| CNN's Very Secret Agent: CIA Says Man's Story Is Phony
By Howard Kurtz Washington Post Staff Writer Thursday, April 26, 2001; Page C01 On Monday, CNN ballyhooed an interview with a "former CIA narcotics officer" -- a guest the network liked so much he was brought back hours later to appear on Greta Van Susteren's talk show. Yesterday, the CIA said that Kenneth Bucchi is an impostor. CNN anchor Joie Chen read a statement to that effect on the air, but the network did not retract the story or apologize. CNN isn't the only network to face embarrassment by Bucchi; Fox News Channel's Bill O'Reilly interviewed him in January. Bucchi "never worked for the CIA in any capacity, as an employee or a contractor," Bill Harlow, the agency's director of public relations, told The Washington Post. He called Bucchi's claims on CNN that he had been involved with Colombian drug smugglers "utter nonsense" and "complete fiction." Reached yesterday in Los Angeles, where he works as a city personnel officer, Bucchi said he could not prove he worked with the CIA. "I certainly don't know how I can do that," he said. "I don't really give a [expletive] if people think I was in the CIA." In a rambling interview, Bucchi also acknowledged that he was discharged from the Air Force a decade ago after being labeled as delusional. "How do you prove you're not delusional?" he asked. In a statement, CNN said Bucchi was given airtime because of his book, "Operation Pseudo Miranda: A Veteran of the CIA Drug Wars Tells All." Despite several television and radio appearances since the book was first published in 1994, "at no time did the Central Intelligence Agency or any other governmental entity raise publicly a concern with either Mr. Bucchi's employment history or the issues he raises in his book. Based on all of these factors, as well as two pre-interview discussions with him, our Guest Bookings department made the judgment that the experience he claimed with counter-narcotic activities would be useful in a discussion of the recent Peruvian military shootdown of a civilian aircraft. . . . "We have taken the appropriate opportunity to inform our viewers of the CIA's perspective as well as Mr. Bucchi's rebuttal," the statement said. Fox Executive Producer Bill Shine said his network tried to verify Bucchi's claims by phoning the CIA and the State Department -- Bucchi had brought some State documents suggesting that he worked there -- but that neither agency called back. He noted that O'Reilly told viewers that he could not vouch for Bucchi's story. "I wish we had done more checking before we put him on," Shine said. Penmarin Books, a small California publisher, recently issued 5,000 copies of Bucchi's book. Penmarin also published a 1999 book in which Bucchi described his life as a "corporate spy." "We stand behind it," Penmarin President Hal Lockwood said of Bucchi's CIA book. "Before publishing it, we checked out his story." But, he said, "the particulars, nobody can substantiate. The CIA does not leave a paper trail, and plausible deniability is always the rule." The book was praised by director Oliver Stone as "one of the three best non-fictions I've ever read," according to a Penmarin release. On Van Susteren's "The Point" program, Bucchi said, "We basically had a complicit operation -- a quid pro quo, if you will -- with the drug lords of Colombia and essentially, what we did is we put the lion's share of the market in small cash [in] drug lords' hands, and we set up corridors with ILS systems for those drugs to [be] flown in, and then we took half of them." Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Calif.) said a moment later: "Ken, I want to thank you for being the clearest voice that I have ever heard coming out of the CIA or any of the related agencies about what is going on in this drug war. Thank you, thank you, thank you!" Van Susteren said last night: "I have a secret agency of the government telling me one thing and a citizen telling me another. I've seen and heard falsehoods from both before. Both the positions are aired on CNN." Bucchi said yesterday that he had been framed by the Air Force during his discharge, and that his superiors had allowed him to work with the CIA in watching drugs surrendered in Colombia be put on helicopters at what he called a "CIA airstrip" in Texas. He said he was never paid by the CIA. Bucchi faxed a 1991 Justice Department letter turning down his Freedom of Information request for records involving him. The letter said the records were "compiled for law enforcement purposes" and that their release "could reasonably be expected to interfere with enforcement proceedings." Howard Kurtz appears on CNN's weekly media program. |
