheid in South Africa. As a senior officer I had oversight of many intelligence operations in the countries of my responsibility. Aside from a two-year assignment as an analyst on Polish and Czechoslovak affairs in the State Department's Bureau of Intelligence and Research (1968-1969), I have never worked for any intelligence agency.
My experience working for the United State government has led me to reject conspiratorial views of history and foreign policy that are, in my view, far too prevalent (what I call the X-Files factor.) I am always bemused by the fact that the same people who believe in black helicopters or other nefarious plots are often the same people who believe that the US government cannot efficiently organize a two-car funeral.
Much of what has been written about US and Russian intelligence is, at best, simply fiction. At worst, it is often deliberate disinformation written to serve one political aim or another. I trust that all of you will read with open minds and draw your own conclusions based on rigorous research and analysis. If there is one thing I hate worse than bad writing, it is sloppy analysis!
If you wish to pursue the various conspiracy theories of history, I urge you to read Daniel Pipes' Conspiracy, How the Paranoid Style Flourishes (New York, The Free Press 1997.)
Methods of Instruction
The fact that this is a lecture course does not relieve students from the responsibility of active, thoughtful class participation. To the extent possible the course will introduce you to several actual cases which highlight some of the dilemmas facing intelligence officers, as well as policy makers.
I will make extensive use of videos, which are now available, both to help students understand the true nature of intelligence, as well as to highlight some of the mythology surrounding espionage and tradecraft. I've had the experience that some students assume that if it is on TV, it's entertainment that can be ignored. Consider it part of class assignment (i.e., it can appear on the exam!)
Assignments and Grades
Grades for the course will be determined as follows:
Midterm Examination March 29 30%
Research Paper May 17 40%
Final Examinations TBA 30%
Week 2 (2/8) Major Players: The US Intelligence Community
Reading: Lowenthal, Chapters 1-3
Hulnick, Chapter 1
Week 3 (2/15) The SVR, GRU and Other Players at the Table
Reading: Lowenthal, Chapter 4
Hulnick, Chapter 2
Week 4 (2/22) Collection: Espionage and Spies
Reading: Lowenthal, Chapter 5
Week 5 (3/1) Spies: The Famous, the Infamous and the Unknown
Reading: Hulnick, Chapter 3
Week 6 (3/15) Collection: Satellites and Other Hi-Tech Gadgets
Reading: Hulnick, Chapter 5
Week 7 (3/22) Analysis: The Real Stuff of Intelligence
Reading: Lowenthal, Chapter 6
Week 8 (3/29) Midterm Exam March 29
Week 9 (4/4) Counter-Intelligence: Spy versus Spy
Reading: Lowenthal, Chapter 7
Week 10 (4/18) Covert Action I
Reading: Lowenthal, Chapter 8
Hulnick, Chapter 4
Week 11 (4/25) Covert Action II
Reading: Lowenthal: Chapters 9 and 10
Week 12 (5/3) Ethics, Oversight and the “Right to Know”
Reading: Lowenthal, Chapter 13
Hulnick, Chapter 7
Week 13 (5/10) Future Challenges, Intelligence for the 21st Century
Reading: Lowenthal, Chapters 11 and 12
Hulnick, Chapter 8-10
Research Paper Due
Week 14 (5/17) Course Review
Research Topics
1. In 1985 Jonathan Pollard, a US citizen working as a Navy intelligence analyst, was arrested for espionage on behalf of Israel. He was subsequently convicted and is serving a life sentence. His arrest and sentence has been a major issue in US-Israeli relations and has aroused controversy in the American Jewish community. In the last weeks of his administration, President Clinton agreed to review the case. Write a memorandum to the President with your recommendations.
2. Interception of electronic signals and communication has long been a major source of US intelligence. But as methods of encryption become more widely available, the intelligence community (as well as US law enforcement) has argued that access to this information is endangered. The government has proposed certain standards of encryption that many believe will allow the government to crack commercial and business codes and which threaten the fundamental constitutional rights by allowing the government to "read our mail." Describe the current state of the controversy and present arguments on why this should or should not be allowed.
3. Senator Moynihan and others argue that in the age of Internet and mass communication, 90-95% of what the US government needs to know to make intelligent policy choices is readily available from open sources. What is available on the Internet and published sources? How reliable is it? As part of your research, please find out:
--- what was Operation Rosewood?
--- what is the name of the Angolan intelligence service?
--- what are the names of the State Department desk officers for Rwanda, Kazakhstan and Bolivia? What are their office and home telephone numbers?
--- what are the major US military bases in Utah and where are they located?
--- what was the real name of the spy code-named “Lucy?”
---
4. Describe the membership and organization of congressional oversight committees of the US intelligence community. How effective has oversight been to curb abuses? Has the intelligence community been hampered by these requirements? Has the community honored their legal obligations?
5. The CIA has denied public charges that it failed to predict the collapse of the Soviet Union. Write a paper on the intelligence community's analysis of the USSR in the 1980s. How accurate were they in their estimates? Where did they fail?
6. A series of articles in the San Jose Mercury News charged that the CIA was in part responsible for the importation of crack cocaine into Los Angeles in the 1980s. That article has aroused enormous controversy, has been the subject of an internal investigation by the CIA's Office of Inspector General, and has been both praised and attacked. After investigating all sides of the issue, what are your conclusions as to the accuracy of the allegations?
7. The US government has long renounced assassination as a legitimate and legal instrument of policy, yet our inability to overthrow Saddam Hussein has caused some to call for a change in that policy. What are the arguments pro and con for a policy of covert assassination?
8. Recent Congressional studies have pointed to a "failure of US security" in allowing the Chinese government to use commercial contracts to obtain classified technology that has given them important military advantages. What has been the extent of this "loss of important secrets," how did it happen and what should be done to prevent it in the future?
9. Most policy makers agree that economic intelligence will be the most important information we need in the 21st century. But collection and dissemination of such information raises complex legal, ethical and commercial questions for business and government, alike. Should there be limits on clandestine collection? Should we provide such information to US business to give them a competitive advantage?
10. Aldrich Ames was a significant penetration of the CIA by Soviet intelligence. Describe the nature of the damage, what systemic problems allowed him to remain undetected in place for so long and what measures have been put in place to reduce the possibility it will happen again.
11. Wen Ho Lee, a scientist at the Los Alamos nuclear laboratory pleaded guilty to misuse of classified information. The FBI believed him guilty of espionage but accepted a plea bargain. Investigate this case and write a paper on your views of Lee's guilt or innocence. Do you believe Lee was an innocent victim of racial profiling or a spy who got away?
12. During the NATO war in Kosovo the United States bombed the Chinese Embassy in Belgrade. What really happened and why?