Thread by @DavidPriess

A thread on intelligence, the risk of politicization, and leadership of the US intel community.

First, read this @NatashaBertrand article describing the concern among many former intel officers about the nomination of Rep. John Ratcliffe.

1/14
politico.com/news/2020/03/0…

“Anyone who does not come with extensive intelligence experience,” I said in the article about incoming intel leaders, “is automatically and quickly viewed as a threat because of the risk of the politicization of intelligence.”

Let me explain:

2/14
politico.com/news/2020/03/0…

Politicization can be defined as changing intel conclusions based on a policymaker’s policy wishes.

Telling POTUS what he wants to hear is tempting for intel leaders—even when a POTUS respects analysis at odds with his views. And, well, this one...

3/14
foreignpolicy.com/2018/07/26/the…

Standing up for intel analysis looks especially challenging for someone like Ratcliffe, whose qualifications for the nomination seem to be his aggressive defense of the president and his directed questioning of individuals the president doesn’t like.

4/14
lawfareblog.com/potential-trou…

Past IC leaders who came in with extensive intel or other executive branch experience, whether in the military or in civilian departments, generally succeeded at seeing politicization for what it was—and managing its tensions better than the others.

5/14
amazon.com/Presidents-Boo…

While IC leaders haven’t always gotten it right as a result of previous executive experience, quite often they have—as evidenced by the relatively high marks former directors like Richard Helms, William Webster, and George Tenet usually receive.

6/14

It’s telling that of the former congressmen who became leaders in the intelligence community—George H. W. Bush, Porter Goss, Leon Panetta, and Mike Pompeo—the most successful by the majority of accounts were Bush and Panetta.

What in their backgrounds helps explain this?

7/14

Bush had served a mere four years in Congress before becoming ambassador to the UN and then de facto ambassador to China.

In other words, he wasn’t appointed to run the IC because he was a congressman but seemingly despite it.

8/14

Even Panetta—generally seen as an intelligence outsider when Obama nominated him to lead CIA—had gained high-level management experience after he’d stepped down as a congressman by serving as Clinton’s OMB director and as White House chief of staff for two and half years.

9/14

How Bush comported himself upon becoming DCI in 1976 is instructive. From the start, he put aside politics.

First, he took senior intel officers’ advice and established his main office at CIA HQ in Virginia rather than in the director’s suite near the White House.

10/14

Second, Bush attended cabinet meetings only when the agenda included national security items—and, even then, he left when conversations strayed.

Third, he deferred to the judgments of intel officers, becoming their champion with Ford instead of politicizing analysis.

11/14

And relevant to today’s situation, Bush took an extra step to avoid even the appearance of politicization: He avoided direct participation in the editing, review, and briefing of the President’s Daily Brief (then a DCI responsibility, now under the DNI’s umbrella).

12/14

Instead, Bush just read the PDB in the car, alone, on the way to Langley each morning.

“I deferred to the intelligence people and did not try to get into the process,” he told me for my book on the PDB. “I had the utmost respect for the career intelligence officers.”

13/14

Incoming DCIs and DNIs without deep management experience or long exposure to intel have tended to hit many speed bumps. And even then, they lacked Ratcliffe’s strident partisanship and sycophancy.

I hope this helps explain heightened concerns about politicization risks.

/end