"Do You Want Any More Secret Documents Put in the Safe, Mr. Ambassador?" "No, Ivan, That's All for Tonight."
Witt, Priscilla
"Do YOU WANT ANY MORE SECRET DOCUMENTS PUT IN THE SAFE, MR. AMBASSADOR?" "NO, IVAN, THAT'S ALL FOR TONIGHT." by Priscilla Witt It's tough to prevent espionage when most of the people...
...Easily disarming the warning system, the men entered the section of the embassy where political and intelligence activities are carried out...
...But everywhere else non-U.S...
...they are the institutional memory of the place...
...In 1985, for instance, a congressional study of security at the U.S...
...According to Moorehead Kennedy, former hostage and number two man at the Iranian embassy, a keen FSN/spy in the payroll office can notice that, month after month, the salary of a certain FSO doesn't include the standard insurance deduction, a dead giveaway the officer is with the CIA...
...More often than genuine disinformation, this diplomatic handicap results in benign, but equally harmful, forms of misinformation...
...by Priscilla Witt It's tough to prevent espionage when most of the people working in our embassies are foreigners 1 t was the oldest trick in the book...
...Much to Sir Hughe's—and the Allies'—relief, the Germans felt Bazna's information was too good to be true...
...In fact, the only reason the Germans weren't waiting for the Allies on the beaches of Normandy was that they couldn't confirm Bazna's information through another source...
...diplomatic compounds, but because it "saves" money by hiring locals, it simply opens the newly fortified gates to a Trojan horse full of potential snoops...
...They're also pretty good at cooking and cleaning...
...So attached have our diplomats become to this foreign office featherbedding that, while the State Department insists on spending $4.4 billion to reinforce the perimeters of our embassies, very little is being done to guard against the swallows inside...
...Throughout 1943, Bazna, whose talents included being a skilled locksmith, removed and photographed key Allied documents Sir Hughe kept in his private safe...
...Worse, there are many new gates set to open...
...Like more than 260 other Soviets, she was a paid employee of the U.S...
...An American equivalent, including transportation, housing, and training, would cost at least five times as much...
...The Japanese, for example, employ an average of one foreign national per Japanese diplomat— less than half the American ratio—while West Germany gets by with only one for every three Germans...
...But in the commotion of office life such segregation is hard to accomplish...
...A key figure in the Allied operation was the British ambassador to Turkey, Sir Hughe KnatchbullHugesson...
...government...
...In one of the worst breaches of security in recent history, Lonetree gave KGB agents extremely damaging intelligence, including names and photos of U.S...
...The vast building program now underway on American compounds includes creating separate work areas for intelligence and FSN-related functions...
...diplomats don't already know...
...During the war years, the neutrality of Turkey made it a hothouse of espionage and secrecy...
...Retiring ambassador to the U.S.S.R., Arthur Hartman, once joked that knowing his chauffeur was a KGB agent made it easy to send messages to the Kremlin...
...agents and floor plans of the most sensitive parts of the embassy...
...writer...
...was abducted from his car, which had inexplicably crossed the border into Moslem West Beirut, and shot...
...But the team cracked the building's defense using information and assistance that could have been provided by FSN accomplices...
...State Department officials point out that in some countries where unemployment, underemployment, and inflation are high—such as Egypt and Israel—the U.S...
...Moreover, we had to assume that our local staff was under pressure to report to the revolutionary authorities...
...Among the recently expelled foreign nationals at the Moscow embassy, for example, were baby sitters and ballet teachers...
...Yet other countries seem to get along fine with a lot fewer than we do...
...Under this system, officers are transferred every two or four years, often to completely different parts of the world...
...In the heat of plot and counterplot, the Allies nearly blew the cover off the secret D-Day invasion at Normandy...
...The incident was not reported in any newspapers or State Department cables because the "commandos" were neither terrorists bent on planting bombs nor enemy intelligence agents stealing secrets and placing bugs...
...A consultant to the team, experienced in crisis management, says, referring to the presence of FSNs, "It was like locking the front door and leaving the back door open...
...While he provided the diplomats with endless amusements, the maids rummaged through their rooms in search of interesting scraps, according to Mosettig...
...Diplomats argue they are worth the risk because locals are relatively cheap to employ, and can deal with local languages, customs, and bureaucracies more easily than Americans...
...Those drawbacks haven't moved the department to jettison its foreign workers, though...
...This difficulty had not occurred to the station chief" Low-level information can also be invaluable to terrorists...
...In Rwanda, for example, 15 to 20 Americans work out of a compound that employs 250 foreign nationals...
...embassy in Moscow turned up something no one expected: bugs inside typewriters in the building's most sensitive areas...
...Ambassador to Lebanon Francis Meloy Jr...
...The State Department insists its thousands of FSN clerks, secretaries, receptionists, and researchers are kept far away from sensitive files and memos...
...Higher officials concerned with such matters would have followed that up with a harsh reprimand...
...Which means, according to Andrew Steigman, assistant dean of the School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University, that FSNs "provide continuity for the embassy...
...Many of the telegrams and documents Bazna, whose code name was Cicero, gave the Nazis detailed Allied plans to mount a massive invasion through France...
...The classic modern example of local-agent espionage is the Cicero case of World War II...
...The State Department is spending $4.4 billion to keep spies and terrorists out of U.S...
...Fact is, FSNs make possible the cushy lifestyle that the foreign service officer corps has long enjoyed...
...Our Moscow embassy has not employed Soviet citizens since last fall's U.S.-Soviet tit-for-tat expulsion of diplomatic staff that began with the Walker family spying affair in 1985...
...Like any seasoned spook, he knew the key to obtaining diplomatic secrets was to infiltrate the housekeeper corps...
...embassies...
...If anything, the possibility that classified information might be pilfered by foreign nationals has increased as organizations like the Defense Department and the CIA have moved their intelligence-gathering operations from low-profile field offices to fancy suites inside U.S...
...These bugs would record and transmit whatever was typed...
...Foreign service nationals, it argues, are more cost-effective than American workers in similar jobs...
...By the time the diplomats checked into their hotels and palaces, the baron controlled all the maids and servants...
...Replacing the average FSN—whose salary is between $5,000 and $20,000—with an American, costs anywhere from $100,000 to $140,000...
...It's impossible to say how many of these attacks utilized information provided by agents inside embassies...
...That means more construction in the next few years than in two preceding centuries of American diplomacy...
...diplomats to forgo learning the language or customs of the country to which they are assigned...
...While the bricks and mortar go up, the department is spending millions of dollars on increasing its force of foreign workers, a large percentage of whom are being put to work as, you guessed it, security guards...
...They can get their shirts starched and at the same time keep an eye on the spies...
...diplomats hired thousands of native employees, many of whom, though skilled, were desperately willing to take even the most routine and tedious assignments...
...And of course, in all cultures it is simple wisdom to echo the opinions of a high American official, who has power over the employee...
...But many of the diplomats victimized by terrorists were attacked on routes that must have been known to FSNs in advance...
...The careers of FSOs depend largely on the cables each sends back to Washington...
...Most of the economics staff, I pointed out, were locally recruited Iranian citizens of long tenure and experience who would be quick to spot anyone without a credible economic/commercial portfolio...
...The Wild Bill Donovan of post-Napoleon Austria was Baron Hager, who built the largest secret service in Europe...
...embassy in London, for instance, 284 Americans somehow need 364 FSNs to help them deal with the exotic mysteries of British culture...
...As six kings, hundreds of nobles, and thousands more hangers-on flocked to the city to help create a post-Napoleonic Europe, thousands of Austrians put themselves at their government's disposal as collectors and purveyors of secrets...
...The ratio is especially high in the Third World, where diplomats have learned to endure their "hardship" assignments by surrounding themselves with enough natives to do everything from translate to towel them dry...
...America responded to the Cicero affair by opening itself up to more snooping...
...The department's Office of Foreign Buildings, which formerly averaged fewer than three new buildings a year, is now committed to between 30 and 40 a year...
...Since the mid-sixties, 70 American diplomats have been killed and hundreds injured in terrorist attacks...
...She only had to show up every day for work as a translator at the American embassy...
...Daniel Southerland, Beijing correspondent for The Washington Post, describes one such routine at the U.S...
...So, it turns out, was Eleysa Bazna, Sir Hughe's Turkish valet and guard, who doubled as a German spy...
...diplomatic compounds...
...One problem with routines like these, of course, is that FSN spies, watching them carried out day after day, can figure out ways around them...
...Somewhat concerned," he writes, "I went to the CIA station chief to discuss what this newcomer's specific duties would be...
...Marine guards at the embassy are barred from letting women enter their quarters and discouraged from having close contacts with the Soviets...
...Bob West, director of State's Office of Foreign Service Nationals, echoes the opinion of the vast majority of FSOs: "Without foreign nationals in most places, we could just pack it in...
...Like all marines in his assignment, Lonetree, who confessed in January, had been warned about such female agents, called "swallows" in the trade...
...But that, according to diplomats, is the beauty of the system...
...After gauging the market, diplomats suddenly had lots of laundry to be picked up and meals to be catered...
...they have been in effect at the embassy in Moscow for years, for instance, but that didn't prevent Sergeant Lonetree's libido from luring him into spilling secrets...
...civilians working at our other embassies are 20,000 foreign nationals and Priscilla Witt is a Washington D.C...
...A female Soviet agent seduced and then recruited U.S...
...Diplomats adopt intricate precautionary measures to guard against spying...
...If anyone knows your route and your habits, it's your local ." Trojan horse of snoops While locals can be a source of intuitive, genuine information about a country, our extensive use of them encourages U.S...
...University-educated FSN's became especially useful...
...The customs surrounding these services are presumed to be beyond the ability of Americans to fathom...
...Most countries, the argument goes, have their own idiosyncratic systems for all the small but crucial transactions of life—mail delivery, telephone systems, car repair, shipping, internal travel—as well as for such amenities as making theater reservations or finding a good doctor or dentist...
...But such strict working arrangements are not flawless...
...Shortly before the embassy was taken over, a new CIA officer was added to the staff and assigned to the economics section...
...can hire an engineer or agronomist with a PhD for less than $20,000...
...The State Department's Inman Commission Report on Embassy Security, issued two years ago in the wake of the Beirut embassy bombing, recognized that foreign nationals pose a security threat: "[I]t is a well- and long-known fact that there are security-related drawbacks to employing FSNs...
...They were Americans, members of a crisis management team testing the embassy's security...
...Part of the motive behind this policy is sound: to combat clientitis, the dangerous tendency of foreign service officers The State Department is spending $4.4 billion to keep spies and terrorists out of U.S...
...Which, by and large, is what they got...
...Messages to the Kremlin On a quiet night not long ago, the American embassy in a small Third World country was the scene of an armed attack...
...Moreover, they required frequent battery changes, which pointed to someone who had repeated access to the typewriters...
...probably at least that many "contract hires" and personal servants...
...It may not have made Hollywood, but in terms of intrigue, it was Casablanca times two...
...Yet the result is that our diplomats are often embarrassingly unfamiliar with the language, history, and culture of the region to which they are assigned...
...Foreign nationals have also been suspected of taking more direct roles in terrorist incidents...
...embassy in Moscow from 1984 to 1986...
...But because it "saves" money by hiring locals, it opens the newly fortified gates to a Trojan horse full of potential snoops...
...About the assassination, an ex-FSO who was a friend of the ambassador's, says, "We always thought the driver had something to do with it...
...Using educated foreign nationals to do the grunt work—translating local government documents, chasing down this or that statistic—foreign service officers could impress the home office with ever more elaborate, if not more valuable, cables...
...When all other excuses fail, the foreign service establishment rationalizes its use of FSNs by hiding behind the bottom line...
...The baron's maids The art of snooping for state secrets had been well perfected by the Congress of Vienna in 1814...
...Over the years, the State Department has insisted that, when they're not helping diplomats impress their bosses or busy flicking feather dusters, foreign nationals serve a vital function...
...Yet it's not as if we limit our use of foreign nationals to the most desolate and difficult parts of the world...
...This is especially true in peaceful, out-of-the-way posts where routines are informal—but through which sensitive information passes that may be crucial to security in hotter spots of the world...
...But this swallow didn't have to hang out in some smoky Moscow clip joint for the chance to ensnare Lonetree...
...This is nothing most U.S...
...Britain and France have a similarly modest number of foreign nationals, and the Soviets and the Chinese manage with virtually no foreign workers at all...
...In his book, Ayatollah in the Cathedral, Kennedy relates one of those narrowly averted screwups that makes one wonder how often similar ones aren't caught...
...Another explanation for hiring foreign nationals is that they are necessary because of the "generalist" policy that governs foreign service postings...
...That historic gathering provided unparalleled opportunities for the host government of Prince Metternich and his monarch, Emperor Francis, to employ local agents in a massive espionage operation to which many successors aspired," says Michael Mosettig, who has written about Metternich...
...A small squad of commandos climbed the wall surrounding the building and, knowing the electronic guard system, made their way undetected to the building's roof...
...Particularly in communist and other authoritarian countries, it's almost a given that they're being spied on by their local workers...
...Foreign national spies are just another form of surveillance, like bugged walls and tapped phones, which westerners living in such countries learn to assume are always present...
...Flush with Marshall Plan funds, U.S...
...New precautions are being taken...
...An experienced diplomat and close friend of British Foreign Minister Anthony Eden, Sir Hughe was briefed on all major Allied decisions...
...citizens, or foreign service nationals (FSNs), outnumber Americans: alongside the 11,000 U.S...
...The strategy didn't work on the British though, who, ever careful, burned their trash and hired their own maids...
...Some logic...
...In 1976, for instance, U.S...
...embassy there: "The diplomat removed the ribbon from his typewriter, stepped over to his office safe and placed the ribbon inside for the night . . . . Had the diplomat forgotten to secure the ribbon for the night, an embassy guard would have been there later to tape a pink slip on his desk to remind him of his error...
...In many cultures, particularly in Asia and Africa, it is essential politeness to tell the listener what he or she wants to hear...
...to identify more closely with the client state's interests than with the United States...
...Having foreign nationals around, even in the most menial jobs in unrestricted areas can blow an agent's cover...
...At the U.S...
...Marine Sergeant Clayton J. Lonetree, a guard who served at the U.S...
...There, after a few moments, they located hatches, unlocked by someone in advance, and entered the top floor...
...FSNs often occupy posts as guards, clerks, researchers, translators, secretaries, drivers, handymen, and personal assistants to diplomats...
...Only one in ten foreign service officers stationed in Iran in 1978, for instance, was even minimally competent in Farsi, the country's principle language...
...There's no doubt that foreign nationals greatly help diplomats, especially in countries with bureaucracies like Russia's...
Vol. 19 • April 1987 • No. 3
