Did She Say Too Much?

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This much is known: On April 20, career CIA analyst Mary McCarthy was fired from her job 10 days before retirement. McCarthy admitted to having undisclosed contact with reporters, and a CIA spokesperson says, without identifying McCarthy, that the fired CIA officer also admitted disclosing classified information to the media. Sources said this includes the Washington Post's Dana Priest, who had just won a Pulitzer Prize for writing that the CIA secretly detained terrorists in Eastern Europe who hadn't been charged with a crime. Beyond that, the case gets murky. Government sources tell TIME that McCarthy might have helped inform the prisons story. Through her attorney, she denies the allegation and denies that she leaked classified information about the detention program or any other topic. Although much remains unresolved, the McCarthy case has sparked heated debate, not least among current and former members of the intelligence community. Should CIA officers be fired for talking to reporters? Is leaking ever justified? And who decides? TIME asked four retired career CIA officials to weigh in.

MILT BEARDEN

former CIA spy

MARY MCCARTHY HAS BECOME a metaphor for an existential drama enveloping the CIA. On the surface, the question is whether CIA employees may take it upon themselves to reveal CIA secrets to the media. The answer is no. There is, in the first quarter-inch of every CIA employee's personnel file, an ironclad secrecy agreement forbidding such. It is the law--and properly so. One can easily defend the need for unyielding discipline when it comes to guarding the nation's secrets. And one can point to legitimate internal channels for dissent. But all that may be irrelevant in today's charged atmosphere, in which the policies of the agency--alleged torture, slapstick renditions, secret detention centers, wrongful-death investigations--have divided the CIA population as sharply as they have the American people.

CIA employees are an astute lot. They know that "city hall" has a lock on policy and dissent. Thus today's issues of conscience and morality will inevitably lead to Washington newsrooms. It is equally inevitable that the CIA will take stern steps to stop the hemorrhaging. Hence the dilemma and the fear of the CIA and the Administration--not only that CIA employees may go public but also that some will be prepared to take the consequences. The American people will not be indifferent to the moral issues involved. Americans may view the legalities involved as irrelevant in the face of acts of defiance that force a broad and unwelcome challenge to the policies involved.

ROBERT BAER

former CIA spy

YOU CANNOT HAVE CIA employees deciding what should be classified and what shouldn't. That's the beginning of the end. Bob Baer can't be at the CIA and decide that the Clinton Administration is screwing up on whatever and then go to the press. He can go to the inspector general or to Congress.

But I'm of two minds.