29 September 2000: Updated.

28 September 2000

Date: Tue, 26 Sep 2000 23:08:01 -0400
From: owner-intelforum@mclean1.his.com (by way of Michael Dravis)
Subject: RE: Indyk's security clearance

Colleagues whom I have reason to trust in matters regarding Israel have passed along the following:

Last May, Martin Indyk was directly linked to the Israeli military's decision to bomb the Bekaa Valley rather than Syria. New evidence, which is reputed to shortly come to light, links this 'incident' with the revocation of Indyk's security clearance and effectively his removal as US ambassador to Israel.

This would indicate that the recent statements of Albright and others that 'no one is suspecting Indyk of espionage' are not entirely true, as it is asserted that he has been taking classified American information and passing it along to Israelis not otherwise privy to this material.

I have no further information, save for the instruction to watch for news on this story in a few more days.  Time will tell.

Regards,

Gordon Housworth
Intellectual Capital Group LLC
26775 Crestwood
Franklin, MI 48025
248.626.1310
ghidra@modulor.com

Intelligence Forum (http://www.intelforum.org) is sponsored by Intelligence and National Security, a Frank Cass journal (http://www.frankcass.com/jnls/ins.htm)

From: Gordon Housworth <ghidra@modulor.com>
To: "'intelforum@his.com'" <intelforum@his.com>
Subject: RE: Indyk's security clearance
Date: Thu, 28 Sep 2000 22:51:10 -0400

Since receiving this material, I've had the opportunity to discuss it with other colleagues, one recently departed from State.  His take was that there is less here than meets the eye but more on the general condition, i.e., Indyk is probably one among many who are sloppy about classified information without resulting in compromise.  My colleague had the opportunity to see Indyk operate up close over the course of years and felt that he is no more cavalier about security than his colleagues - and that his AIS background perhaps make him more thoughtful than most on security issues.

The discussion moved on to the matter that security restrictions regularly impose impracticalities on senior policymaking officials that they'd rather ignore and often do, to the horror of a recently emboldened security contingent, which prides itself on having no sense of foreign policy priorities or the average policymaker's active schedule.

At the close of the discussion, he expected to see the Deutch, Indyk, Lee, and proliferation laptop cases to be regarded as high watermarks and an overreach of the security types.  The disdain of the senior types for what was described as "antiquated and mostly ritualistic requirements of the security types reflects the reluctance of anyone to engage in a serious overhaul of security requirements" - an overhaul which he felt was long overdue.

He went on to say that he expected senior members of the intelligence community (those in a non-security position) to soon  rein in their security types rather than risk relegation of their main entry into senior policymaking circles.

Regards,

Gordon Housworth

Intelligence Forum (http://www.intelforum.org) is sponsored by Intelligence
and National Security, a Frank Cass journal (http://www.frankcass.com/jnls/ins.htm)