FBI won’t OK book
that criticizes bureau

WASHINGTON – The FBI for the past six months has been sitting on a former veteran agent’s book manuscript critical of the bureau’s handling of the so-called “Chinagate” probe into illegal foreign campaign donations to the ’96 Clinton-Gore campaign, and other national security-related cases, WorldNetDaily has learned.

The manuscript, which runs nearly 800 pages, was first submitted by retired special agent Ivian C. Smith in January for pre-publication review, a process that normally takes about 30 days.

Smith, who in 1997 and 1998 worked on the Justice Department’s still-active campaign-finance investigation, says he didn’t hear back from the bureau until late April, when management declined to OK the manuscript for publication, citing some 85 objections.

Smith, calling the unusually high number of objections “absolutely ludicrous,” nonetheless tried to overcome them in a three-inch-thick written appeal that cites
examples from other books, which have published similar material. He says he sent the appeal to the FBI two months ago, yet the bureau still hasn’t released his manuscript.

“They’ve had it [the manuscript] for over two months now since I responded to their objections,” complained Smith, a 25-year veteran of the bureau.

His manuscript singles out for criticism retiring FBI Director Louis Freeh, former FBI Deputy Director Robert Bryant and FBI Assistant Director Neil Gallagher, who heads the bureau’s National Security Division.

“Certainly Gallagher is mentioned in it, and he won’t like it. Nor will Bob Bryant, probably,” Smith said in a phone interview. “But I just tell it like it is.”

“Clearly, someone doesn’t want the public to see it,” he added.

But the FBI attributes the delay to concerns over classified information.

“It’s a difficult manuscript to process because of the nature of the material involved,” said FBI spokesman Jay Spadafore. “It’s my understanding that there is classified material” in it, although he acknowledges the politically “sensitive” nature of the book.

He says that although Smith’s manuscript is stuck in the “appeals process,” “negotiations with the author” are under way.

Smith was the special agent in charge of the FBI in Arkansas from July 1995 to July 1998, when he retired. Before that, he worked in FBI’s counterintelligence division, specializing in Chinese spying. There, he worked with convicted Moscow spy and supertraitor Robert Hanssen, among other counterespionage agents.

Chapters in his book cover Arkansas corruption, national security and the so-called “CAMPCON” investigation into illegal campaign contributions, to which he devotes the most ink.

When the CAMPCON probe was launched, Smith said that “the bureau was very slow to realize exactly what the issues were, and the potential that was there” for evidence of foreign influence-peddling in the White House.

“Freeh was slow to realize it,” he said, “and slow to be briefed.”

He says Freeh also was out of touch with his street agents and their struggles with Justice Department lawyers and political appointees, who he says tried to hamstring their efforts, particularly when it came to following up leads back to the White House.

“I could tell he wasn’t apprised of the problems we
were having,” Smith said, prompting him to fire off a
letter to Freeh in August 1997, briefing him of his
and other agents’ run-ins with main Justice officials
who controlled the special task force investigation.

Smith saves most of his criticism for Gallagher and Bryant, though.

He calls Gallagher a “bureaucrat,” who he says argued against turning the Chinagate probe over to an independent counsel, siding with former Attorney General Janet Reno and her top adviser on the case, Lee Radek.

Freeh, in contrast, argued for an independent counsel.

“I actually admired Freeh for taking the stand he did on that,” Smith said.

In his book, Smith charges that Gallagher sometimes put political considerations ahead of national-security concerns and basic law-enforcement needs.

He says Gallagher dragged his feet on the Wen Ho Lee investigation after Energy Department counterintelligence experts in 1995 first referred the Los Alamos computer scientist to the FBI for investigation for espionage.

Smith also cites the example of Gallagher in 1996 denying him permission to interview former Sen. Dale Bumpers, D-Ark., concerning a straw donor case he was working, because “it was an election year.”

He claims Gallagher was not popular with Freeh or his immediate boss, Bryant, so he “would do anything he could to make sure there was no controversy, because it may reflect [badly] on him.”

Gallagher reported to Bryant, who worked under Freeh. Smith says Bryant paid little attention to the Chinese espionage cases or Chinagate probe – and “de-emphasized” the bureau’s counterintelligence efforts overall.

“Bryant had very little appreciation for the whole thing,” he said. “He was more interested in terrorism – rappelling out of airplanes and slam-bang type stuff. In fact, he was preoccupied with the terrorism stuff.”

“One of the things that’s never really been looked at is that he was responsible for taking domestic terrorism [along with international terrorism] and moving it over into the National Security Division, and basically de-emphasizing the counterintelligence
program,” he said. “And the [de-emphasized] counterintelligence program, of course, led to the Wen Ho Lee debacle.”

“In effect,” Smith added, “counterintelligence became the third priority.”

Smith’s book isn’t the first to be blocked by the bureau under Freeh.

In 1996, the headquarters lodged about 30 or 40 complaints against former White House FBI agent Gary W. Aldrich’s “Unlimited Access,” which also criticized FBI management, and even ordered him to pull whole sections, including the chapter on hard drug use among White House staffers.

Aldrich ended up going to press without the bureau’s approval. In the meantime, former FBI General Counsel Howard Shapiro, a Freeh crony, secretly gave a copy of the manuscript to the White House, which allowed operatives to control fallout in advance.

“It sounds like he’s critical of FBI management in his book – as was I,” Aldrich said of Smith. “This is a major reason for the FBI’s reluctance to approve.”

Aldrich says that the FBI has a palace guard mentality that discourages criticism – and thus real reform – despite the parade of embarrassing blunders under the Clinton administration. Agents are warned “never to embarrass the bureau,” he said, even though the bureau has done a fine job of that by itself.

Smith, who also wrote the internal FBI report on the White House’s 1993 summary firings of career Travel Office employees, includes a chapter in his book about
Travelgate.

He says there’s “no doubt in my mind” that Sen. Hillary Clinton, as first lady then, ordered the firings. She has denied any role.

Smith describes himself as “non-political” and says that “both parties disgust me.”