My wife arrived from Russia in 1987 after much hassle. She had a high position over there. After her arrival she was approached by our wonderful organs. The FBI people were mild-mannered and polite and left her alone after one visit. The CIA people repeatedly attempted to get info out of her about her former colleagues and became obnoxious and abusive in doing so, threatening to have her deported and all sorts of other nasty stuff (she was totally legal here, but had been arrested and tortured in Russia). One of these creeps, a real sleazebag, kept showing up at her office and making threats. I had to threaten this jerk myself to make him go away once and for all.
I have heard similar tales out of other Soviet immigrants, with at least one person who was a famous defector (Alexandra Costa, she wrote a book about it) brought out by the FBI actually almost redefecting because of harsh treatment by the idiotic creeps at the CIA. When Vitaly Yurchenko famously redefected to the USSR out of the Pieds de Cochon restaurant in Georgetown, Ms. Costa went on Nightline in a blonde wig and denounced the CIA and said that they had mistreated her and and also Yurchenko whom she knew and that that was why he had redefected, although nobody in the US really knows the truth on that one, which remains a bizarre mystery to this day.
I gather that the analysis sections of the CIA are where one finds the more liberal elements and that it is the operations side, especially associated with certain territorial zones, where the more obnoxiously right wing elements reside. The greater liberalness of the analytical side can be seen in the current dispute between the CIA and the DIA over North Korean compliance with its agreement with the US, an agreement the US has not complied with, especially regarding lifting economic sanctions.
That there are turf wars among the intelligence agencies is hardly news. They have been at it for years and there have long been perceptions about relative degrees of fire-breathing anti-communism among them. An old joke from the early 1980s that made the rounds in Washington had heads of intelligence agencies testifying before Congress. The CIA director intones, "the Russians are coming!" He is followed by the DIA director who declares, "the Russians are coming tomorrow!!" And the Air Force Intelligence Chief testifies that, "the Russians arrived yesterday!!!" Barkley Rosser On Tue, 24 Nov 1998 12:47:06 PST James Baird <jlbaird3 at hotmail.com> wrote:
>
> > Actually, based on some unpleasant personal
> >experiences of a few years ago, I would say that if
> >anything the CIA is now more right wing than the FBI. The
>
> Not to drege up any unpleasantness, but what happened?
>
> Jim Baird
>
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-- Rosser Jr, John Barkley rosserjb at jmu.edu