<< [Lehman] said he
sees a lack of nimbleness and creativity at the CIA, and a tendency to
discourage dissenting points of view. A prime example, Lehman said, is the view
among intelligence agencies that the Iraqis had nothing to do with the 1993
World Trade Center bombing, the Sept. 11 attacks, and anthrax-tainted letters
that killed several people in the fall of 2001. Shortly after anthrax-tainted
letters arrived at several government buildings in Washington, the FBI concluded
it was probably the work of a domestic loner operating out of a basement. But
given the fact that there have been no arrests, Lehman said intelligence
agencies should not discount the idea that the Iraqis were involved.
>>
Philadelphia
Inquirer
Posted on Mon, Dec. 22,
2003
Ex-Navy secretary brings skepticism to Sept. 11 panel
By Chris Mondics
Inquirer Washington Bureau
WASHINGTON - For all his boyish enthusiasm, in evidence despite his 61 years, John Lehman has always been a skeptic at heart.
A member of one of Philadelphia's oldest families and an acolyte of former President Ronald Reagan, Lehman was named Navy secretary in 1981 at 38, one of the youngest in U.S. history. Like Reagan, Lehman believed the American military had become too passive. He wanted to shake things up and was skeptical of government bureaucracies, particularly intelligence-gathering agencies.
Time after time, Lehman said, he had seen the CIA get it wrong, misreading tactics of the Vietnamese army and the Viet Cong and failing to grasp the scope of the Soviet naval buildup. By the time Lehman left the Navy in 1987, he had presided over a huge buildup of U.S. naval forces and put in place a leadership team that endorsed Reagan's aim of pressuring the Soviet Union militarily.
Lehman has been out of the Navy for 16 years, but his jaundiced view of American intelligence-gathering burns as hotly as ever and has come into play in his role as a member of an independent commission looking into the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks.
Lehman travels regularly from his Bucks County farm to Washington for hearings of the National Commission on Terror Attacks Upon the United States, which has been probing intelligence, law enforcement and military lapses that may have exposed the nation to attack. In keeping with his record in the Navy, Lehman's role is that of house skeptic. In December 2002, as the commission was being formed, Sen. John McCain (R., Ariz.), at the behest of surviving victims and family members who worried the panel might pull its punches, insisted Lehman be named a member.
The hope was that Lehman would push for disclosure of potentially embarrassing facts if other members were tempted to play politics. "I felt that Lehman was a guy we could trust," McCain said.
So far, not everyone is satisfied.
Family members and victims, who have mistrusted the Bush administration ever since it sought to block the formation of a commission, have criticized the panel for its lackluster hearings and for failing to press the White House more aggressively for information. Lehman is lauded for his accessibility to family members. But they said they are concerned about Lehman's oft-stated commitment to finishing the commission's work by the May 27 deadline set by Congress.
Family members said that is an unrealistic time line given the scope of the investigation and stonewalling at the Pentagon and other agencies.
"He said they may not ask for an extension because [if the report] is released before the elections, they will have a better chance of having its recommendations enacted," said Lorie Van Auken, an East Brunswick, N.J., homemaker and a leader of a group representing victims' families. "I don't want a report to be rushed out in time for the presidential elections if things are going to be left out."
Lehman said the families have reason to be skeptical because the instinct of government sometimes is to conceal information. But he said the commission has been given access to sensitive Bush administration documents that cast a harsh spotlight on enforcement of immigration laws and airline security.
"This is not hypothetical or speculative, but involves hard facts," Lehman said. "Negligence, bureaucratic incompetence. It is not a pretty picture."
He said he sees a lack of nimbleness and creativity at the CIA, and a tendency to discourage dissenting points of view. A prime example, Lehman said, is the view among intelligence agencies that the Iraqis had nothing to do with the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, the Sept. 11 attacks, and anthrax-tainted letters that killed several people in the fall of 2001. Shortly after anthrax-tainted letters arrived at several government buildings in Washington, the FBI concluded it was probably the work of a domestic loner operating out of a basement. But given the fact that there have been no arrests, Lehman said intelligence agencies should not discount the idea that the Iraqis were involved.
Ex-Navy secretary brings skepticism to Sept. 11 panel
By Chris Mondics
Inquirer Washington Bureau
WASHINGTON - For all his boyish enthusiasm, in evidence despite his 61 years, John Lehman has always been a skeptic at heart.
A member of one of Philadelphia's oldest families and an acolyte of former President Ronald Reagan, Lehman was named Navy secretary in 1981 at 38, one of the youngest in U.S. history. Like Reagan, Lehman believed the American military had become too passive. He wanted to shake things up and was skeptical of government bureaucracies, particularly intelligence-gathering agencies.
Time after time, Lehman said, he had seen the CIA get it wrong, misreading tactics of the Vietnamese army and the Viet Cong and failing to grasp the scope of the Soviet naval buildup. By the time Lehman left the Navy in 1987, he had presided over a huge buildup of U.S. naval forces and put in place a leadership team that endorsed Reagan's aim of pressuring the Soviet Union militarily.
Lehman has been out of the Navy for 16 years, but his jaundiced view of American intelligence-gathering burns as hotly as ever and has come into play in his role as a member of an independent commission looking into the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks.
Lehman travels regularly from his Bucks County farm to Washington for hearings of the National Commission on Terror Attacks Upon the United States, which has been probing intelligence, law enforcement and military lapses that may have exposed the nation to attack. In keeping with his record in the Navy, Lehman's role is that of house skeptic. In December 2002, as the commission was being formed, Sen. John McCain (R., Ariz.), at the behest of surviving victims and family members who worried the panel might pull its punches, insisted Lehman be named a member.
The hope was that Lehman would push for disclosure of potentially embarrassing facts if other members were tempted to play politics. "I felt that Lehman was a guy we could trust," McCain said.
So far, not everyone is satisfied.
Family members and victims, who have mistrusted the Bush administration ever since it sought to block the formation of a commission, have criticized the panel for its lackluster hearings and for failing to press the White House more aggressively for information. Lehman is lauded for his accessibility to family members. But they said they are concerned about Lehman's oft-stated commitment to finishing the commission's work by the May 27 deadline set by Congress.
Family members said that is an unrealistic time line given the scope of the investigation and stonewalling at the Pentagon and other agencies.
"He said they may not ask for an extension because [if the report] is released before the elections, they will have a better chance of having its recommendations enacted," said Lorie Van Auken, an East Brunswick, N.J., homemaker and a leader of a group representing victims' families. "I don't want a report to be rushed out in time for the presidential elections if things are going to be left out."
Lehman said the families have reason to be skeptical because the instinct of government sometimes is to conceal information. But he said the commission has been given access to sensitive Bush administration documents that cast a harsh spotlight on enforcement of immigration laws and airline security.
"This is not hypothetical or speculative, but involves hard facts," Lehman said. "Negligence, bureaucratic incompetence. It is not a pretty picture."
He said he sees a lack of nimbleness and creativity at the CIA, and a tendency to discourage dissenting points of view. A prime example, Lehman said, is the view among intelligence agencies that the Iraqis had nothing to do with the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, the Sept. 11 attacks, and anthrax-tainted letters that killed several people in the fall of 2001. Shortly after anthrax-tainted letters arrived at several government buildings in Washington, the FBI concluded it was probably the work of a domestic loner operating out of a basement. But given the fact that there have been no arrests, Lehman said intelligence agencies should not discount the idea that the Iraqis were involved.
"The... assumption that it was an American kook [who mailed the anthrax] and there was no possible connection to Iraqi intelligence or al-Qaeda, someone ought to ask the FBI how many millions were blown pursuing that theory," Lehman said in an interview.
Apart from his Navy career, Lehman has led a storied Philadelphia life. His family is descended from the original settlers of the region; one of his ancestors was an aide to William Penn. The late Grace Kelly was a cousin; they vacationed together at the family house in Ocean City.
Lehman went to St. Joseph's College and later was a fellow at Cambridge University in England before attending the University of Pennsylvania, where he studied at the Foreign Policy Research Institute under Robert Strausz-Hupe, a Henry Kissinger protégé and a staunch conservative on the use of American military might. That contact led to his appointment as an aide to Kissinger on the National Security Council in the Nixon White House. He also flew combat missions over Vietnam as a Navy Reserve officer.
While a student at Cambridge, Lehman spent weekends visiting Princess Grace and her husband, Prince Rainier, at their palace in Monaco. In his book, Command of the Seas, Lehman writes that he would sometimes dance the night away in the basement disco of the palace with the couple and their Hollywood pals.
As Navy secretary, Lehman was a controversial figure.
His mandate was to carry out the Reagan doctrine of confronting the Soviet Union militarily. That meant beefing up the Navy fleet from about 480 to 600 ships. One of his first acts was to force Adm. Hyman Rickover, who built the Navy's nuclear-powered fleet, into retirement.
Lehman quietly broached his plan to force out Rickover to the White House and the chairmen of key committees in Congress before telling Rickover, a maneuver that would have made Tony Soprano proud.
"That is the way Washington works," Lehman said. "There was no other way to do it. If I had called him in and talked to him about it, he would have gone straight to his usual supporters and I would have been blocked."
Given his enthusiasm for carrying out Reagan's military policies, it is not surprising Lehman had fans at the White House. Among them was Robert McFarlane, former national security adviser to Reagan.
"He had the wit and energy to engage successfully with relevant senators and House members, plus key staff, and that enabled him to see problems coming," McFarlane said.
But Lehman also made enemies, particularly in the Navy, where longtime career officers accused him of playing favorites and of being intolerant of opposing points of view. Some Navy officers were deeply skeptical of his focus on building a vast fleet of surface ships. The feeling was that such ships were obsolete and that the Soviet threat was overstated.
"He ushered in an era in which senior officers were John Lehman men or they were not selected or they were phased out," one former senior Navy officer said. "He was a very controversial figure in that he was a dominant secretary. Most of them [prior Navy secretaries] had taken a passive role. Lehman was a horse of a different color."
Lehman's tussles with the Navy bureaucracy are long behind him. But the Sept. 11 attacks seem only to have bolstered the view he developed during his last tour in government that bureaucratic group-think permeates intelligence gathering.
"Certainly in the largest intelligence failure and greatest attack on civilians in this country's history, there were things that went wrong. There needs to be an accounting of what went wrong," he said.
Yet Lehman adds quickly that he is not interested in putting heads on pikes.
"That is not the primary purpose of this," he said. "Our job is to as objectively and accurately as possible lay out in a clearly understandable narrative of what happened... what went wrong and what decisions were not taken and why intelligence was not provided on a timely basis and did not get where it needed to go."
Contact staff writer
Chris Mondics at 202-383-6024 or [EMAIL PROTECTED]
