FBI braces for more
internal bombshells

WASHINGTON – After overcoming more than 80 objections from bureau lawyers, a new tell-all book by a veteran FBI agent who worked in counterintelligence with turncoat Robert Hanssen and is all too familiar with the palace-guard mentality of headquarters, has one final hurdle to clear – FBI Director Robert Mueller's desk.

Ivian C. Smith, a 25-year veteran of the bureau, says his memoir, pawed over for more than a year by damage controllers, is parked there, waiting for the top dog's OK.

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The latest flap involves a chapter in his 868-page
manuscript about an old "national security issue" he
worked on that sprouted into public view from the Wen
Ho Lee case. Officials want to water it down.

Smith argues the case is no longer secret and has been closed for years. He appealed directly to Mueller, who's been busy stamping out brushfires over the bureau's mishandling of the pre-Sept. 11 al-Qaida investigation. The last thing he wants is another round of embarrassing revelations.

"Clearly, the bureau is uncomfortable with much of what I've written," Smith told WorldNetDaily.

He says his three-inch-thick appeal knocked down most of the bureau's objections, and he says he's gained approval for at least a "sanitized" version of the chapter before Mueller.

"Given this bunch's obsession with secrecy," he said, "I don't expect a response."

The FBI attributes the delay to concerns over classified information. Smith first submitted his manuscript for pre-publication review in January 2001.

The tome, entitled "In Sunshine and In Shadow: An FBI Journey," drops new bombshells about the bureau's handling of Hanssen, Chinese espionage cases and Clinton scandals, among other things.

It also paints an unflattering portrait of former FBI Director Louis Freeh and top bureau officials in charge of counterintelligence and counterterrorism – divisions that have already come under heavy fire since the terrorist attacks.

Smith, who retired in 1998 as head of the FBI's Arkansas division, counts more than 60 new revelations in his book, ones that touch on:

• Cuban spy games (U.S. ties with Havana haven't been as frosty as the government has let on, he says, particularly during Bush the Elder's tenure).

• Travelgate and former first lady Hillary Clinton's role in it (the New York senator apparently has some more explaining to do about the White House travel office purge, which dragged in the FBI).

• The Clinton-Gore fund-raising scandal and Chinese funny money (more on the Beijing-Little Rock connection).

• Fired Lawrence Livermore scientist Gwo Bao Min (the real scoop about the Chinese document-deliveryman's contacts with Lee, Beijing and possibly another communist government).

• CIA turncoat Larry Wu-Tai Chin (the CIA, which recently got a copy of Smith's manuscript from the FBI, wasted little time in putting that long chapter in Chinese espionage "into context," Smith said).

• Attempted assassination of President Reagan (fresh details).

• Hanssen (bureau managers protected one of their own for years, despite repeated signs of trouble that Smith and others witnessed and warned about).

While waiting on Mueller's OK, Smith says he is working with an editor to pare the manuscript before presenting it to a publisher.

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