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The PRESIDING OFFICER. Under the previous order, the Senate will now stand in recess until 2:15 p.m.
Thereupon, at 12:49 p.m., the Senate, recessed until 2:15 p.m; whereupon, the Senate reassembled when called to order by the Presiding Officer (Mr. Adams).
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Oklahoma is recognized.
Mr. BOREN. Mr. President, in discussing this with the Parliamentarian, I understand it would simplify matters, since we have roughly the same amount of time give or take 2 or 3 or 4 minutes on each side between now and the hour of 6--since we went somewhat past the normal recess time of 12:30, the time has been slightly thrown off--it will be easier, I think, in order to keep track of it from now on, that we give a slight disadvantage to this side, I think of 6 or 7 minutes, if we simply entered into an agreement by unanimous consent to divide the time evenly between now and the hour of 6 p.m., at which time the vote should occur; no later than 6 p.m.
So I ask unanimous consent that the time of proponents and opponents be divided equally between this time and the hour of 6 p.m.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection? The Senator from Rhode Island.
Mr. CHAFEE. Mr. President, there would be a capacity, however, should nobody come to the floor and there be no further discussion, I assume, that the time could be yielded back?
Mr. BOREN. Yes.
Mr. CHAFEE. In other words, my colleague is not asking unanimous consent that the vote occur at 6?
Mr. BOREN. Mr. President, that is correct. If the two sides decided to yield back the time, if there were no other speakers and we reached that point earlier than 6 p.m., the time could be yielded back by both sides.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
The Senator from Oklahoma.
Mr. BOREN. I yield 4 minutes to my distinguished colleague from South Carolina.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from South Carolina is recognized.
Mr. THURMOND. Mr. President, I rise to express my support for the President's nominee to be the next Director of the Central Intelligence Agency, Mr. Robert M. Gates.
However, before discussing the Gates nomination, I would like to thank both Senator Boren and Senator Mursowski, the chairman and vice chairman of the Select Committee on Intelligence, for the exceptional manner in which the committee dealt with this controversial nomination. I am especially appreciative that the committee provided me with a copy of the report on the nomination well in advance of this confirmation debate. With the help of this comprehensive report, the Senate can make a reasoned judgment on Mr. Gates' qualifications to lead the Central Intelligence Agency during this period of global political and military transition.
Mr. President, as we end the confrontation between the two superpowers, our intelligence community, headed by the Central Intelligence Agency, must adapt to a new operational climate. Mr. Gershwin, a CIA official who testified before the Intelligence Committee, gave us a preview of the difficulties of this transition when he stated:
I think we are entering an era in the 1990's when life is going to be very uncomfortable for all of us intelligence analysts. It is very uncomfortable for me. * * * I do not know where we are heading, but I know that my job in the future is going to be real different from what it was in the past.
Mr. Gershwin goes on to say:
And frankly, I think with a man like Mr. Gates there (at the CIA), I think he is going to shake us all up in a big-time way and it is going to be very valuable for all of us.
Mr. President, I believe Mr. Bob Gates is the man who can shake up the CIA. He has been in the intelligence business since 1966, when he joined the CIA as an analyst. Since that time, he has held positions of trust in both Republican and Democratic administrations. Inevitably, an individual in sensitive and challenging positions is involved in controversy and becomes the subject of allegations. Mr. Gates is not unique in this aspect. He was saddled with allegations regarding his involvement in the Iran-Contra affair and charges that he politicized the intelligence process.
Mr. President, in my judgment the Intelligence Committee thoroughly investigated these allegations and found no smoking gun. Rather, it found a man that one Senator described in the report, who `is smart, experienced, innovative, and a tough taskmaster; just the right man to lead the CIA into uncertain and extremely challenging times.'
I join in that assessment and support the President's judgment in nominating Mr. Gates for this exceptionally challenging position. I will vote in favor of the confirmation and urge my colleagues to do so as well.
Thank you, Mr. President.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator has yielded the time. Who yields time?
Mr. BOREN. I yield 10 minutes to my colleague from Maine.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Maine is recognized for 10 minutes.
Mr. COHEN. Mr. President, earlier today, one of my colleagues took the floor and suggested that Republican members of the Intelligence Committee secured the services of their trial lawyer. I must say that I was flattered with the notion that somehow the Intelligence Committee would consider me to be their trial lawyer, particularly when they have such distinguished members on that committee as Senator Rudman, Senator Danforth, Senator Gorton, three former attorneys general of their States, distinguished, experienced trial lawyers. They surely did not need the services of this former trial lawyer.
I might say, Mr. President, that I came to the confirmation hearing on the first day--I had just returned from Maine. I came to the hearing and I sat in the very rear of the hearing room, the last chair available in the very rear of the room. I was quite content to simply sit there and listen to the evidence. I was curious about it. I had spent 8 years on the committee, 4 years as vice chairman of the Intelligence Committee. I was curious as to how the hearings would unfold, what the testimony might reveal, and I wanted to see how they would progress. No one invited me. The White House did not call me. I went there simply of my own volition.
As I was sitting at the rear of the hearing room one of my colleagues from the Intelligence Committee, Senator Metzenbaum, suggested to the chairman that I be invited up as a courtesy to sit behind the dais. I was again thankful that Chairman Boren extended that courtesy to me. It came without any prompting on my part, and I was pleased to be of service.
One of the reasons I was pleased to be helpful to my colleagues, as I indicated before, is because I spent 8 years on the committee; I was quite familiar with the so-called Iran-Contra scandal. I was one of those who helped to conduct, and indeed even write, the initial report of the preliminary inquiry into the sale of weapons to Iran and their diversion to the Nicaraguan Contras.
Some of my colleagues may recall that there was tremendous pressure being generated by the White House at that time. President Reagan wanted the intelligence oversight committee to tell him what he allegedly did not know and to file this report as quickly as possible. Frankly, I objected. I was even out of town at the time. It was planned to turn this document in as a final report, and I objected. Many of the witnesses' testimony had not even been transcribed, and I felt we could not present a complete enough picture and an accurate enough picture to our colleagues, and so I said, no. I must say, I took considerable criticism from many of my colleagues for failing and refusing to sign that report at the time.
I was also appointed to serve on the Iran-Contra Committee, and at the end of that investigation I coauthored with my distinguished colleague, the majority leader, Senator Mitchell, a book called `Men of Zeal,' describing what lessons we learned from that experience. So those were the qualifications I brought to the hearing, to my colleagues on the committee, who may not have had as much familiarity with the background that I had about the Iran-Contra matter.
Again, early this morning it was suggested that before the very first witness could even testify, the Republican committee members had lawyer Cohen get a midnight letter from Arthur Liman. Let me just set the record straight. Lawyer Cohen was not sent to get a letter from Arthur Liman. I had read Mr. Polgar's op-ed piece in one of the major papers, and, indeed, I had seen a preliminary statement that he was going to give to the committee. Frankly, I was troubled by it. I have enormous respect for Mr. Polgar. I had worked with him when he was a staff member of the Iran-Contra Committee. As I read the op-ed piece and I read his testimony, I found them indeed quite troubling because, in essence, he was accusing Bob Gates of not only deception, but I believe conduct that would justify, if it were true, the independent counsel taking action against Robert Gates because Mr. Polgar, in essence, accused him of misleading Congress, preparing misleading testimony, and indeed accused him of being part of the coverup of the Iran-Contra scandal, including the diversion of funds.
For that reason, I took it upon myself to call Arthur Liman, who had just returned from celebrating the Jewish holidays. I spoke with him by phone. We talked about it, and indeed he did dictate a letter to me which I offered or proffered, I should say to be technical about it, to the committee the following day. And that was to put in perspective not only Mr. Polgar's role but, indeed, the fact that, to my knowledge and to Mr. Liman's knowledge, Mr. Polgar never indicated to any member of the Iran-Contra Committee, not to the counsel of the committee, that he believed or had evidence that Mr. Gates in any way obstructed justice or committed perjury or lied or misled the committee because, if he did have such evidence, I am sure it would have worked its way in one fashion or another into Judge Walsh's hands.
I thought I would take a few moments, Mr. President, to explain my own interest in the case, in the hearings, and my own role during the course of those hearings. I did not seek to have an opportunity to question any of the witnesses. I did not want to break or set any precedents. I felt I was entitled,
much as the former vice chairman of the committee, Senator Moynihan was, to make a statement, and, indeed, that is what I did, pertaining to the allegations that Robert Gates had engaged in conduct which would have certainly disqualified him from being confirmed as Director of the CIA were the allegations true.
Mr. President, I would like to offer a few general comments, if I might. The ancients observed, `Whom the gods would destroy, they first make euphoric.' I think they might well have had the current situation in mind as we approach the end of the second millenium. Two years ago, heady with newfound power, Polish voters threw out every Communist that they were allowed to pass judgment on. They replaced them with Solidarity-aligned democrats. Last week or 10 days ago, disillusioned and resentful about the state of their lives, most Poles did not even bother to vote and those who did cast their ballots to a diffuse mix of democrats and demagogs, nationalists, regionalists, and Communists.
Two months ago, Russians who had mounted the ramparts to successfully defend their democratically elected President and Parliament, celebrated their dramatic victory. Just weeks later with President Boris Yeltsin off writing his memoirs, the bickering Parliament took on an eerie quality reminiscent of what occurred right after the 1917 democratic revolution. While Yeltsin's announcement this week of his plans for drastic economic reforms offers some reason for hope, the transition to a market economy is going to be even more difficult for Russia than it is for Poland, and there is no certainty at all that the Russian democrats can hold power long enough to see a new economic dawn break above the horizon.
Without taking time now, I call my colleagues' attention to an article that appeared in this week's U.S. News & World Report, the November 11 issue, pages 48 and 49. They will indeed find some very discouraging descriptions about the mood and the sentiment and the prospects for the new Russia because behind the face of the new Russia, one may very well find the face of the old Russia.
Reading from the article:
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Ironically, it is the democrats--not the many reactionaries who have survived the coup attempt--who are ushering in the new authoritarianism, on grounds that democracy cannot flourish amid political and economic chaos. Unable to cope with a disintegrating economy, increasing shortages and a growing threat to public order, reform leaders--who received power almost overnight--increasingly favor strengthening executive powers in order to make quicker economic decisions and to demonstrate to a weary population that someone is in charge. Democracy, says one Soviet politician ruefully, may prove to have been nothing more than a transition from totalitarianism to authoritarianism.
Even Mayor Popov, who many of us have had a chance to meet here in Washington, is said to be `battling a feisty city council.' [He] `declared flatly that the democratic experiment has failed: `In a word, democracy cannot find a basis in this country.'
So I think it is important that we keep this in mind; that those Members who have come to the floor to criticize Mr. Gates, the Reagan-Bush administration, and others, keep some perspective of exactly what is taking place in the world today.
I mention this because some have accused the Bush administration through its release of certain declassified CIA documents of trying to rewrite history. And the charge is that the CIA missed the collapse of the Soviet Union, the Soviet empire; that it misread Soviet economic indicators; that it misunderstood who Mikhail Gorbachev was, and thereby allowed Ronald Reagan to spend billions of dollars on arms that we had no need for whatsoever.
Not one of Bob Gates' critics mentioned Andre Sakharov's exile to Gorky. Not one of the critics spoke of the grand deception at Krasnoyarsk. I did not hear a word mentioned by anybody about the CIA pinpointing Krasnoyarsk as a violation of the ABM Treaty, which was denied year after year after year until finally Shevardnadze reversed his public position and said yes, it is a violation. Not one spoke of the atrocities committed by Soviet soldiers in Afghanistan, manufacturing----
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Ten minutes have expired.
Mr. COHEN. I ask that I be allowed to continue for an additional 5 minutes.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection? The Senator is recognized for an additional 5 minutes.
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Mr. COHEN. No one mentioned those fancy little weapons that the Soviets had designed to look like toys, so that children in Afghanistan would pick them up and blow their limbs off and their parents would have to cry and weep knowing they could not get medical treatment for them. Their goal was to kill the morale of the freedom fighters.
No one referred to the challenge posed by the Soviet deployment of SS-20's toward Western Europe and the attempt to drive a stake into the heart of NATO.
No one mentioned that Ronald Reagan got the INF treaty, that he said he would get if we did what? Not if we adopted a nuclear freeze but if we deployed the Pershing II and the ground-launched cruise missile over great political opposition in Europe. Nonetheless, they deployed it and we got the treaty.
No one mentioned that Mikhail Gorbachev allowed Black Berets to commit brutal acts in the Baltics or use chemical agents in Georgia to put down protests.
No one mentioned the forward-looking reformers like KGB head Vladmir Kryuchkov and Prime Minister Valentin Pavlov were among those who engineered the failed coup in August.
No one mentioned that Gorbachev was seen as being resistant to true reform by such intellectuals as Alexi Arbatov, Nicolai Smeloff. No one mentioned that.
The whole Reagan Presidency is discredited by saying that we missed the chance to do business with Gorbachev, and then the Bush administration including Bob Gates is discredited by saying now it is too committed to Gorbachev; we should be doing business with Boris Yeltsin and others; the President and Gates are too tied to the center now.
So first we miss Gorbachev and now when we are dealing with Gorbachev, they insist we should be dealing with Yeltsin even when there are signs that Mr. Yeltsin may be evolving toward something other than a great democratic reformer. He sounds very authoritarian in some of the statements he is making. He seems to be demanding more and more power. And so there are fears that we may see the rise of Russian nationalism. But the critics of Bob Gates say we missed Gorbachev and now we are missing Yeltsin and so he is damned on the one hand and damned on the other.
Well, apparently the critics know so much more than the European leaders like Vaclav Havel, who came to the joint session of Congress and he said what? He said thank you, thank you for standing up to your responsibilities, and he thanked us for the sacrifices that the American people have made over the years so that his country and others in Eastern Europe would have the chance to know freedom.
Mr. President, Robert Gates, we have to remind ourselves, serves at the pleasure of the President of the United States. I might say that if we applied the same standards to our own conduct that we insist upon applying to his, I doubt very much whether many could pass that test. If we were to hold up our own record for the past decade, not to mention Bob Gates' two decades, and ask the American people, what do you think about our role in the S&L crisis? How did that happen on our watch? What about the collapse of the economy, and the soaring deficits?
We are the ones who appropriate the funds, not the President. How about the loss of public confidence? Sixty-three percent of the American people think that we are corrupt. All of us.
Now, that is the perception, Mr. President. Is it fair? Is it right? Is each one of us in this Chamber to be disqualified from trying to come to grips with the domestic, the foreign, the fiscal problems of this country because of our record during the past decade? I submit to you if the standard that we are applying to Bob Gates were applied to us, very few would be left standing in this Chamber.
So, Mr. President, I support Bob Gates for the position of Director of Central Intelligence. I think he is tough minded. I think he is bright. I think he has made some mistakes. I think he stepped on some toes. But I think he learned from his mistakes. I saw evidence of that. I worked with him for several years, and I believe he does possess the capability to deal with the new challenges of the future. I believe he is in a better position to understand the complexities of that vast bureaucracy, and the personalities within it. And I believe that he has gained from what he has gone through for the past several years and certainly during his confirmation proceedings.
So I hope my colleagues will take a very close look at the record and listen to people, in addition to those who testified, listen to some of the people like Bobby Inman, John McMahon, people who everyone says they have the utmost respect for and confidence in. I think if you look at the record and listen to some of the people who have worked closely with and know Bob Gates best you will agree that he should be confirmed for that position.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The time of the Senator has expired. Who yields time?
Mr. BOREN. Mr. President, I yield to the Senator from Rhode Island as much time as he may require.
Mr. CHAFEE. I thank the distinguished floor manager. I thank the distinguished Senator from Maine for the comments he made, and particularly for the point he stressed, how many of us could stand scrutiny of our records for the past 20 years?
I have been in the Senate now for 16 years, and most of the other Senators I see have been here 10 years or more. How many of us could stand up to scrutiny on what happened in the S&L crisis and what did we do about it? Or the national deficits or a whole series of other programs? Suppose we were held liable for every one of those?
So I think the points the Senator from Maine made were excellent, as always. He is very perceptive and contributes continually in this body to a whole series of efforts we are making.
Mr. President, I would like to begin by thanking the chairman and ranking member of the Intelligence Committee for the manner in which they have led the committee during this difficult nomination process. I think they have done an outstanding job of ensuring that the process has been both thorough and fair. It was not always easy to balance the strongly held views of the members of our committee or the witnesses that have appeared, and I want to commend our leaders for minimizing the friction involved and keeping the important issues in focus.
This was not expected to be a difficult or contentious process when President Bush nominated Robert Gates in June. But, as we all know, shortly after the nomination was received by the Senate, former CIA official Alan Fiers unexpectedly pled guilty to withholding information about the Iran-Contra affair from Congress. Immediately, many leapt to the conclusion that if Mr. Fiers had lied to Congress, then his superior Mr. Gates probably had as well. Matters were further complicated a few weeks later when some network TV shows began to carry segments featuring
convicted felons, in some cases interviewed from their jail cells, who had wild tales to tell regarding their alleged involvement with Mr. Gates in undertaking illegal covert activities. Some of these tales were more elaborate and intriguing than a Robert Ludlum spy novel. Then, just when I thought I had seen everything, the BCCI scandal hit the airwaves and print media with the force of a hurricane arriving at high tide with a full Moon. Finally, and also unexpectedly, a former CIA official approached the committee and alleged that Mr. Gates had been guilty of slanting intelligence estimates to ingratiate himself with Bill Casey and senior officials of the Reagan administration. What had been expected to be a fairly routine nomination had become a sensationalized and highly contentious one.
There has never been any serious doubt about Mr. Gates' aptitude or expertise. He has served this country with distinction for over 20 years in a variety of sensitive assignments. He was an Air Force officer. A CIA analyst and manager, and served in the National Security Council under both Republican and Democratic administrations. He was promoted and rose quickly through the ranks because of his performance and effectiveness in the eyes of men such as Zbigniew Brzezinski, Stansfield Turner, and Adm. Bobby Inman. By all accounts, Mr. Gates functioned very effectively as Deputy National Security Adviser during the gulf war with Iraq and during Operation Just Cause in Panama. So the key questions regarding Mr. Gates are not about his competence but his integrity. Has he been truthful
about his role in the Iran-Contra affair? Did he politicize estimates in order to ingratiate himself with his superiors? Did he smother evidence about illegal BCCI activities in order to protect CIA operations?
I am satisfied that Mr. Gates has been forthcoming regarding the Iran-Contra affair. The Iran-Contra committees of the House and Senate interviewed over 500 witnesses and reviewed 300,000 documents pertaining to this matter. As Senators Boren, Nunn, and Rudman, who served on that committee know, this extensive and unprecedented investigation did not produce any evidence of impropriety on the part of Mr. Gates. Since that time, the independent prosecutor, Judge Walsh, has spent over 4 years and $25 million probing the Iran-Contra affair, and he has publicly acknowledged that Mr. Gates is not a target of his investigation. The record has long shown that Mr. Gates was not involved in the diversion of funds to the Contras and that he raised the issue with his superiors when he was informed by Charles Allen that such activities might be occurring. Our own independent investigation, which has included the testimony of individuals such as Alan Fiers and Charles Allen, confirms these facts.
The other allegations against Bob Gates have also been thoroughly investigated and found to be lacking. The documents obtained by staff demonstrate that the CIA appropriately disseminated the information it had regarding BCCI to the Treasury Department and other Federal agencies.
The allegations of politicization, however, have been more difficult to contend with. As one senior intelligence official said to the committee:
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Its right out of Franz Kafka. Because once you are accused, the inspector general will never come back and say you are absolved. They will say: `We found no evidence to substantiate it.'
It is in fact impossible for Mr. Gates, or anyone else, to prove the negative. I would therefore suggest that instead of asking the impossible we examine the facts.
Of the roughly 2,500 intelligence estimates produced during Bob Gates' tenure, only a handful are in dispute. In those instances, after extensive hearings, interviews, and a review of well over 1,000 documents, the allegations remain unsubstantiated. No analyst has come forward and said, `Bob Gates asked me to take a dive.' At the same time, it has been indisputably demonstrated that Bob Gates disseminated numerous reports contradicting the policies of the Reagan administration on such contentious issues as chemical weapons, Lebanon, the Soviet pipeline, and Soviet defense spending.
It is not surprising that Bob Gates stands accused of politicizing intelligence estimates. Such allegations have also been made against William Colby, Bill Casey, Judge Webster, and many other senior intelligence officials. In every large Federal bureaucracy, there are factions and disputes, winners and losers. In this instance, the strongest allegations against Mr. Gates come
from an individual who is himself accused of politicization and who has testified that he believes he was demoted by Mr. Gates. But those allegations, for example that Bob Gates pressured analysts to produce a report implicating the Soviet Union in the attempted assassination of the Pope, are simply not supported by either the documentary evidence or the testimony of the analysts who have submitted affidavits to the committee.
In fact, as John McMahon has pointed out, it is difficult to understand how Bob Gates could have manipulated CIA analysts even if he had wanted to. The directorate of intelligence is simply not a bureaucracy composed of 2,000 spineless wimps.
After listening to the witnesses on both sides of this issue, I have concluded that there is nevertheless a genuine perception of politicization on the part of some analysts. These perceptions appear to have preceded Mr. Gates and have continued since he left. I think the perception of politicization is attributable to a number of factors:
First, a sometimes suffocating bureaucracy that has not permitted adequate communication between senior management and analysts.
Second, the desire by some midlevel managers and some analysts to achieve promotion by responding to the perceived views of their superiors. This is a problem that was clearly identified in the internal CIA review of the now celebrated assessment on the attempted assassination of the Pope. I think it is perhaps worth briefly quoting from this document, known as the Cowey report:
So, despite the DDI's best efforts--
And Mr. Gates was the DDI at the time--
there was a perception of upper-level direction.* * * In the event, however, our interviews suggested that it was not so much DCI or DDI direction as it was an effort on the part of some managers at the next one or two layers down to be responsive to perceived DCI and DDI desires.
In short, people wanted to please their boss. This is a natural instinct and a problem inherent to the analytic process.
Third, and finally, Bob Gates was prone to toughening estimates on the Soviet Union. Because of the Reagan administration's hard-line views on the U.S.S.R., this on some occasions led to the perception of politicization. But the fact is, Mr. Gates himself was a hard-liner on the Soviet Union with a Ph.D. in Soviet studies to back it up. Consequently, when he changed an estimate to be more critical of Soviet behavior, it only reflected his own sincere views, but because the Reagan administration shared similar views, he was subject to the allegation of politicization.
In sum, I do not believe that the allegations that Mr. Gates politicized intelligence are valid. At the same time, I have
concluded that there are some organizational problems in the directorate of intelligence that warrant further attention and I welcome Mr. Gates' eight suggestions for improving intelligence analysis.
As we all know, it is difficult if not impossible to accomplish anything in Washington without antagonizing someone. There is an old Russian adage that expresses the problem well `When you chop wood, chips fly.'
I do not think there is any doubt that Mr. Gates has sent some chips flying over the years. He has not been afraid to make tough decisions or undertake new initiatives. He has done a tremendous amount of good work in behalf of this country, and he has done so under very difficult circumstances. If we want individuals with extensive experience in the CIA, who are willing to take risks, who have taken controversial positions and stood their ground, we are inevitably going to find disaffected bureaucrats among their former colleagues.
I believe that this is a time when it is essential to have a DCI who does not need on-the-job training. We need a DCI who can manage the intelligence community during a period of profound change, minimizing the impact of budget reductions, while ensuring appropriate oversight by this committee. If our only concern were to avoid controversy in the nomination process, then I would say do not vote for this nomination. But I believe that this is an extremely able, experienced, honest, and patriotic individual who will be an effective Director of Central Intelligence. I hope that he will soon be confirmed so that we can concentrate on the reorganization of the intelligence community, to whatever degree is required, in response to the dramatic changes underway in the world around us.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from New Jersey.
Mr. BRADLEY. I yield as much time as the majority leader may use.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The majority leader is recognized
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Mr. MITCHELL. Mr. President, I will vote against the nomination of Robert M. Gates to be Director of Central Intelligence.
I did not easily reach this conclusion. I believe that, in general, Presidents should be able to select the officials of their choice to serve in key administration positions. As a matter of policy, every President should be free to name qualified individuals who share his views and goals.
It is clear that President Bush knows this nominee well and has confidence in his abilities.
However, the Director of Central Intelligence [DCI] is a position unique in our Government.
The Director is a trustee, the custodian of the Nation's secrets, the executive officer responsible for activities known to few if any other officials. With respect to the critical intelligence analysis provided to the President and other key Government officials, he is the umpire and the protector of objectivity. This very objectivity and the quality of this intelligence is the foundation upon which is built much of our Nation's foreign policy, national security, and military strategy. Critical decisions which affect the Nation's most profound interests, sometimes for years, even decades, are made on the basis of such intelligence judgments.
The hearings held by the Intelligence Committee on this nomination highlighted for the American people several such decisions--decisions involving the Soviet Union's intentions in the Third World and elsewhere, Iran and Iraq, and policy in Central America to name a few.
The trust and confidence placed in the Director will be even more important in the years ahead than it has been in past years. With the collapse of communism, with the profound changes around the globe which have followed, the CIA will need to respond to a new set of challenges. America will face new circumstances--new allies, perhaps new enemies--and certainly new competition created by the global marketplace.
The CIA will have a role to play in assuring that the Nation's leaders have the information needed to best protect the Nation's security. The intelligence community will need a Director who not only understands these new realities, but who has the leadership and credibility to lead these organizations in new directions.
These are additional important factors which must be considered as the Senate discharges its constitutional duty in evaluating those nominated to serve in high Government offices.
Among them are the nominee's credibility and judgment.
In my view, too many unanswered questions remain about this nominee's credibility and this nominee's judgment.
I am troubled by the conflicts in the testimony of Mr. Gates and others. I am further troubled by the many memory failures of the nominee. I am disturbed that even after the Intelligence Committee raised questions arising from Lt. Col. Oliver North's diaries, the nominee declined to read and address those entries.
I will not attempt here to detail each of the conflicts in testimony and troubling aspects of Mr. Gates' own testimony. The committee report which is before each Senator does an admirable job of that.
However, I do wish to recall for the record the testimony of Charles Allen, the National Intelligence Officer for Counterterrorism, who met with Mr. Gates on October 1, 1986, and informed him of Allen's suspicions that funds generated by the covert sale of arms to Iran were being diverted to covertly fund the Contras in Nicaragua.
Mr. Allen testified, and I quote his testimony at some length:
I recall discussing the Iranian initiative with Mr. Gates on 1 October 1986 and expressing deep concern over this White House-directed effort. I had been deeply troubled since mid-August over a number of aspects of the initiative and conveyed these concerns in some detail to Mr. Gates during the * * * meeting. Specifically I recall * * *:
a. Describing the impasse over the pricing and [the first channel to the Iranians] refusal to pay Mr. Ghorbanifar the price asked for the Hawk spare parts because the price asked for the Hawk spare parts was `five or six times' the actual cost of the parts.
b. Noting the desperate financial straits of Manucher Ghorbanifar and his `frantic' call to me in August 1986 in which he provided details on specific costs of certain Hawk missile spare parts, and in which he claimed that his markup on the price of the spare parts averaged only about 40 percent.
c. Mentioning Lt. Col. North's reference to `the reserve' in his conversation with me on 9 September 1986 in which he stated that Vice Admiral Poindexter had formally approved the second channel and that the Ghorbanifar channel would be shut down.
d. Informing Mr. Gates of Mr. Aviram Nir's [the Israeli Prime Minister's representative in the Iran arms sales matters] statements in support of Mr. Ghorbanifar's assertions that the latter as the middleman in the transaction was substantially over-charged.
e. Detailing Mr. Nir's fears that the operational security of the initiative was rapidly eroding and that the immediate action was needed to shore up its security.
The facts among others were repeated in a meeting with Mr. Casey on 7 October 1986 in which Mr. Gates was present.
Mr. Gates' testimony was that he was `startled' and that he was `disturbed by the threat to the security of the operation, as well as the speculation,' which in his 1987 testimony to the Intelligence Committee he described as flimsy. At that time he testified:
Again, we had on the one hand reports of cheating and overcharging that we had been seeing for months, and that are not abnormal in the international arms market, and on the other hand he simply called attention to the circumstantial fact that some of the same people were involved in the Iran affair and the contra thing.
Mr. President, I feel that the statement by Mr. Allen was far more detailed and far more significant than this characterization of it by Mr. Gates.
Mr. Allen also testified that in the context of this October 1 meeting he `distinctly recalls' Mr. Gates telling him that `in the past he had admired Colonel North because of his work in crisis management and things of this nature, but that this was going too far, and asked that I see the Director.' Allen went on to state that Gates: `said this with deep concern that Colonel North, whatever qualities he may have had in the past in performing services to the United States, that this was a very questionable activity at best.' According to Mr. Allen's testimony Mr. Gates repeated this statement regarding Lieutenant Colonel North in the October 7 meeting in Director Casey's office.
Mr. Gates testified that he has `no recollection' of making these statements and further that Mr. Allen `didn't have any indication of any U.S. Government role or anything. I think it was just the mere fact of Secord's presence in both of these activities that, I think is just the best way to put it, raised this concern.'
Mr. President, I have reviewed the testimony of Robert Gates and others on this particular matter very carefully. I find it very hard to see how the Deputy Director of Central Intelligence could take this matter so lightly.
However, to give him the benefit of the doubt, put aside, for the moment, Mr. Allen's speculation about a diversion of funds. Further put aside Acting CIA Director Kerr's testimony that he had in August told Mr. Gates about Mr. Allen's conclusions--and that is another statement on the matter which Mr. Gates cannot remember. Accept Mr. Gates' statement that this seemed flimsy and `had little sense of urgency about it.' Accept all of that. Give him all of the benefit of the doubt. What troubles me most is that an analyst of Mr. Gates' background and experience should not have recognized that the exorbitant overcharging of the Iranians for the missile parts they were receiving in the Iran arms sales, a covert program he knew to have the President's approval, represented an extreme risk to the lives of the very hostages for which weapons were being traded.
Let me repeat that. The exorbitant overcharging of the Iranians for the missile parts, in a covert program which he knew had the President's approval, represented an extreme risk to the lives of the very hostages for which weapons were being traded. That alone, it seems to me, should have been reason enough for the Deputy Director of Central Intelligence, then Mr. Gates, to raise red flags and blow whistles with Director Casey, Admiral Poindexter, and ultimately the President himself.
While the testimony does not fully remove my doubts regarding what Mr. Gates learned regarding Iran-Contra and what he did or failed to do with that knowledge, I make no accusation. In fact, in the whole matter, in my judgment, Mr. Gates' own testimony is sufficient criticism of his actions.
By his own testimony, his response to information which he learned regarding the Iran-Contra affair was inadequate. Mr. Gates himself testified:
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I should have taken more seriously * * * the possibility of impropriety or even wrongdoing in the Government, and pursued this possibility more aggressively. I should have pressed the issue of a possible diversion more strenuously with Director Casey and with Admiral Poindexter. * * * I should have been more skeptical about what I was told. I should have asked more questions, and I should have been less satisfied with the answers I received, especially from Director Casey. * * *
Those are Mr. Gates' own words.
While I respect his admission of shortcomings and accept that he has learned from the experience and matured in subsequent offices, nonetheless his performance in this area falls short of the standards of behavior which I believe necessary for a position requiring the unique sensitivities, responsibilities, and trustworthiness as does the Director of Central Intelligence.
Additional charges have been made that Mr. Gates played a role in efforts to shape intelligence estimates to conform to the policy directions of the Reagan administration during the period that he served both as Deputy Director for Intelligence and as Deputy Director of Central Intelligence.
Mr. Gates was given the opportunity to and did address many of these specific charges. Some were not fully or adequately addressed. But, more than any accusation that Robert Gates, by his own hand, skewed any intelligence assessment, I am concerned by the perception that politicization was carried out by the leadership of the CIA during the 1980's. What should not be a political agency was made into a political agency. Many past and current CIA employees share this view.
Indeed, the Iran-Contra Committee concluded in its final report;
* * * there is evidence that Director Casey misrepresented or selectively used available intelligence to support the policy he was promoting, particularly in Central America.
I am not here arguing guilt by association. I am asserting that the signal sent to the CIA and others in the intelligence community at the beginning of a new era in intelligence gathering, but reaching back into the Casey era and selecting as the new Director the man who was Casey's own Deputy, is precisely the wrong signal to be sending.
Proponents of this nomination have argued that Mr. Gates' experience in the Agency, the very fact that he has risen from among the ranks of the analysts, and the fact that he experienced the painful episode associated with Iran-Contra make him the ideal candidate to lead the intelligence community through the period of change ahead. I believe that this is exactly wrong.
While I believe that the public airing of the ferment at the CIA will be positive for that Agency in the long run, and was certainly educational for the American people, I believe that it will further undermine Mr. Gates' ability to serve as a strong leader for the CIA. His every move and his motives will be scrutinized for political spin and for retaliation against personnel.
Even while supporting this nomination, the chairman of the Intelligence Committee felt it necessary to add the following in his statement. And this is Senator Boren's statement.
Might I say I have the greatest respect and admiration for Senator Boren. And if, as we all expect, Mr. Gates is going to be confirmed, he will owe that confirmation to one person and one person alone, and that is Senator Boren.
Senator Boren said this with respect to the Gates nomination;
Let me say a few words about the courageous people-analysts, young and old, who came forward to cooperate with the committee during the confirmation process. They have my commitment, indeed the commitment of this committee, that no untoward action will be taken against them, and their careers will not be disrupted. If Bob Gates is confirmed, I intend to hold him accountable and carefully scrutinize his decisions and actions to ensure that needed changes are made. This committee will pay increased attention to the less glamorous but important issues of the morale and well-being of the men and women of the Central Intelligence Agency. I have given my personal assurances to at least two individuals that for my remaining 5 years in the Senate, long after I have left this committee, I will intervene on their behalf at the slightest hint of retribution.
That is the end of the quotation from Senator Boren. He then went on at a later point to say:
And I say openly to the men and women at CIA, that I believe that Bob Gates will live up to the demands of decency and fairness required. But if he does not, I will be the first to take action, whether I serve on this committee or not. This is my personal commitment to the men and women at the CIA.
I want to add my assurances and my support for those made by the distinguished chairman of the Intelligence Committee. Senator Boren makes those assurances because he is a fair, decent, and compassionate man who understands how difficult it had been for these employees to step forward. I commend him for that.
But, Mr. President, and Members of the Senate, my point is that the need for the chairman of the Intelligence Committee to make such a statement is so remarkable, and so extraordinary, that it speaks for itself. It simply should not be necessary for such a commitment to be made, to have to say to everybody at the CIA, all of the employees: `Do not worry if the Director takes retribution on you, we will be there to intervene.' Even though all of them must know with however good our intentions and however energetic we are in trying to ensure that commitment, there is literally no way that this kind of oversight can prevent the kind of retaliation or retribution that could take place. It is truly extraordinary that everybody at the CIA must be told this--must be warned with respect to this nominee.
I want to commend the chairman of the Intelligence Committee, the distinguished senior Senator from Oklahoma [Mr. Boren] and the vice chairman, the junior Senator from Alaska [Mr. Murkowski] for the comprehensive, fair, bipartisan, and educational process by which the nomination was considered. All of the members of the committee and the staff should be commended as well. Hundreds of witnesses were interviewed and thousands of documents collected in an exhaustive effort to seek the necessary information for the Senate to make its judgment on this nomination. The committee's process has served the Senate and the American people well.
The role of the Director of Central Intelligence is too important to gamble on a nominee who, by his own admission, has demonstrated poor judgment and who represents precisely the wrong signal to so many at the CIA and elsewhere. Robert Gates has served the President and General Scowcroft well in his current position. He is a strong and effective policy advocate. However, given the enormous challenges facing the CIA for a transition to a new role, facing a new world order, and requiring a newly invigorated workforce at CIA and elsewhere in the intelligence community, I have concluded that Robert Gates is the wrong man at the wrong time for this position.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Robb). Who yields time? The Senator from Alaska [Mr. Murkowski].
Mr. MURKOWSKI. Mr. President, may I ask the remaining time on the two sides?
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator controls 1 hour and 15 minutes; on the time controlled by the Senator from New Jersey there remains 1 hour and 32 minutes.
Mr. MURKOWSKI. I thank the Chair. I defer to the Senator from Pennsylvania.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Pennsylvania [Mr. Specter] is recognized.
Mr. SPECTER. Mr. President, after considerable deliberation, I have decided to support the nomination of Mr. Gates. I had some reservations in 1987 when Mr. Gates was last considered for this position because of questions on his role in helping to prepare Director Casey's testimony which misled the Congress, and because of questions about Mr. Gates' knowledge on the diversion of funds from the diversion of arms sales to the Contras.
To the extent that Mr. Gates has made mistakes, it is my conclusion that he has learned from them. I believe that as a matter of his personal qualifications he is an astute, experienced intelligence officer who has the confidence of the President. I believe that the time has come, really past time, to move on with vital U.S. intelligence collection and analysis worldwide. And further, at this date in 1991 it is my conclusion that Mr. Gates is ready, willing and able to work with the Congress, allowing the Congress its appropriate oversight capacity.
Without detailing the 1987 confirmation hearing record--and I repeat that I had many reservations about that reach--suffice it to say that the loyalty of a Government subordinate is owed to the truth and to the American people, rather than to the next higher individual in the chain of command. Too much occurs in this town--really everywhere--where people go along to get along. And I think the experience that Mr. Gates had in 1987 and what has occurred since, and the very incisive investigation and hearings conducted by the Intelligence Committee, are a very, very sharp statement of the kind of scrutiny that will be undertaken and the kind of risks which are involved. But, with the lapse of 4 years and with Mr. Gates' very good record since that time, which record I have observed to some extent and been informed about by Mr. Scowcroft and by the President, I believe that it is appropriate at this time to move forward with his confirmation.
The critical question in my mind today is how well will Mr. Gates perform as Director of Central Intelligence? That is the dominant question, as opposed to what he may have done in the past. A
man's record, of course, is a very, very significant indicator as to how he is going to perform in the future. But whatever Robert Gates' mistakes were of the past, it is my judgment, as I say, after considerable reflection, that he is more than a reasonable risk to undertake this job in the future. Those considerations are weighted against his tremendous experience, his obvious intelligence, and his capacity to perform in a very, very important job and with the President's complete confidence.
When you talk about the mistakes that Mr. Gates has made in the past, I think that the distinguished Senator from Rhode Island [Mr. Chafee] characterized them very well. Mistakes in judgment, in predicting what will be, or in evaluating a complex set of facts that are very, very difficult to come by, should not be disqualifiers.
In terms of the critical oversight function of the Congress, that is a question which is very much on my mind. I have heard the chairman and the vice chairman speak in complimentary terms on Robert Gates, on his willingness to work with the Intelligence Committees. My own dealings with Mr. Gates since 1987 give me a sense of confidence that, to the extent he made mistakes in not recognizing congressional oversight, he has learned a valuable lesson from such mistakes.
When legislation was considered on the independent inspector general for CIA, Mr. Gates was a proponent of that proposal. And I think that speaks very well for him. That is the only remedial legislation to come out of the Iran-Contra hearings, but in my judgment, it is not sufficient. I am still concerned that we ought to have a statutory time limit--whether it is 24 hours, as in legislation I proposed, or 48 hours as others have proposed. There ought to be such a statutory requirement for the disclosure of covert activity to at least a key group of congressional leaders, even if it be limited only to four of the highest-ranking congressional officials.
But, it is apparent, after efforts to get that legislation that, it simply is not going to be--at least at the present. It may be that the best way to work through that
concern is through confidence-building measures--and the Intelligence Committees are doing a better job than in the past--and to build a tradition where the executive branch will make appropriate disclosures of covert activities to the Congress, as contrasted with the statutory requirement.
When members of the executive branch, or anyone, make misstatements of fact intentionally before the Intelligence Committee or any committees of Congress, I think that it is a very, very grave and serious problem. That is why the legislation which I proposed adds a mandatory minimum sentence of 1 year for anyone who was determined to have committed perjury from the executive branch to the intelligence committees. Maybe it ought to be broader. But that was the place where I started after the experience of the Iran-Contra affair.
That legislation was not favorably received by my colleagues and has not been enacted. It was not a move forward. There is a problem in terms of plea bargaining, as we have had some experience recently, but I make reference to that to underscore the very deep personal concern which I have about executive branch officials, especially members of the intelligence community, who appear before the legislative branch committees and do not tell the truth intentionally and knowingly.
I think there is another factor that requires a moment or two, Mr. President. It has already been touched upon by others. I do think we have to establish realistic standards for the confirmation of nominees. There may not be enough perfect people inside the beltway to fill the Cabinet and there may not be enough people outside the beltway either. It is much tougher to sit in confirmation hearings at the witness table than in the Senators' swivel chairs. That is something we have to take into account.
Senators' questions and characterizations and conclusions may go a bit too far at times. If we have a man who has the innate intelligence and capability of a Robert Gates, who has served in the highest levels of Government and who went through a period where serious questions were raised about his assistance to Director Casey in the preparation of Director Casey's misleading testimony to the Congress
about the diversion of funds, but since has performed in an exemplary fashion in a very high-level job, then I think that the preferable course, considering his capability, is to move ahead with his confirmation.
On a slightly lighter side, I can personally attest to Robert Gates' good educational background. He and I went to the same elementary school in Wichita, KS.
I think it is time, Mr. President, to move on, to look to the future. It would also be my hope that there will be serious consideration and the enactment of legislation which will move to correct the risk of politicization of intelligence information. It has been apparent for the better part of two decades that there are strong reasons to revise the legislation enacted in 1947 by separating out the functions of the Director of Central Intelligence from the Director of the Central Intelligence Agency. Those conclusions came forth during the Church committee hearings of the midseventies. Those conclusions were articulated by Secretary of State George Shultz when he testified during the Iran-Contra hearings about the cooking of intelligence information. I think that it is a subject which will likely engage Robert Gates if and when he is confirmed.
During the Iran-Contra hearings, and my time on the Senate Intelligence Committee in 1986 and 1987, it seemed to me that that legislative change in the structure of intelligence was very important.
I introduced legislation on October 27, 1987, Senate bill 1820 in the 100th Congress, to separate out the job of the Director of Central Intelligence from the day-to-day management of the Central Intelligence Agency. That legislation was reintroduced in the 101st Congress, Senate bill 175 on January 25, 1989, and the 102d Congress, Senate bill 421 on February 9 of this year. There have been efforts made by the chairman of the Intelligence Committee to move forward with the schedule of hearings on reorganization, but because of a very, very crowded agenda, that has not occurred. It is my hope that this legislation, S. 421, will be taken up very promptly.
I commend the distinguished chairman of the committee and
the distinguished vice chairmen for their laborious efforts, and the entire Intelligence Committee for undertaking a very, very difficult and excellent job.
For the reasons I have outlined, Mr. President, I intend to vote later this afternoon for the confirmation of Robert Gates. I thank the Chair and yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Who yields time?
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Mr. BRADLEY. Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. BRADLEY. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. BRADLEY. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the quorum call be assessed to each side.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection? Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. BRADLEY. I suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. BRADLEY. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. BRADLEY. Mr. President, I yield 10 minutes to the Senator from Maryland.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Maryland [Mr. Sarbanes] is recognized for up to 10 minutes.
Mr. SARBANES. Mr. President, on the September 29, the Baltimore Sun ran an editorial headed `Regarding Robert Gates: No;; in which were raised the following questions:
How credible is the nominee when he claims be cannot remember conversations about the Iran-Contra affair that are specifically recalled by close associates at the Central Intelligence Agency?
How good is his judgment in light of this admitted failure to perceive weakness in the Soviet Union, his supposed area of expertise, and the way his anti-communist zeal resulted in positions that were more advocacy than analysis?
What about the integrity of the advice he gives the government when one considers the allegations of CIA insiders that during his tenure as deputy CIA Director he slanted reports and analysis to confirm to the political views of President Reagan and the late CIA chief, William J. Casey?
What management skills will be bring to the huge $25-billion-a-year agency if there is any truth to charges that he damaged morale and created turmoil in the intelligence sector?
Those are all very central and troubling questions about the nominee and have been addressed in varying detail by many of my colleagues who have spoken on the floor and also in the report from the Select Committee on Intelligence.
This editorial was written as the committee reopened its hearing on the nomination of Robert Gates as Director of Central Intelligence. In raising the questions cited above, the editorial writers had made, it appears, their judgment about Robert Gates because later is the editorial concludes, `What the Senate must decide in whether he is the right man to protect this country. We think not.'
Furthermore, they came back on the November 5 after the Intelligence committee completed action and reaffirmed, in the light of the hearings, their judgment in an editorial headed: `Gates: Less than the CIA Deserves.'
And they conclude that second editorial by saying, `We have said before the CIA deserves better than Robert Gates.' And in the course of reaching that conclusion, the editorial points, again to the very questions which they raised earlier--his knowledge about the Iran-Contra scandal, the slanting of intelligence analysis to please his superiors, the undermining of the moral of subordinates.
Now, Mr. President, in a like vein, the New York Times has commented about Mr. Gates, first on October 18, 1991, when they said, and I quote them:
These have not been steller years for the Central Intelligence Agency. Even with the distinguished outsider Judge William Webster in charge, the once proud agency has, at least to public perception, flunked. Who there anticipated the fall of the Berlin Wall, the aggression of Saddam Hussein, the implosion of the Soviet Union?
Nevertheless, President Bush contends he needs an experienced insider and has nominated Robert Gates to be Director of Central Intelligence.
Mr. Gates has done his best to dispel the doubts that forced him to withdraw when he was first nominated in 1987. He has seemed contrite and open-minded and cites his broad experience and future vision. But Senators would do well to consider at least three criteria:
Whether his past performance shows him to warrant their trust * * * whether he has earned the confidence of agency employees * * * and above all, whether he, an insider, is the right person to lead the agency into uncertain times. On each count, Mr. Gates falls short.
Just recently, on November 4, the Times in an editorial entitled `Mr. Gates's Past the CIA's Future' repeated its reservations about Mr. Gates:
All three reservations about Mr. Gates--is denying knowledge of Iran-Contra, slanting intelligence and winking at reporting requirements--suggest that he is a man used to doing business the old way. Yet a new era requires new ways. The Senate would mortgage the CIA's future to its past and deny Congress's constitutional role of oversight if it confirmed Mr. Gates as CIA Director.
Now, Mr. President, why do we find ourselves having this debate over one of the most sensitive positions in Government. Obviously, one would like to have a nominee to be the Director of the Central Intelligence Agency who was so clearly an outstanding choice that there was virtually no debate and that it went through with the unanimous approval of the Members of the Senate. Instead, we find ourselves wrestling with a nominee whose record raises very serious questions and, in my opinion, reasonable justifiable doubts.
I wish to address for just a moment the standard we ought to be applying to nominees especially to highly sensitive and important positions. One of the assertions made is that nominees to the executive branch are there to assist the President in carrying out his responsibilities for that branch of the National Government, the branch for which he
is directly responsible, and therefore the President is entitled to his person unless the Senate finds that person to be disqualified. In other words, under this approach the presumption is with the nominee and the burden is upon the Senate to disqualify the nominee. That approach leads the Senate into a very intense exchange about whether individuals are being treated fairly and justly on a personal level when in my opinion the personal considerations in the sense of someone having to be disqualified in order not to vote for him ought not to be the standard.
Now, that is particularly true when we talk about a critical position such as the Director of the Central Intelligence Agency. With respect to other executive branch appointees, Assistant Secretaries in a department for example perhaps more can be made of the argument that the President ought to have the person he wants to help him run the administration, although I must say, Mr. President, even there it is my view that the standard for passing on nominees has deteriorated badly. It has almost reached the point that unless the nominee is mentally certifiable or criminally indictable there is the presumption that we are supposed to confirm and support the President's nominees.
That is not my view. I think nominees for high public office must make the case as to why they should be confirmed. The burden is upon those advancing and supporting the nominee to show why the nominee ought to gain the consent of the Senate to hold the position. The President's selection of the person is not determinative and it does not shift the responsibility on to the Members of the Senate to demonstrate what is wrong with the nominee. The burden is on those making the nomination to demonstrate what is right. There is not an entitlement to high public office.
I can quite easily take the view that someone is a perfectly fine person, that he has significant abilities, but is not the person for the particular job at the particular time, that he has not carried the burden of demonstrating why he should obtain the affirmative approval of the Members of the Senate.
Will the Senator yield me 2 more minutes, please.
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Mr. BRADLEY. I yield 2 additional minutes.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator is recognized for 2 additional minutes.
Mr. SARBANES. I think in this instance, Mr. President, there are sufficient questions about Mr. Gates' past performance, sufficient doubts about his conduct at the CIA that he ought not to be confirmed by the Senate.
I note that he left the CIA in January 1989 and went to a policy position at the National Security Council as Deputy Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs. So he has been very much involved in policymaking and has, in a sense, a vested interest in the policies that have been adopted in the course of his tenure at the National Security Council, a position that he went to from being the Deputy Director of the CIA.
It is not as though he had been at the agency continuously and was now being moved up from the deputy directorship. He has been a major policy player since the beginning of this administration at the National Security Council. This, of course, will only raise again the question that was raised by some of the CIA people at the hearings about his earlier performance in shading intelligence reports, in effect politicizing the agency.
There has been a rebuttal to these charges. I know those supporting him do not agree with the charges, but I do not know that they have yet asserted that the doubts raised by such charges are utterly beyond the framework where reasonable people may draw a different conclusion.
In other words, while people may draw different conclusions from this set of facts, the questions and doubts raised about Gates have a factual basis--they are not being constructed out of whole cloth. There is substance upon which to premise these serious questions that I quoted from the newspaper editorials, which are being raised about the nominee.
Clearly, there is a factual basis for those serious questions. People may draw different conclusions. My own conclusion is that it raises sufficient doubt and questions about that this nominee, particularly given the sensitive nature of the position, that Robert Gates ought not to be confirmed.
Therefore, I will oppose the nomination.
Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to have the editorials from the Baltimore Sun and the New York Times previously referred to printed in the Record.
There being no objection, the articles were ordered to be printed in the Record, as follows:
As Senate hearings reopen this week on the nomination of Robert M. Gates as Director of Central Intelligence, troubling questions continue:
How credible is the nominee when he claims he cannot remember conversations about the Iran-contra affair that are specifically recalled by close associates at the Central Intelligence Agency?
How good is his judgment in light of his admitted failure to perceive weakness in the Soviet Union, his supposed area of expertise, and the way his anti-Communist zeal resulted in positions that were more advocacy than analysis?
What about the integrity of the advice he gives the government when one considers the allegations of CIA insiders that during his tenure as deputy CIA director he slanted reports and analyses to conform to the political views of President Reagan and the late CIA chief, William J. Casey?
What management skills will be bring to the huge $25-billion-a-year agency if there is any truth to charges that he damaged morale and created turmoil in the intelligence sector?
That Mr. Gates carries a lot of baggage in these four important categories--credibility, judgment, integrity and management--is hardly news to the White House or to members of the Senate Intelligence Committee. When he was first nominated as DCI in 1987, his convenient bouts of amnesia about Iran-contra led to his withdrawal. Questions were also raised about the reliability and objectivity of the views he would advance at the highest level.
Yet George Bush, the ex-CIA director-turned president, has chosen Mr. Gates to head his old agency. The question is why? And the answer may lie in the description of Mr. Gates as the `quintessential staff person' by Intelligence Committee chairman David Boren, a Gates backer. For the past three years, Mr. Gates has been on the White House staff as assistant national security adviser. Obviously, the president is comfortable with him.
Perhaps Mr. Bush wants a `quintessential staff person' at the CIA so he can be sure his views for reshaping the post-Cold War agency to emphasize intelligence-gathering rather than operations will be obediently enforced.
Or perhaps, more unkindly, the president likes to stick it to Senate Democrats by offering top-level nominees who are hard to swallow. [Note continuing upset over the nomination of Judge Clarence Thomas to the Supreme Court.]
We have no doubt that Mr. Gates is a thoroughly trained professional who knows the ways of Washington and can be counted upon to protect himself, his agency and the White House.
What the Senate must decide is whether he is the right man to protect this country. We think not. With the collapse of Soviet power, the CIA can no longer trot out the Soviet bogyman on any occasion to justify dubious convert operations or imprudent uses of U.S. resources and prestige. It needs leadership in which intellectual depth, vision and honesty are beyond question.
Now that the Senate Intelligence Committee has voted 11-4 to confirm Robert M. Gates as head of the Central Intelligence Agency, it seems likely the full Senate will concur today. If Mr. Gates knew more about the Iran-contra scandal than he confessed, if he slanted intelligence analysis to please his bosses in the Reagan administration, if he browbeat subordinates and undermined morale, apparently more senators don't want to know. They are learning the uses of `deniability,' a field in which Mr. Gates is an expert.
One of the key votes in the Senate will be cast by Georgia's Sam Nunn, an influential member of the intelligence panel. In voting tentatively to confirm at committee level, Mr. Nunn came up with this Delphic utterance: `I have serious reservations, primarily about the signal being sent to the men and women in the intelligence community about how you get to the top in this town.'
What `signal' did Senator Nunn have in mind? Is it a career-climber's willingness to kowtow to his superiors? That is an instinct hardly confined to the executive branch. Or is it something more specific--Mr. Gates' success in cultivating key members of Congress, especially Sen. David Boren, chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee?
It is no secret that Senator Boren worked hard to rehabilitate Mr. Gates after he chose to withdraw his first nomination to head the CIA four years ago because of unanswered questions about Iran-contra. The Oklahoma Democrat reportedly made sure Mr. Gates was included in select gatherings and met the best people. One of the reasons, aside from personal chemistry, may have been Mr. Gates' assiduity in briefing Senate and House intelligence panels on CIA activities. Mr. Boren felt he was being leveled with--and said so. Four years ago, Mr. Gates described these efforts and commented that `Congress may actually have more influence today over the CIA's priorities and its allocation of resources than the executive branch.'
Oh? That happended to be the time the late CIA chief William Casey and his sidekick, Oliver North, were misusing the CIA in the secret and illegal Iran-contra operation while Mr. Gates made it his business not to know--and, consequently, not to have to inform Congress.
We have said before the CIA deserves better than Robert Gates. If that is not to be, we hope he proves our misgivings misplaced and provides his troubled agency with needed direction. Senator Boren maintains this will require `the most sweeping changes in the intelligence community since the CIA was created almost half-century ago.'
These have not been stellar years for the Central Intelligence Agency. Even with the distinguished outsider Judge William Webster in charge, the once-proud agency has, at least to public perception, flunked. Who there anticipated the fall of the Berlin wall, the aggression of Saddam Hussein, the implosion of the Soviet Union?
Nevertheless, President Bush contends he needs an experienced insider and has nominated Robert Gates to be Director of Central Intelligence, a choice the Senate Intelligence Committee votes on today. There are strong reasons to vote no.
Mr. Gates has done his best to dispel the doubts that forced him to withdraw when he was first nominated in 1987. He has seemed contrite and open-minded and cites his broad experience and future vision. But senators would do well to consider at least three criteria:
Whether his past performance shows him to warrant their trust * * * whether he has earned the confidence of agency employees * * * and above all, whether he, an insider, is the right person to lead the agency into uncertain times. On each count, Mr. Gates falls short.
David Boren, the committee chairman, commends Mr. Gates for forthrightness. Yet he overlooks occasions when Mr. Gates helped skew intelligence assessments and was demonstrably blind to illegality. The illegality concerned the Iran-contra scandal. Mr. Gates contends he was `out of the loop' on decisions about what to tell Congress. And he defends his professed ignorance on grounds of deniability--that he was shielding the C.I.A. from involvement. These contentions defy belief.
The testimony of others puts Mr. Gates, on at least two occasions, very much in the loop. He supervised preparation of Director William Casey's deceitful testimony to Congress about the scandal. And one C.I.A. analyst, Charles Allen, says he informed Mr. Gates, before it came to light, of three unforgettable details: Oliver North's involvement, the markup of prices of arms sold surreptitiously to Iran, and diversion of the proceeds into a fund for covert operations. In a telling lapse of his reputedly formidable memory, Mr. Gates could not recall the details when Congress asked two months later.
The second criterion concerns intelligence estimates. Incorrect forecasting should not be disqualifying; estimates can be wrong for the right reasons. But when they're wrong for reasons of political expediency, that's `cooking the books.'
The hearings have documented at least three cases of such slanting: a May 1985 estimate on Iran, estimates of Soviet influence in the third world, and assessment of Soviet complicity in the assassination attempt on Pope John Paul II. Mr. Gates has responded to their testimony but not refuted it. He evidently went to great lengths to manipulate the process, because highly reticent career officials testified against him in public. That electrifying development demonstrates how little confidence Mr. Gates enjoys in the agency.
It can be argued that his experience makes him well suited to lead the C.I.A. into the future. As a former Deputy Director and deputy national security adviser, he knows how intelligence assessments are put together and what policy makers need. And he knows the U.S. will not keep spending $30 billion a year on intelligence.
But it is more reasonable to think the agency would be better off with a director unbound by William Casey's dark legacy--the conviction that the agency knows best, a barely concealer contempt for Congress and a belief that anything goes, including evading he law. Reshaping the agency wisely depends on casting off that legacy.
Thomas Polgar, a C.I.A. veteran, urged the committee to consider the message that confirmation would send. Would officials wonder whether it was wise for outspoken witnesses to risk their careers by testifying? Would they say to themselves, `Serve faithfully the boss of the moment; never mind integrity? Feel free to mislead the Senate--senators forget easily?'
By voting no, senators will vote to remember.
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When the Senate votes tomorrow on the nomination of Robert Gates, it will be judging more than his fitness to lead the Central Intelligence Agency out of the past. It will be judging its own fitness to oversee intelligence.
The confirmation hearings did little to dispel doubts that Mr. Gates misled Congress during the Iran-contra scandal. They reinforced suspicions that he tailored intelligence estimates to please his superiors. And they raised questions about his role during the Iran-Iraq war.
Even so, the Senate Intelligence Committee chose to give Mr. Gates the benefit of the doubt, voting 11 to 4 in favor of confirmation. That vote sends and unfortunate message: Instead of overseeing intelligence, the Committee chose to look the other way. Now it's up to the Senate to confront Mr. Gates's past and say he's not fit to lead the C.I.A. into the future.
The Iran-contra question is simple. Did Mr. Gates know about the illegal diversion of proceeds from arms sales to Iran to the Nicaraguan contras? In 1985 and again in 1987, he told Congress he knew nothing about it. He clings to his story--despite evidence that he was warned about it in some detail by subordinates.
Charges that Mr. Gates slanted intelligence assessments, leaving Congress in the dark and more amenable to Administration policy, stand unrefuted. He now acknowledges suppressing dissent to a 1985 intelligence estimate justifying the covert sale of arms to Iran.
Then, when he was accused of `killing' estimates that showed waning Soviet activity in the third world, he obliquely acknowledged that he `may have found a specific paper inadequate.'
Further, Mr. Gates distributed an assessment making the case for Soviet complicity in the attempted assassination of Pope John Paul II and endorsed it, enthusiastically, as `the C.I.A.'s first comprehensive examination' of the issue. A C.I.A. post-mortem found that `no one at the working level other than the two primary authors of the paper * * * agreed with [its] thrust.'
The hearings left another question dangling: did Mr. Gates play a role in suspected intelligence-sharing and arms transfers with Iraq? The C.I.A., the committee concludes, shared vital intelligence with Iraq during the Iran-Iraq war and failed to report it to Congressional intelligence committees, as required by law.
A related question, let unanswered and still troubling to some senators, was whether the C.I.A., which is supposed to monitor suspicious arms deals, looked the other way while U.S. companies unlawfully armed Iraq as well as Iran.
All three reservations about Mr. Gates--his denying knowledge of Iran-contra, slanting intelligence and winking at reporting requirements--suggest that he is a man used to doing business the old way. Yet a new era requires new ways. The Senate would mortgage the C.I.A.'s future to its past and deny Congress's constitutional role of oversight if it confirmed Mr. Gates as C.I.A. director.
Mr. BOREN. Mr. President, I yield 15 minutes to my colleague from New Hampshire, Senator Rudman.
Mr. RUDMAN. Mr. President----
Mr. COHEN. Will the Senator yield for a question or two?
Mr. RUDMAN. I am pleased to yield to my colleague from Maine.
Mr. COHEN. Mr. President, earlier, a suggestion was made that Mr. Charles Allen had presented some detailed references to conversations he had with Mr. Gates, and Mr. Gates did not recall in great detail all of those particular references.
I notice in the Committee report at the top of page 14, there is listed the items that Mr. Allen alleges he told Mr. Gates in their October 1, 1986 meeting. It is my understanding of the evidence that Mr. Allen presented some testimony on prior occasions back in 1986 and 1987, and in those prior statements, he neglected to mention the items marked letters C, D, and E in the Committee report.
On the bottom of page 14, Mr. Allen, when asked about these disparities, said he had more `time to reflect and think clearly' about this meeting.
My question to the Senator from New Hampshire, who had vast experience in trying many, many law cases: Does he not find that one's memory tends to be fresher closer to the events, rather than 5 years after the events?
Mr. RUDMAN. Mr. President, I think that is absolutely correct. But what this particular hearing demonstrated to me was that when you expose potential witnesses to an incredible amount of data, some of which they were unaware of at the time of the event they being questioned about, they have marvelous recollection.
There is a problem in determining what they really knew at the time, which I do not think we were able to find out from
Mr. Allen.
Mr. COHEN. I thank the Senator.
One more point. Again, reference was made to the fact that Mr. Gates did not look at Colonel North's notes or diary. The Senator from New Hampshire had occasion to serve on the Iran-Contra Committee, as several of us had that opportunity. Did he not find that those notations would not have carried very much relevance in terms of the inquiry, because they found that the notes were embellished from time to time on the part of Colonel North?
Mr. RUDMAN. I do not think there is any question but that the only person who could understand precisely what the diaries meant was Colonel North himself.
Mr. President, I want to start out by saying that this hearing took place virtually contemporaneously with the Thomas hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee. The events were taking place virtually simultaneously. And for that reason, there was not as much public attention on the Gates hearing that I think we would have seen otherwise.
But there is no question in my mind that several important things came out of that hearing--and it was run remarkably well, efficiently, and in an extraordinarily bipartisan manner. People were courteous on both sides and tried to get the truth. One important thing that came out of that hearing is this: it is probably impossible to serve this Government in major positions over a period of 20 to 25 years and be able to come before a Senate committee for confirmation to a Cabinet-level post with clean hands.
I also have come to the conclusion that if one serves here in this body for 12 years--in the atmosphere in which we are operating, no matter how extraordinary and exemplary that record might have been over those 12 or more years--it would be virtually impossible to run in a political campaign in the atmosphere that we now run in a hearing. If we did, much of your constituency would think that you probably did a majority of very bad things during your 12-year period.
The fact is that these hearings have become a forum not only for examinations of policy and of background, but to a large extent, an excruciatingly painful examination of what you remember and when you remembered it. It is governed to some extent by guilt by association, and to a large extent an impugning of one's integrity and character, based on only a microcosm of the service you have rendered your country. To some extent, I think that is what happened in these hearings.
I am not going to take a lot of time today to go over all of the evidence. I think people have heard it, and people will be able to make up their minds. I simply say this. On the Iran-Contra affair, which has been the subject of comments of at least eight Members of the Senate in relation to this nomination, I want to make clear on the floor what I made clear at the hearing: there are two separate events--the sale of arms to Iran, and the illegal diversion of funds to the Contras.
The former, although incredibly ill-timed, and incredibly stupid, was legal. It was the subject of a finding of the President of the United States, and the CIA was directed to carry out whatever portion of those duties it had to carry out, as was DOD.
But during these hearings, people attempted to charge Bob Gates with knowledge of that, as if there was something improper about him having knowledge about the sale of arms. Of course, he had knowledge of that affair. He was in a position of importance at the CIA. Part of the time he was Director of Intelligence; and part of the time he was Deputy Director of the Central Intelligence Agency. He had great knowledge of that, and vehemently disagreed with the policy.
The second part of Iran-Contra which would be the smoking gun, concerns knowledge of the diversion of funds to the Contras. I was glad to hear the majority leader say that he did not draw a definite conclusion from the evidence that we had, nor was he in fact attempting to have a guilt-by-association factor. I know the majority leader to mean what he said. That is a fair conclusion.
But others have indicated that, because he was informed about the diversion on the first of October 1986, roughly 47 days, I
believe, before it became public to the world, that somehow this brought Mr. Gates into the clan, if you will, of the Contra part of the Iran-Contra affair.
That is ludicrous. What did Bob Gates do at the time? I think he did what most deputies would do. He told Mr. Allen to prepare some information. By Allen's own testimony, he delayed that 7 or 8 days. When it was completed, he said: `We will take it to Director Casey, and then we will take it to the General Counsel.' What else was he supposed to do? Some suggested he should have gone to the President of the United States.
I have to say, Mr. President, that I do not know too many deputies of agencies in this city discovering information, short of treason, that would go to the President of the United States and say: Mr. President, I have something I want to tell you.
There may be a few, but that is not the real world. To accuse Bob Gates of not going to the President is grossly unfair. I want to leave these charges about Iran-Contra, what he knew and what he forgot and move on to other areas.
Incidentally, he was charged by some in our committee of not having perfect recollection of things that happens 5 years before, and in his previous testimony in 1987, events that were 18 months before. I defy any of my colleagues to do an experiment with me. Take your calendar not from 5 years ago or 18 months ago; I want you to take it from 2 weeks ago. Take one appointment on your calendar with someone of significance, and you tell me what happened in that meeting. I guarantee you from my own experience that when you go to the person who was there, one of you will leave something out or have a different interpretation of the meeting.
But our committees demand instant, perfect recollection from all witnesses. If you don't have it, you are either lying or you are holding back. It is not fair.
Let me talk briefly about this whole issue of politicization.
I thought the most remarkable part of those hearings was the closed session we had, I believe it was on a Wednesday evening, in which we heard the most damaging testimony from
one witness in particular. The other two witnesses were interesting, but I did not find their testimony particularly probative because in neither instance was it first hand. But as to this one witness, it was first-hand testimony.
We all became alarmed by that testimony. There was unanimity amongst Republicans and Democrats that this testimony was so important that we must make it public because it was not classified. The portion of it that was, classified we would get sanitized.
The following Monday or Tuesday--I forget the date--we had an open session. Remarkably the witness that had given the most damaging testimony against Mr. Gates in closed session, never expecting that testimony to see the light of day--and that is very, very important--this individual went before this committee in a closed session and no one had reason to believe that testimony ever would become public. And it did go public and guess what? The testimony changed. Some of the most serious charges were left out.
I will not detail all of it, but let me just give you one example. In respect to the witness, I will not use names. Senators, who will vote today, know who I am talking about. The witness made an accusation in the closed session that William Webster, one of the men with the greatest amount of integrity that I know in this city--a man who is unchallenged by anyone as to his integrity and the verity of what he says--did not trust Bob Gates and was having investigations done. The witness testified to Bob Gates' politicization of the agency, and that Judge Webster was working around Gates. He was insulating Gates from certain information. The witness made the flat-out statement that Judge Webster gave instructions that Gates was not to be told about an investigation on politicization.
I will tell you, Mr. President, when I heard that, as I sat at the hearings, my hair kind of stood up a little bit and I felt a little tingle. I said if that is true, this nominee has a big problem because Bill Webster knows something we do not know, we have to call him as a public witness. I called the former Director the next morning, and this was his first day in
private life, and said, `Bill, a witness has said `thus and so.' I have no idea, anything about it, but it is important that you respond to it. I am having delivered to you a transcript of that portion that was unclassified, a portion of that statement that he gave that relates to you. I do not care what you do, but please check it out, write back to me, and I will share it with the committee.' And he did.
And the bottom line was that there was not a shred of truth to what this witness had said.
I read it to the witness at that hearing, and asked him if he would like to correct the record, because Mr. Webster has now said that that is not true. And, by the way, the witness' statement was that it was based on hearsay; he did not know of that of his own knowledge. He refused to correct the record. He said, `I have my opinions,' to which I simply responded that he was entitled to his own opinions but not to his own facts.
I make that one point for this reason: There was something fundamentally wrong with some of the testimony that we listened to on such an important matter. It threatened the integrity, the basic honesty of this public servant. It was based on hearsay, based on innuendo, based on rumor. This was the panel that could have been the killer panel to the Gates' nomination. Had we not been fortunate enough to do some scrambling the next several days and found out that what many of the witnesses had said was just basically either not so, or subject to different interpretation or rebuttable, then we might not be on this floor today.
Bob Gates has made some mistakes in his life, mistakes of judgment, not mistakes out of malice, or being devious. He has made mistakes which all of us make in life, and I would call these, mistakes of nonfeasance. But one must remember with respect to William Casey, who is now deceased, Bob Gates was in fact his deputy during much of this period. There is no question in my mind that that had to be one of the most difficult assignments of any deputy to any Cabinet level officer in this town. Nonetheless, to charge Bob Gates with anything that Bill Casey may have done is grossly unfair.
Mr. President, there is a lot more I could say about the activities of some of the people within the agency both for and against Bob Gates.
First, I do not believe people who work in a Government agency ought to try to influence the outcome of a nominee who would be their boss. I think that is incorrect and I will talk about that at some other time.
Second, I want to say that there is no question in my mind that there is no one I know--other than Admiral Inman, who has not been nominated--who has the capacity to do what must be done at the CIA over the next several years. As the defense budget falls--and it will fall precipitously in my view--so will the CIA budget fall, particularly in the area of covert operations. We will need a careful reorganization by someone who understands it, who has spent a lifetime there and has the confidence of most of the people there. And I must say that in conversations I have had with many people, I believe Bob Gates has the confidence of the majority of people who work in the Agency.
More importantly he has the confidence of the President of the United States who feels that Bob Gates has told it to him as it is, not as Bob Gates would like it to be. He is a man with a distinguished career of public service who has served his country well.
Many of us know him and have worked with him. I also rely on the opinions of the chairman and on Senator Cohen, who was then the vice chairman. There was a refreshing new relationship they had with the CIA during the period that Bob Gates was the Acting Director.
Mr. President, I am pleased and proud to stand up for this man who I think has been unfairly and unjustly accused, and I will vote to confirm Robert Gates to be the new Director of Central Intelligence.
I thank the Chair.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Who yields time?
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Mr. BRADLEY. Mr. President, how much time remains?
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from New Jersey controls 1 hour and 18 minutes.
Mr. BRADLEY. I yield 5 minutes to the distinguished Senator from Washington.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Washington, Mr. Adams, is recognized for up to 5 minutes.
Mr. ADAMS. I thank the Senator from New Jersey.
Mr. President, I rise today in opposition to the confirmation of Robert Gates to be Director of Central Intelligence.
I have reviewed the testimony before the Senate Intelligence Committee. I have reviewed the record of the Iran-Contra hearings, and in particular I have reviewed the findings of Senator Kerry's 1988 subcommittee investigation into drug trafficking, law enforcement, and U.S. foreign policy, a committee in which I took part and an investigation in which I was deeply involved.
Even after the Iran-Contra investigation and the lengthy confirmation hearings, there still is a lot we do not know about Mr. Gates. And I am troubled at what I have learned during the course of the hearings, that Senator Kerry and I and others were conducting on drug trafficking in Central America, and the involvement and the lack of information that moved on what the CIA knew and was doing and was not prevented during the tenure of Mr. Gates.
The extensive record that we have here raises some serious questions which have been gone into in great length by others on this floor, but I wish to mention them once again to indicate the concern that I have and why I oppose Mr. Gates.
Questions about Robert Gates' knowledge of Oliver North's secret supply network to funnel Iranian arms sale profits to the Contras. Questions about why Mr. Gates now admits that he should have examined more closely the privatization of U.S. covert activity. Questions about his judgment regarding Soviet military power. Questions about his ability to recognize the new, emerging threats to U.S. security. Questions about the spin he sought to impose on intelligence analyses.
I am especially troubled by Mr. Gates' apparent forgetfulness during his testimony because of the evident depth of his memory in other areas. He is obviously an extremely bright and meticulous man. Retired CIA analyst Harold Ford has testified that he knew Gates to have an almost photographic memory. Yet, Mr. Gates testified that it is not unreasonable for someone to forget events that were not written down. That seems entirely too convenient to me. Or, as Mr. Ford terms it, too clever.
It appears Mr. Gates' cleverness led him to slant intelligence information in order to conform to the particular policy agendas of his boss and mentor, William Casey.
I have heard stated on the floor today, as I was listening to this debate, that he believed the same thing about the Soviet Union. Well, if this was the point that was trying to be made, that he was the same as Mr. Casey, and they therefore, gave us a false impression of the Soviet Union and its power, then it is just another reason that he should not be leading the Central Intelligence Agency during this period of change.
Because such actions are a direct threat to U.S. national security. They place in danger the lives of millions of American men and women who serve our country in the military, foreign service, and other official capacities overseas.
The Senate Intelligence Committee chose to investigate four instances of such alleged slanting. These are a 1985 intelligence estimate maintaining that the Soviet Union was gaining influence in Iran; a 1985 memorandum arguing that the Soviets were behind the attempted assassination of the Pope in 1981; a 1986 speech by Mr. Gates which advanced the case for the strategic defense initiative; and a series of Inspector General reports exploring charges of politicization in the Agency's Soviet division.
The hearing record in all four areas--and those four areas are by no means inclusive--points to a dangerous melding of intelligence and policymaking under Robert Gates' watch.
In the Iran memo, Mr. Gates squelched the differing views espoused by the State Department in order to reverse United States policy and send arms to so-called Iranian moderates.
Gates himself now admits the memo about Soviet complicity in the attack on the Pope was based on flimsy evidence. Yet, Mr. Gates' cover memo forwarding it to the President stated that the intelligence review had been comprehensive. In fact, an internal review denounced the report as being skewed some months after Gates sent it to the President. It did, however, support William Casey's theory that the Soviet Union was the cause of most United States foreign policy conflicts--and that seemed to be enough for Mr. Gates.
Mr. Gates also now admits that public speeches by the Director of Intelligence or other senior intelligence officials--such as the one he made supporting the need for SDI--are probably unwise because they give the impression of advocating specific policies. He has vowed not to make any speeches if confirmed. I hope this is true.
The charges of politicization, intimidation, and demoralization among analysts--particularly in the Soviet field--are compelling. After all, even Mr. Gates has expressed worries about politicization. I believe the testimony heard by the committee and the comments by Gates himself give credence to the accusation.
Although charges of politicization are difficult to prove, intimidation and demoralization are not, and they can lead to the same ends: Skewed intelligence assessments. The ideological climate that Casey and Gates created led analysts to change their assessments before they were even submitted. Knowing what was expected of them and afraid to challenge their superiors, analysts changed their reports to conform to the team position.
This activity is the most threatening to U.S. national security. Robert Gates was in large part responsible, in his capacity as Deputy Director of Central Intelligence and head of the Agency's Intelligence Analysis Division. A man with such a record would hardly seem to be an appropriate choice to lead the CIA. This is particularly true in view of the dramatic reforms that must soon be undertaken in our intelligence system.
I am concerned that an intelligence community led by Robert Gates might miss the new threats that are challenging our security. The early identification and analysis of these threats and the reorganization of our intelligence agencies to counter them will be the primary challenge of post-cold-war intelligence.
Mr. Gates' record in this area is not impressive. One of the most important emerging threats to our security and, indeed, to the security of our hemisphere is the growth of drug trafficking and the accompanying spread of narco-terrorism. Yet, the Kerry subcommittee investigation discovered that during William Casey's tenure--when Robert Gates was a senior intelligence officer and even Casey's executive assistant--U.S. intelligence systematically turned to blind eye to drug trafficking being carried out through the CIA covert supply networks and by those on the CIA payroll. The administration's overriding and exaggerated concern over the potential spread of communism in Central America led U.S. intelligence, in turn, to downplay other threats to our security from the region.
A similar charge can be made about the portrayal of the Soviet threat under Gates' watch. In 1983, when Gates was Deputy Director for Intelligence, he testified before a congressional panel that CIA analysts had overestimated Soviet military spending. According to Raymond Garthoff, a friend of Gates', Gates told him that he had presented his analysis without checking with his superiors. Yet, this was precisely the time when the Reagan administration was hyping the Soviet threat. And when Gates became Deputy Director of Central Intelligence, he gave great emphasis to Soviet space capabilities, while downplaying intelligence that ran counter to that assertion.
Robert Gates is not the right candidate for the vital reform of U.S. intelligence agencies that will be required in the coming years. The entire focus and mission of U.S. intelligence has shifted. No one has yet articulated what that shift will mean in terms of the operational and philosophical role of the CIA. That job waits for the new Director of Intelligence. It is a task of enormous significance and importance for our country.
Robert Gates is a Casey man. He represents the traditional intelligence mentality, forged in the cold war climate of the postwar period. He is a conservative ideologically and he is a conservative professionally--the consummate good bureaucrat.
Robert Gates has testified that, when he began to have serious concerns about the manner in which the Agency was approaching the Soviet Union--when he began to question whether in fact the Agency might be missing major political and economic developments within that country--he wrote a memo. However, he went no further in pressing his views because he was fearful he might step on someone else's toes.
President Bush has placed great emphasis on the fact that Robert Gates is a career intelligence analyst. He apparently believes this is sufficient to qualify him to lead the CIA into the post-cold-war era. On the contrary, Mr. Gates is too closely associated with the mistakes and the politics of the past. What is more, I am concerned that, just as he slanted intelligence estimates to meet Casey's policy standards, he is now saying what he thinks the Senate wants to hear. U.S. security and intelligence deserve a strong, new voice. A voice that can both assess accurately the incredible changes that are sweeping the globe and fashion an intelligence system that will serve adequately U.S. interests in this post-Communist age.
For those reasons, I will vote against the confirmation of Robert Gates to be Director of Central Intelligence.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Ms. Mikulski). Who yields time?
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Mr. SIMPSON. Madam President, I yield myself 10 minutes from the proponents.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered. The Senator may proceed.
Mr. SIMPSON. I thank the Presiding Officer.
Madam President, I wish to speak in support of the nomination of Robert Gates to be the Director of the Central Intelligence Agency.
President Bush has nominated Robert Gates because he believes deeply in his abilities to lead the CIA. The confirmation hearings conducted by the Intelligence Committee have dealt effectively with every single issue raised by his opponents.
And I want to acknowledge the chairman and the ranking member of the committee. They have done a superb job, in a very fine bipartisan way, to present this issue before the Senate. I commend Senator Boren, Senator Murkowski, and the members of the committee in doing that in a very able way.
In the final analysis, the hearings have proven that Robert Gates is a sound, sensible, reasonable, and competent nominee.
Over the past 2 years, the world has been rapidly changing. We need someone like Robert Gates at the helm of the CIA in order that the intelligence community can adapt swiftly to those changing circumstances.
It has been my personal privilege to come to know Robert Gates. I met him many years ago. He and his very lovely wife, Rebecca, and mutual friends joined us together in several social activities and I came to know the essence of the man.
He is a delightful gentleman, a man who listens, a man who will share with us the information, all of the information he can, as he takes on this role of critical importance. And he does it all with great good grace and humility and a very delightful sense of humor, a twinkle in the eye, if you may refer to it.
I particularly recall an evening when he was telling me about the fact that he was telling a neighbor, whom he was speaking with--his wife was working in the District of Columbia schools and he had a cover in the Agency, of the CIA, and his cover was that he was in the Naval Munitions Operation. He went to a reception where his wife was teaching at one of the district schools in Washington, and a fellow in the course of the evening said, `Well, what do you do?'
Bob Gates said, `I work for the Naval Munitions Operation.'
The fellow said, `Well, so do I. Isn't that something?'
Then the fellow said, `What is your office number?'
`Well,' he said, `my office is 242 in Building A-H.'
The fellow then said, `Well, for heaven's sakes, they tore that wing down.'
Then Bob was quite nonplussed and he said, `Well, I really don't get to the office too often.'
So anyone with that view of his cover and the world perhaps can bring a dimension.
The Soviet Union is obviously no longer the military threat that it was. However, the Soviets continue to step up their efforts with regard to industrial espionage and the gathering of technical secrets.
That is disturbing to many of us as we wish them well as they go about their reconstruction and rehabilitation and renewal.
We also need good intelligence regarding rapidly changing events in the Soviet Union. The political situation is evolving rapidly and there is a great deal of instability with regard to the relationship, obviously, between the central government and the Republics. Robert Gates is just the man that can pull together the accurate and firm information we need about the Soviet Union.
We also need good intelligence about China. China continues to disappoint us--to sell arms to radical Third World governments. We need to know if the Chinese are passing on secrets about nuclear weapons programs and we need to know what is happening in China. Here again Robert Gates will be a very credible leader in providing intelligence about these events.
Some of Mr. Gates critics have tried to indicate that he was involved in the Iran-Contra affair. We now know that he was not deeply involved in helping to conceal that diversion. Mr. Gates admits that he should have taken more aggressive action in investigating this matter, but he has always fully cooperated with Congress with regard to all affairs relating to the intelligence community.
Some of his critics have insisted that he politicized intelligence reports and only reported what the President wanted to hear. I believe what really occurred was a simple difference in opinion on the part of CIA analysts and Mr. Gates. The confirmation hearing process made it clear that what was involved were personalities, philosophies, and individual biases. Not the slanting of intelligence.
Other critics of Gates have tried to indicate that he was involved in preparing false testimony before Congress for Bill Casey, the former Director. However, the facts clearly indicate that Robert Gates has not engaged in misleading Congress by preparing misleading or false testimony.
It is so very important that any CIA Director be independent and objective and that he have a good grasp of the technical minutiae involved in intelligence reports. I believe Robert Gates has all of these remarkable attributes and would be an outstanding CIA Director.
President Bush has previously directed the CIA and, indeed, did a marvelous job of that in another role in Government. He fully understands the intelligence-gathering process. And he fully understands the necessity for this Director to fully communicate with the Congress.
So I think the President's selection of Robert Gates to be the new CIA Director is based upon a good understanding of what is expected of this man by those of us in Congress, those on the Intelligence Committee, those within this Nation and internationally. For all of these reasons and many, many more, I believe we should certainly support this nomination. And I am very certain that we will not be disappointed.
The PRESIDENT OFFICER. Who yields time?
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Mr. BRADLEY. I yield 15 minutes to the distinguished Senator from Georgia.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Georgia.
Mr. FOWLER. I thank the Senator from New Jersey and my colleagues.
Madam President, I rise in opposition to the nomination of Mr. Robert Gates as CIA Director. I was a charter member of the Intelligence Committee in the House of Representatives and served for 8 years in that capacity, most of which time I was the chairman of the Subcommittee on Oversight. And based on that experience, I absolutely believe that a strong and effective intelligence community is essential to our national security.
In fact, a first-rate, or crack intelligence corps is our first and most effective line of defense, in my opinion. All the missiles and military capability in the world do not do us a bit of good if we are not prepared for the specific threats that we face. What good is a 600-ship Navy if we cannot get the right ship to the right place at the right time? How can we make the right decisions about fighting terrorism or combating nuclear weapon proliferation without timely and accurate intelligence information?
During my years in the Congress in both bodies, I have voted for the highest feasible funding of our intelligence operations, simply because they are so crucial to our country. And two of my most treasured awards--though undeserved, I might add--are from my years serving and working with the Intelligence Committee, those awards received from the Central Intelligence Agency, and the National Security Agency.
Thus, it is with some degree of reluctance that I rise to oppose the nomination of Mr. Gates to be the Director of Central Intelligence. But it is precisely because of the importance I attach to our intelligence operations that I oppose his nomination. The reason, in short, is my belief that he is the wrong man to lead our intelligence community at the present time.
It seems to me, at a time when the world is rapidly changing, requiring creativity and the challenging of previous assumptions, we need a Director of Central Intelligence who will foster and support such a creative approach within our intelligence agencies. In such a time, loyalty to the truth is far more important than loyalty to the President.
The Iran-Contra hearings exposed the worst that can happen when our intelligence system is compromised by political shenanigans. The agencies charged with gathering intelligence cannot and should not create policy. The President and the Congress share the responsibility for the foreign policy of the United States. And we must not allow the intelligence community to serve as agents of collection or of corroboration of the policies of any administration. Again, loyalty to the truth is more important than loyalty to the President, any and all Presidents.
I hope we never again have to sit and listen, as we did during the Iran-Contra hearings, to an intelligence official totally misrepresenting the strategic facts of the Iran-Iraq war in order to excuse a policy of arms sales to Iran for which there was no justification.
Though this was done in full support of the official administration position, the results were tragic, as we have seen, for everyone.
When our intelligence is compromised in this fashion, we not only fool ourselves, we hurt ourselves. We also hurt our allies who depend on us. And most important, we compromise our own decisionmaking process, cheating the American public in the process.
Intelligence reports skewed to the predispositions of our political leaders can serve to advance careers and build up loyalty from those leaders. And sometimes a proverbial `kick in the pants' of any bureaucracy, including that of the intelligence community, in the form of a challenge to conventional wisdom, seems to me to be a good thing.
But developing a climate where the conclusions come first and the evidence is then collected to support those conclusions is assuredly not a good thing; it is indeed a dangerous thing when the stakes involve the fate of nations.
Such a climate leads to tilting to Iraq or then to Iran in a war that should have had no favorites from an American perspective. It leads to overestimating the strength of both the Nicaraguan Sandinistas well as their Contra opponents and underestimating the threat from terrorists in Beirut and from Saddam Hussein.
By and large, thankfully, our country's overall intelligence capabilities are impressive. We do have a dedicated, professional, and competent intelligence community. Our technological sophistication is unmatched and, on the whole, our human intelligence network is adequate. We do have analysts who are capable of great insight.
But we also have experienced, in recent times, several significant intelligence failures spoken to in great detail and with great authority by the Senator from New York [Mr. Moynihan], and the Senator from New Jersey [Mr. Bradley], as well as a general decline in morale among our intelligence personnel. When one adds to this the unprecedented challenge to American intelligence posed by the dramatic and rapid change in the world order, it is clearly a time when the American intelligence community needs the very best leadership possible.
I served on the Intelligence Committee, as I mentioned before, Madam President, during the months that Mr. Gates was Deputy Director of the CIA. I do not think it is overall helpful to try to cite chapter and verse my experience with the stress in that high capacity for many reasons, not the least of which most of what was done involves classified information. But I can tell you that after a review of my notes, my own recollections, and a review of the record made in the exhaustive hearings by the Senate Intelligence Committee under the capable leadership of Senator Boren, I simply do not find Mr. Gates' testimony credible in many regards.
The Robert Gates I remember prided himself on an extraordinary memory. The Robert Gates that I remember made us all believers in his extraordinary memory. To use only the examples listed by the majority leader earlier today where that memory now finds itself faulty is beyond this Senator's credulity.
I have the greatest confidence that our intelligence agencies will be able to rise to the challenge that now faces us in an extraordinarily changing world. We need a Director who is not part of the policy of the past, who is not challenged on his role in policies of the past, and who will provide the kind of leadership that is so desperately needed on behalf of our intelligence community and on behalf of our Nation.
I do not believe Mr. Gates is the man for that job. It is on that basis that I oppose the nomination. I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Who yields time?
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Mr. BRADLEY. Madam President, I yield 15 minutes to the distinguished Senator from Ohio.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Ohio may proceed for 15 minutes.
Mr. METZENBAUM. Madam President, yesterday I spoke to the deficiencies in the record of Robert Gates.
I believe that those deficiencies warrant the Senate's rejection of his nomination to be Director of Central Intelligence.
Near the end of that statement, I said that `The CIA needs a leader now who can take it from turmoil to triumph,' and that `I think Mr. Gates is the wrong person to whom to give that task.' Today, I want to discuss the CIA's turmoil and the path that U.S. intelligence must take if it is to meet the challenges of tomorrow.
The future is never fully predictable, and the recent past has been filled with surprising events. But some trends for the future of U.S. intelligence seem clear.
First, the end of the cold war brings a need for major revisions in intelligence priorities. Too many intelligence resources, both human and technical, are devoted to the Soviet military.
Second, the end of the cold war brings a need for greater adaptability in U.S. intelligence. For a generation and a half, the threat of nuclear war held countries back from the brink and fostered an ordered world with rigid alliances. Today, countries' alliances are based more on what each has done for the other lately. There will be more crises and more surprises in the future, and we must reorient U.S. intelligence to deal with them.
Third, U.S. intelligence must adjust to these changing times with lower budgets. Mr. Gates agreed with the committee that intelligence budget cuts are inevitable, whether he wants them or not.
For the next Director of Central Intelligence, then, the challenge will be to do more with less. In human terms, the challenge will be to take an institution that has grown and prospered with a clear mission in an ordered world, and reorient it to a new world disorder.
How shall this be done? And who shall do it? Basically, Madam President, there are two approaches one can take. One is a top-down approach, in which the leader lays down the law.
Robert Gates ruled in the top-down style as Deputy Director for Intelligence between 1982 and 1986. He berated his analysts for `analysis that was irrelevant or untimely or unfocused or all three;' He berated them for `closed-minded, smug, arrogant responses to legitimate questions and constructive criticism;' and he berated them for `flabby,
complacent thinking and questionable assumptions.'
I can hardly believe that a person who has used such language with respect to his subordinates can expect to bring the team together and mould that new operation. Those are not the kind of words a leader uses when he is trying to really bring about an esprit de corps.
But that is not Mr. Gates's only problem as a leader. Mr. Gates set himself up as the personal editor of all analyses that went to high-level policymakers and he rejected analyses as much on substantive grounds as on grounds relating to their rigor or their presentation. And no matter how you slice it, no matter who the individual is, you cannot have a one-man team heading up the CIA.
Not only did Mr. Gates have problems as far as the work of his analysts was concerned, he also had a role in easing out several mid-level managers who opposed his views. He placed like-minded analysts in managerial positions within the intelligence directorate. And when existing institutions could not do all that he wanted, he supported the creation of new ones--new offices within the intelligence directorate, new managerial levels within existing offices, and new centers to focus on topics of particular concern.
Mr. Gates's impact has been mixed. Many current or former analysts have told the Intelligence Committee that is efforts led to self--censorship and intelligence failures. Internal CIA investigations cited his multilayered analytic bureaucracy for imposing much of that self-censorship, whether Mr. Gates intended it or not. And new centers, even if they do good work, can conflict with missions performed by regular analytic and operational offices.
Centralized top-down leadership produces as many problems as it solves. We may beat swords into plowshares, but people are flesh and blood and emotion, not iron or steel. Beat them into submission and they will only become sullen and fearful, neither enlightened nor enlivened.
Yet, Madam President, there is another way and we may call it humane management. By this I mean leadership whose goal is to bring people together rather than to kick them along. This approach to management is especially useful when people must be retrained or reoriented to handle new challenges, as they must today.
Change is never easy. Our intelligence officers grew up, were educated, and began their careers in the cold war. For them, as for many of us, the new world disorder will be profoundly unsettling and confusing. They will suffer crises of confidence as they learn new skills and apply themselves to new subjects.
In the new world disorder, U.S. intelligence needs leadership, not authoritarianism. We need a new intelligence system based on a corps of self-confident officers with the flexibility to adjust to changing conditions. They must handle new topics and bring more substantive expertise to their work. They must get out of the diplomatic cocktail parties and into the real world.
We must liberate intelligence analysts from multilayered bureaucracy that stifles their creativity. They need a much more flexible work environment. they need cross-training, so they can move readily from routine assignments to special ones in a crisis. They need broader competence and broader responsibilities. Frankly, we can cut the layers of bureaucracy, reduce the number of analysts and get better analysis for less money, if the CIA has the right leader.
Can we do that with Mr. Gates' management style? He
cited his tutelage under Judge Webster, who emphasized allowing those affected by change to help design the new approaches. That was a side to Mr. Gates which I was pleased to observe.
But when we asked Mr. Gates about his past actions as a manager of intelligence analysis, he reverted to his old form. He denied any errors in his past. He repeated his negative characterizations of dissenting analysts.
I do not doubt that Robert Gates will try to administer the CIA and the rest of the U.S. intelligence community in new ways. Can he do that? I do not know. But I am concerned that his old ways are too ingrained to be that readily changed.
I also believe that Mr. Gates has antagonized and frightened too many intelligence professionals to regain their trust and active support. And it is precisely in this time of wrenching change that people's confidence must be built up, rather than beaten down. We need a leader who can motivate his team to pull together.
If we look at great business successes, both in America and throughout the world, they were not obtained by orders from above. Those successes came through creating a supportive environment in which new ideas were encouraged and professionals were given the leeway to work on them, even though some of those ideas would fail.
What we need today is a leader for U.S. intelligence who will not just make the tough decisions, but also encourage other intelligence officers to pursue their ideas--rigorously and subject to peer review, but also with the sale-confidence that comes from knowing their boss will stick with them.
I ask my colleagues to think hard about what sort of intelligence community they want in the coming years, and I ask them to consider not just Mr. Gates's experience, but the character of that experience. Will that experience lead to creative leadership, or will it be baggage that weighs him down as he strives to refocus U.S. intelligence?
I am intelligent enough to know that Mr. Gates is going to be confirmed this afternoon. He will be confirmed by a rather substantial margin. I wish him well in his new responsibilities. But I hope that he will take stock of some of the problems he has had in the past. He is intelligent enough to understand himself and his past role at the CIA. I hope he will become the kind of leader that will make all of us proud to have him at the head of the CIA. I wish him well. I sincerely hope he succeeds.
My vote will be not to confirm him; but notwithstanding that, I know he will be confirmed. And I am hopeful he will become the great CIA leader that I know everyone in this body, whether they vote for him or not, wishes him to be.
Mr. President, I yield the floor.
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Mr. BOREN addressed the Chair.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Who yields time?
Mr. BOREN Madam President, I yield 8 minutes to the distinguished vice chairman Senator Murkowski.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Alaska.
Mr. MURKOWSKI. I thank the Senator.
Madam President, I think it is interesting to reflect, as we wind up the debate on the Gates nomination, that we have within the Intelligence Committee a 15-man committee made up of 7 members of the minority and 8 members of the majority. It is also interesting to note, Madam President, that the vote out of the committee was a resounding 11 to 4. That was made up specifically of seven Republicans and four Democrats.
A particular note of gratitude must be passed to the chairman, Senator Boren. I have enjoyed working with him throughout the year, and I think all Members have indicated in their recitations that the hearings have been fair, the hearings have been bipartisan, the hearings have been comprehensive, enlightening and, I might add, somewhat exhausting.
I commend Senator Boren for his leadership and his vision. I commend the professional staff, which has worked so hard on both sides, for their diligence and thoroughness.
Madam President, my closing statement is going to be brief. We have heard some claims that Mr. Gates should not be confirmed because he imposed his personal views on the CIA and then he represented them as the views of the institution and its analysts.
As former Deputy Director John McMahon told the committee, if Mr. Gates or anyone else actually tried to impose his personal views over the objections of most analysts. There would be a revolt among the analysts, who are indeed a strong-minded group who are not going to be trampled on by Mr. Gates or for that matter, anyone else. I believe we diminish the independence and the intellectual integrity of this group of professionals if we argue otherwise.
Other have said that we should not confirm Robert Gates because the CIA was wrong about the Soviet Union, and that Mr. Gates was somehow to blame. In fact, the record shows that Robert Gates and others at the CIA, as early as 1981, outlined the inherent instability and potential implosion of the Soviet economy.
Others claim that Mr. Gates should not be confirmed because he is somehow a symbo