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You are here: Home / Open Threads / Excellent Links / Long Read: Mission Implausible

Long Read: Mission Implausible

by Anne Laurie|  December 12, 20137:05 pm| 25 Comments

This post is in: Excellent Links, Foreign Affairs

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Remember Robert Levinson, “longest-held hostage in U.S. history“? Looks like the cynics may have been right, per the AP:

Missing American in Iran was working for CIA
In March 2007, retired FBI agent Robert Levinson flew to Kish Island, an Iranian resort awash with tourists, smugglers and organized crime figures. Days later, after an arranged meeting with an admitted killer, he checked out of his hotel, slipped into a taxi and vanished. For years, the U.S. has publicly described him as a private citizen who traveled to the tiny Persian Gulf island on private business.

But that was just a cover story. An Associated Press investigation reveals that Levinson was working for the CIA. In an extraordinary breach of the most basic CIA rules, a team of analysts — with no authority to run spy operations — paid Levinson to gather intelligence from some of the world’s darkest corners. He vanished while investigating the Iranian government for the U.S.

The CIA was slow to respond to Levinson’s disappearance and spent the first several months denying any involvement. When Congress eventually discovered what happened, one of the biggest scandals in recent CIA history erupted.

Behind closed doors, three veteran analysts were forced out of the agency and seven others were disciplined. The CIA paid Levinson’s family $2.5 million to pre-empt a revealing lawsuit, and the agency rewrote its rules restricting how analysts can work with outsiders…

The AP first confirmed Levinson’s CIA ties in 2010 and continued reporting to uncover more details. It agreed three times to delay publishing the story because the U.S. government said it was pursuing promising leads to get him home.

The AP is reporting the story now because, nearly seven years after his disappearance, those efforts have repeatedly come up empty. The government has not received any sign of life in nearly three years. Top U.S. officials, meanwhile, say his captors almost certainly already know about his CIA association.

There has been no hint of Levinson’s whereabouts since his family received proof-of-life photos and a video in late 2010 and early 2011. That prompted a hopeful burst of diplomacy between the United States and Iran, but as time dragged on, promising leads dried up and the trail went cold…

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25Comments

  1. 1.

    Violet

    December 12, 2013 at 7:19 pm

    This really does have to suck for his family. And this:

    In an extraordinary breach of the most basic CIA rules, a team of analysts — with no authority to run spy operations — paid Levinson to gather intelligence from some of the world’s darkest corners.

    Our surveillance organizations seem to think they can do whatever they want with zero oversight and zero consequences. This sort of thing doesn’t surprise me at all.

  2. 2.

    Villago Delenda Est

    December 12, 2013 at 7:23 pm

    OK, the kicker on this will probably be that the analysts were prompted by someone in the office of the Vice President to do this, on the sly.

  3. 3.

    PaulW

    December 12, 2013 at 7:39 pm

    Since the date of the disappearance is 2007, we’re Fox Not-News is just going to have to blame this all on Dick Cheney Barack Obama.

  4. 4.

    Violet

    December 12, 2013 at 7:42 pm

    @efgoldman: True enough.

  5. 5.

    HinTN

    December 12, 2013 at 7:46 pm

    The National security State has metastasized beyond Dwight Eisenhower’s wildest imaginings. Recently listened to the “banned from FM radio” Spirit song, 1984. Surprise, surprise, surprise. Back to football everyone.

  6. 6.

    Elizabelle

    December 12, 2013 at 8:04 pm

    Do you think he is even still alive?

  7. 7.

    Suffern ACE

    December 12, 2013 at 8:06 pm

    Yeah. But is he a hostage or not?

  8. 8.

    Villago Delenda Est

    December 12, 2013 at 8:12 pm

    @Suffern ACE:

    As of 2011, he was alive.

    Since then, no news.

    I’m not hopeful, but the fact that this is all sub-rosa makes it difficult to be certain. Perhaps Kerry can make some polite inquiries? The fact that he was a spy doesn’t help much with the matter.

  9. 9.

    Mandalay

    December 12, 2013 at 8:16 pm

    There are some interesting parallels between Levinson and the case of Alan Gross, who was sentenced to 15 years in jail in Cuba. Last Monday the Miami Herald printed a grossly inaccurate and dishonest puff piece demanding his release, and glossing over why he is jail in Cuba. No surprise there from the Batista mob.

    The reality is somewhat different: he was guilty as hell, and getting very well paid for his activities…

    On his final trip, he brought in a “discreet” SIM card — or subscriber identity module card — intended to keep satellite phone transmissions from being pinpointed within 250 miles (400 kilometers), if they were detected at all.

    The type of SIM card used by Gross is not available on the open market and is distributed only to governments, according to an official at a satellite telephone company familiar with the technology and a former U.S. intelligence official who has used such a chip. The officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the technology, said the chips are provided most frequently to the Defense Department and the CIA, but also can be obtained by the State Department, which oversees USAID.

    Of course the US Government is not admitting he is guilty of anything, and neither is Gross, but if he really is innocent they are making pretty weak efforts to secure his release.

  10. 10.

    Belafon (Formerly anonevent)

    December 12, 2013 at 8:22 pm

    Obama shouldn’t have sent him to Iran.

    (How long before a winger says that?)

  11. 11.

    Johnny Scrum-half

    December 12, 2013 at 8:32 pm

    Maybe I’m naive and/or ignorant, but what good has the CIA ever accomplished for us?

  12. 12.

    Mandalay

    December 12, 2013 at 8:33 pm

    @Belafon (Formerly anonevent):

    Obama shouldn’t have sent him to Iran.

    His family claim that he was in Iran investigating cigarette smuggling for a private client. Theoretically possible, but not very plausible, and highly unlikely IMO.

  13. 13.

    feckless

    December 12, 2013 at 8:41 pm

    @Johnny Scrum-half: they got the dalau lama out of Tibet when the Chinese invaded. After that not much.

  14. 14.

    Mandalay

    December 12, 2013 at 8:44 pm

    @Violet:

    This really does have to suck for his family.

    It does indeed. I only see two possibilities:
    – They are now confronted with the reality that Levenson – the man they knew and loved – had lied to them about what he was doing. As had the US Government.
    – They themsleves have been lying to the public all along about why he was in Iran.

    Not a nice predicament for the family to be in now whichever option is correct. It sounds trite to say it, but espionage really is a thankless job.

  15. 15.

    Anne Laurie

    December 12, 2013 at 8:48 pm

    @Elizabelle:

    Do you think he is even still alive?

    If I had to guess? Given his health issues, and the history of his captors, and the fact that the notoriously-stingy-under-such-circumstances CIA paid off his family: Doubtful.

    But we won’t know, unless his body is returned to his family.

    A speculation I was seeing early, on ‘outside media’ sources, is that the Iranian military may have released him without fanfare years ago, and then he was picked up by a ‘freelance’ kidnapping team hoping for a big payoff.

    If that actually happened, this “official” AP release may be a quiet way for the Iranian government to disavow responsibility?

  16. 16.

    Anne Laurie

    December 12, 2013 at 8:52 pm

    @Mandalay:

    His family claim that he was in Iran investigating cigarette smuggling for a private client. Theoretically possible, but not very plausible, and highly unlikely IMO.

    To be fair, Levinson had successfully run such investigations elsewhere, and it wouldn’t have been hard to multi-task simultaneous ‘investigations’. Dangerous, probably deadly, but not ‘unlikely’.

  17. 17.

    Joey Giraud

    December 12, 2013 at 8:56 pm

    @Belafon (Formerly anonevent):

    Isn’t it curious how many self-described “savvy” people think the President is personally involved in every governmental action?

  18. 18.

    Mandalay

    December 12, 2013 at 8:57 pm

    @Anne Laurie:

    and the fact that the notoriously-stingy-under-such-circumstances CIA paid off his family

    I don’t think the fact that the CIA paid the family necessarily suggests that Levinson is dead. He is worth much more to Iran alive rather than dead. And from your link, this is why the CIA coughed up:

    The CIA paid Levinson’s family $2.5 million to pre-empt a revealing lawsuit…

  19. 19.

    Mandalay

    December 12, 2013 at 9:10 pm

    It’s gut wrenching to look at the web site his family had set up to press for his release. The last few year’s of Levinson’s life must have sucked, but he certainly has a great family.

  20. 20.

    liberal

    December 12, 2013 at 10:10 pm

    @Mandalay: it’s not clear from the little I’ve read that his captors are Iranian guvt. Anyone read about who they are?

  21. 21.

    Tokyokie

    December 13, 2013 at 12:03 am

    @Villago Delenda Est: As I recall, Cheney and his thugs pretty much purged the spy agencies of analysts who wouldn’t give them the “intelligence” they wanted, so the guys behind this caper are likely to have been right-wing stooges who figured somebody in the White House would cover their stupid asses.

  22. 22.

    Jeff

    December 13, 2013 at 2:13 am

    In an extraordinary breach of the most basic CIA rules, a team of analysts — with no authority to run spy operations — paid Levinson to gather intelligence from some of the world’s darkest corners.

    Isn’t this the plot of The Looking Glass War? It ended badly then too.

  23. 23.

    Mandalay

    December 13, 2013 at 2:42 am

    @Jeff:

    Isn’t this the plot of The Looking Glass War? It ended badly then too.

    OT: BBC radio is playing reruns of all their Smiley dramas right now. Really good, though not recommended if you are feeling depressed since they are pretty bleak…
    http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b011cdng/episodes/player

  24. 24.

    Mandalay

    December 13, 2013 at 2:52 am

    @liberal: The Iranian government publicly deny knowing anything about Levinson’s disappearance, but that doesn’t make it true. If some other group had taken Levinson I would have thought that they would be making a lot more noise publicly about their cause and demands.

    Looking on the bright side, perhaps the highly embarrassing acknowledgement that he was working for the CIA represents a demand that had to be met in order to secure his eventual release.

  25. 25.

    Suffern ACE

    December 13, 2013 at 3:33 am

    @Mandalay: one can hope. It does appear that our security agency does what it wants, spends what it wants without civilian control or internal accounting. At least Pakistan, whose military accepts military aid and says it is with us, while its security agency funds the insurgency we’re supposedly trying to fight, doesn’t make a claim that its institutions are shining lights for the world. Does anyone have any control over the agency?

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