Opinion | Spies, Lies, Averted Eyes (original) (raw)
Opinion|Spies, Lies, Averted Eyes
https://www.nytimes.com/1994/03/08/opinion/spies-lies-averted-eyes.html
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- March 8, 1994
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March 8, 1994
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The day after the arrest of the accused spy Aldrich H. Ames was announced, the Director of Central Intelligence, R. James Woolsey, met with several hundred C.I.A. employees in the agency's auditorium at Langley, Va. After recounting what employees already knew from the news media, Mr. Woolsey -- whose address was seen on closed-circuit television by every C.I.A. employee -- spent five minutes explaining why he himself had refused to take a polygraph test, as other recent directors had done. Besides the fact that political appointees are not required to take such tests, Mr. Woolsey said he remained "skeptical" about the polygraph's effectiveness.
The speech sickened many officers, according to one who watched. They point out privately that they, too, have questions about the efficacy of the polygraph but are required to take the test every five years or lose their jobs. That the Director would not take it, then would have the effrontery to defend his decision even after thedisclosure of the biggest security breach in the agency's history, tells a lot about the indifference that allowed the Ames case to happen.
But it also underscores how effectively the C.I.A. has covered up its own incompetence. For contrary to news reports and to the impression Mr. Woolsey conveyed, the polygraph was accurate in Mr. Ames's case. According to several people inside and outside the agency who are familiar with the results, he failed all three tests the C.I.A. gave him after he allegedly began spying in 1985. In each case the examiner found that he wasn't telling the truth when he denied giving out classified information.
When Mr. Ames failed the first test in 1986, the examiner who interrogated him prepared a report for his superiors -- who simply shelved it. In 1991, he again failed a lie detector test, was given a second one and failed again. But the C.I.A. polygrapher bought Mr. Ames's explanation -- that he was worried about his losing financial investments and that his concern had registered on the machine as a deceptive response.
"I don't think he is a spy, but he does have money problems," the examiner concluded in his report.
Thus the controversy about why Mr. Ames was able to beat polygraph tests has been built on a deception -- a deception fed by the C.I.A. After he became a suspect some 10 months ago as a result of a defector's tip, the agency specifically ordered that the damaging polygraph results not be shared with other agencies, according to a person familiar with the case. But a joint F.B.I.-C.I.A. team that was already working the case had seen the results. F.B.I. officials were accustomed to the C.I.A.'s blase attitude about internal security, but they were astounded that the results had been ignored. (An agency spokesman had no comment yesterday on the Ames polygraph results.)
There's no denying that questions have been raised about the accuracy of polygraphs. But in skilled hands, they are surprisingly reliable. A 1987 study reviewed 20,000 F.B.I. polygraph determinations since 1973, asking agents whether in retrospect the results had been correct; the study found that less than 1 percent had been wrong. While people can be trained to fool the polygraph with muscle control and other techniques, a good polygraph operator can often penetrate such stratagems. For instance, when subjects take drugs to calm themselves, they produce readings that appear flat. A urine sample can then be requested and analyzed for the presence of drugs.
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