A Hero's Unwelcome

As he paced in his room in Washington's Hyatt Regency Hotel last Monday, Adnan Awad felt both exhilaration and melancholy. A long, unhappy chapter of his life was about to end, but it would not be sealed by the recognition Awad knew he had earned. For 10 years, the Palestinian businessman had helped U.S. officials to track down and prosecute Mohammed Rashid, a notorious Palestinian terrorist. In all that time, Awad felt, the U.S. had treated him shabbily. While he had been hailed by a Senate panel as "a hero for the American people," Washington had taken seven years to issue him a green card -- and still would not honor his request for citizenship and a passport. Moreover, payment of his reward money had been stalled after Rashid's murder conviction in 1992, then again a year later when the verdict was upheld. Now, finally, a check for $750,000 was going to be placed in his hands. But he had given up hoping for the presidential handshake he had been promised long ago.

At 1 p.m., the knock came. First, two FBI agents entered Awad's room, then two State Department officials. After some chatter and praise, Awad was handed his check. Then one of the officials picked up the telephone, dialed and handed Awad the receiver. At the other end was retired airline captain Ron Hawk, the pilot of a Pan Am passenger jet on which a bomb had exploded en route to Hawaii in August 1982, killing a teenage passenger. Hawk extended warm thanks to Awad for his role in convicting Rashid for that murder. All told, the event lasted 45 minutes. Admitted a U.S. official: "It was kind of the Motel 6 version of a ceremony."

Awad's send-off and his long-delayed payoff are an apt reflection of the insensitive treatment too often meted out to foreign informants. Officials involved in Awad's case warn that if the U.S. fails to devise a coordinated approach for fostering informants during the long years of a terrorist prosecution, the trickle of foreign informants will dry up. That would be a situation the U.S. could ill afford. Typically, terrorist groups comprise people bound by geography, political injury, even bloodlines. Since U.S. agencies find it almost impossible to penetrate such tight-knit networks, they must rely on defectors for the information they need to help pre-empt attacks and prosecute known terrorists.

The U.S. intelligence community is already struggling to regain its standing abroad. The February arrest of CIA officer Aldrich Ames was an enormous embarrassment. Last week Ames pled guilty to spying for Moscow since 1985 and agreed to help authorities assess the damage. In the case of Awad, damaging publicity about his mishandling threatens to impede overseas operations by giving the U.S. a reputation for running a bait-and-switch program. "We promise ((informants)) the moon in the beginning," says FBI special agent Frank Scafidi. "But when they come through for us, there's not much there. If the government doesn't hold up its end of the bargain, people are not going to come forward."