back to Niagara Falls Reporter archive
"America's counterterrorism program in the Middle East and its environs is a myth."
That's a frightening and altogether true statement and it comes from a source that ought to make every American wake up and pay attention. In a remarkably prophetic article in the July/August edition of "The Atlantic Monthly" Reuel Marc Gerecht, formerly with the Directorate of Operations for the CIA, offers chilling evidence about just how little information and intelligence is gathered about radical Islamic terrorism.
The former CIA man quotes a Near East Division colleague, now retired, who says, "The CIA probably doesn't have a single truly qualified Arabic-speaking officer of Middle Eastern background who can play a believable Muslim fundamentalist who would volunteer to spend years of his life with shitty food and no woman in the mountains of Afghanistan."
Gerecht points out the CIA has stubbornly refused to develop people specializing in one or two countries. Scholars who understand the languages, cultures, religions and societies of the lands that breed terrorists are as rare as they are now invaluable.
The CIA counterterrorist operation has become a cadre of blue suits who all live in suburban Virginia and spend most of their time attending conferences where the topic is discussed, but nobody gets dirty, cold, lonely and, especially, in harm's way.
The CIA desperately needs "non-official cover" officers -- people who are in no way attached to the US government, but who are recruited to provide timely and vital intelligence. A few of these NOCs might have made a difference in thwarting the terrorists attacks that killed so many and forever changed our lives.
Let's step back in time and look at the precursor of the CIA, World War II's Office of Strategic Services, the OSS. A true story involving two men with deep roots in Niagara Falls shows how the OSS became the most successful and life-saving intelligence-gathering organization ever assembled.
America's spy master needed Luigi Pirastru for a secret mission requiring daring, courage, dedication and sacrifice. The spy master wanted him to parachute into Nazi-occupied Sardinia to gather vital information and help organize underground resistance groups. The island off Italy's west coast was of vital strategic importance for both the Nazis and the Allies.
Pirastru was perfect for the job. He grew up in Sardinia and spoke the dialect that is almost a separate language from Italian. He knew the people, the customs and the politics of the place. He knew his way around and could slip into Sardinian society.
The risks were high, however. If he got caught, the Nazis would shoot him on the spot as a spy. The mission was top secret and he couldn't even tell his wife and three children in Niagara Falls where he was going, what he was doing and when he would be back.
But Pirastru was a committed, stand-up kind of guy, and he was willing to put his neck on the line for what he believed in. He was one of the founders of Laborers Local 91. Pirastru believed the union should stand for the good of the many, not the privilege of the few. He was a fiery orator in Italian or English and a stalwart in the Democratic Party. His son Mario became a long-time leader in the party.
The spy master who recruited Pirastru, William Joseph "Wild Bill" Donovan, was an American original, whose vision of intelligence-gathering is the model we ought to be following.
Donovan was born in Buffalo and developed his love of learning and deep interest in the world as a student at Niagara University. He studied law at Columbia University. There he met a wealthy classmate, Franklin Delano Roosevelt. That connection would become meaningful for the world.
Donovan became a highly successful lawyer and, back in Buffalo, he organized a regiment of Cavalry as part of the New York National Guard. When World War I broke out in Europe, Donovan went to work for the Rockefeller Foundation and got his first taste of espionage.
He slipped behind German lines and found ways to get food and relief supplies to Poland and Belgium. He used his wits, and quickly made friends with anyone who could help his efforts. When the United States was pulled into the war, Donovan led New York's Irish battalion, the legendary Fighting 69th. He knew the importance of keeping an eye on the enemy.
He promoted a young poet, Joyce Kilmer, author of "Trees" ("I think that I shall never see a poem lovely as a tree.") to the rank of sergeant and made him the intelligence clerk for the 69th. Kilmer kept a running log of everything he heard and saw the Germans doing. This information became extremely useful to American military intelligence and helped predict the enemy's behavior.
The 69th became the symbol of America's courage and willingness to fight. Kilmer was killed and Donovan was awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor. He was an authentic hero and returned home triumphantly, resuming his law practice in Buffalo.
Donovan dabbled in politics, once running for Governor of New York as a Republican. Franklin Roosevelt quipped about his classmate, "If Donovan had been a Democrat, he would have been the first Catholic President of the United States."
Donovan's law practice was fabulously successful and he was one of the finest appeals attorneys in the nation. He made a fortune.
But when the winds of war blew again, Donovan was willing to drop everything to help his country. In 1940, President Roosevelt asked him to go on a secret mission to England in order to evaluate the desperate situation there and see what could be done.
Donovan made contacts everywhere and persuaded a Yugoslavian General to pull off a military coup and organize resistance to the Nazis.
When the United States entered the war, Roosevelt turned to Donovan to organize American intelligence.
The master spy was up to the task. Donovan recruited an odd, but effective, assortment of people from the Ivy League, Wall Street, the media and the laborers union to help.
People like playwright Robert Sherwood, film director John Ford, baseball player Moe Berg and Luigi Pirastru were called into service. Donovan didn't care where you came from as long as you were committed and could help. He personally recruited Vietnamese leader Ho Chi Minh to spy on the Japanese occupying Indochina.
He brought scholars and librarians in to help sort through the information his operatives gathered.
The OSS quickly surpassed the much-hailed British intelligence service and changed the course of the war. Roosevelt himself credited Donovan and his people for some of the most creative and valiant efforts in the war.
The CIA has drifted far away from Wild Bill Donovan's vision of how to gather intelligence. We now have an agency with sophisticated satellites and gadgetry, but no one who can speak the languages and understand the subtleties of those who want to destroy America. Most of our spies hang out at CIA headquarters in McLean, Virginia.
In these terrible days, America needs more people like Luigi Pirastru and Bill Donovan.