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Ignored Warnings ...Suppressed Evidence
APRIL 1993: A U.S. Department of Energy intelligence
program called "Russian Fission" concludes that
President Boris Yeltsin lacks complete control of
Russia's nuclear arsenal and cannot stop an accidental
missile launch. Energy Secretary Hazel O'Leary shuts
down the program because its conclusions run counter
to official policy. Program director Jay Stewart, a highly
decorated intelligence officer, is forced into early
retirement by 1994.
1993: U.S. Ambassador to Belarus David H. Swartz
repeatedly warns top U.S. officials against their
Russocentric policy toward the former Soviet Union,
arguing it would undermine the other independent former
Soviet colonies. He is ignored, reformers are
undermined, a dictator takes control and Belarus
ultimately begins a merger with Russia.
1993-94: Economics section staff at U.S. Embassy in
Moscow drafts "numerous" strongly worded diplomatic
cables on corruption but senior officials block them from
being sent to Washington, complaining that they clash
with the official optimistic line.
June 1994: A USAID Rule of Law contractor
denounces a consultant, a specialist in Russian crime, as
"a bomb with a lit fuse. Her hobby horse is that the AID
privatization program has been exploited by Russian
organized crime." The contractor sends out a derogatory
memorandum about the consultant and implies that she
must be silenced.
1995: USAID circulates memorandum stating that
National Security Adviser Anthony Lake instructs that
critics be "tarred" as "backdoor isolationists" and that in
dealing with congressional critics the administration
would "delay, postpone, obfuscate, derail."
1995: Vice President Gore's office rejects a CIA report
on corrupt Russian leaders, scrawling an obscenity
across the cover and sending it back to the CIA.
1995: NASA cracks down on American journalists who
ask questions about corrupt Russian officials who
allegedly steal NASA space-cooperation aid.
1995-98: House Armed Services Research and
Development Subcommittee Chairman Curt Weldon of
Pennsylvania requests repeated briefings on Russian
strategic-weapons research and development, only to
have administration political appointees refuse.
Late 1996: U.S. intelligence issues "Corruption Clouds
Russia's Future," a detailed report that concluded
corruption was so endemic that a nationalist backlash
would develop. White House goes into damage control
to claim President Clinton, Gore, Deputy Secretary of
State Strobe Talbott and others had spoken out about
corruption all along.
April 1997: When Navy Lt. Jack Daly is wounded in the
eyes by a laser from a Russian spy ship in U.S. waters,
top administration officials cover up the incident and the
Navy wages a retribution campaign against the
intelligence officer for talking about the matter.
September 1997: After FBI Director Louis Freeh
endorses a Center for Strategic and International Studies
report on Russian organized crime, high-ranking
administration officials dismiss the bipartisan document.
Fall 1997: CIA Nonproliferation Center Director
Gordon Oehler is forced into early retirement,
reportedly under pressure from Talbott, who was angry
about his briefings on Russian proliferation of weapons
of mass destruction to Iran.
Copyright ¸ 1999 News World Communications, Inc. |
