Ronald Kessler - The Secrets of the FBI

ALSO BY RONALD KESSLER

IN THE PRESIDENTS SECRET SERVICE
Behind the Scenes with Agents in the Line of Fire and the Presidents They Protect

THE TERRORIST WATCH
Inside the Desperate Race to Stop the Next Attack

LAURA BUSH
An Intimate Portrait of the First Lady

A MATTER OF CHARACTER
Inside the White House of George W. Bush

THE CIA AT WAR
Inside the Secret Campaign Against Terror

THE BUREAU
The Secret History of the FBI

THE SEASON
Inside Palm Beach and Americas Richest Society

INSIDE CONGRESS
The Shocking Scandals, Corruption, and Abuse of Power Behind the Scenes on Capitol Hill

THE SINS OF THE FATHER
Joseph P. Kennedy and the Dynasty He Founded

INSIDE THE WHITE HOUSE
The Hidden Lives of the Modern Presidents and the Secrets of the Worlds Most Powerful Institution

THE FBI
Inside the Worlds Most Powerful Law Enforcement Agency

INSIDE THE CIA
Revealing the Secrets of the Worlds Most Powerful Spy Agency

ESCAPE FROM THE CIA
How the CIA Won and Lost the Most Important KGB Spy Ever to Defect to the U.S.

THE SPY IN THE RUSSIAN CLUB
How Glenn Souther Stole Americas Nuclear War Plans and Escaped to Moscow

MOSCOW STATION
How the KGB Penetrated the American Embassy

SPY VS. SPY
Stalking Soviet Spies in America

THE RICHEST MAN IN THE WORLD
The Story of Adnan Khashoggi

THE LIFE INSURANCE GAME

Copyright 2011 by Ronald Kessler

All rights reserved.

Published in the United States by Crown Publishers, an imprint of the Crown Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., New York.

www.crownpublishing.com

CROWN and the Crown colophon are registered trademarks of Random House, Inc.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Kessler, Ronald, 1943
The secrets of the FBI Ronald Kessler.>p. cm.
1. United States. Federal Bureau of Investigation. 2. Official secrets
United States. I. Title.
HV8144.F43K475 2011
363.250973dc22 2011012179

eISBN: 978-0-307-71971-3

Jacket design by David Tran

v3.1

For Pam, Rachel, and Greg Kessler

I T WAS CHRISTMAS DAY, JUST BEFORE NOON. THE TURKEY was in the oven, and the aroma was beginning to fill the house, when Arthur M. Art Cummings II received a call on his BlackBerry.

The FBI command center told him to call back on his secure phone. When he did, he learned that a passenger aboard Northwest Airlines Flight 253, which was on its final approach to Detroit from Amsterdam, had tried to detonate explosives as the airliner entered U.S. airspace.

As the FBIs executive assistant director for national security, Cummings, fifty, ran both counterterrorism and counterintelligence for the bureau. He was the official directly responsible for detecting and thwarting terrorist plots and espionage by other countries. Few in the U.S. government knew as many secrets.

For Cummings, hunting terrorists was a battle of wits. He was the predator, the terrorists his prey. Had a terrorist eluded him? Could he trust the information he was getting? Had he missed a clue? These were the things that kept him awake at night as he directed the FBIs transformation from an agency that emphasizes prosecutions to one that focuses on prevention of plots before they happen.

To ping in on terrorists, Cummings talked daily with Tactical Operations, a supersecret unit of FBI breakin artists who conduct court-authorized burglaries in homes, offices, and embassies to plant hidden microphones and video cameras and snoop into computers. Besides terrorists, the targets may be Mafia figures, corrupt members of Congress, spies, or intelligence officers of Russia and China.

When conducting covert entries, TacOps tranquilizes guard dogs and may stage fake traffic accidents, traffic stops, or utility breakdowns to waylay occupants and security personnel. To conceal agents as they defeat locks and alarm systems, it creates false fronts to houses and fake bushes that hide agents. If caught breaking in, TacOps agents are in danger of being shot by occupants who think they are burglars.

Besides hunting down al Qaeda, Cummings had to contend with bureaucratic rivalries. The New York City police broke a promise to the FBI and jumped the gun in the case of Najibullah Zazi, who had plotted to blow up New York City subways for al Qaeda. The Department of Homeland Security could not manage its own immigration responsibilities, yet it tried to become involved in a range of counterterrorism decisions that were the purview of the FBI. Then there was the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, an agency that often got in the way and produced little of value to the FBI.

In addition to bureaucratic infighting, Cummings had to deal with requests that could compromise the independence of the FBI. After announcing its decision to try Khalid Sheikh Mohammed in New York City, the Justice Department asked Cummings to prepare an assessment of the security threat that such a trial would pose there. Cummings resisted. He figured such an assessment from the FBI would be used for political purposes by both Democrats and Republicans. In any case, he thought the New York idea, which he believed was irresponsible, would never be carried out.

The effort by Obama administration officials to publicly use euphemisms such as man-caused disasters to refer to terrorism or to avoid the terms Islamists or jihadists in describing the enemy galled Cummings. Terrible, terrible is the way Cummings described those ideas. Of course Islamists dominate the terrorism of today, he says.

On the other hand, Cummings had no problem with the desire of both the Obama and Bush administrations to read terrorists their rights. He believed that in most cases, the FBI could obtain the intelligence it needed to stop future plots by remaining within the framework of the legal system, including by administering Miranda warnings. The trick was to confront suspects before they were in custody, give them incentives to talk, and establish rapport.

Cummings himself was a genius at getting bad people to incriminate themselves. A master of eye contact, Cummings has a receding hairline that emphasizes the intensity of his gaze. His magnetic blue eyes direct energy toward his listener.

Its all about parrying with the adversary, Cummings says. How many crumbs did he leave, and how many can I pick up? How do I get to the answer, how do I get to whats really happening? There are so many different ways to do it, but the best way by far is sitting across the table from someone. The best thing is when youre sinking your fangs into his neck, and hes smiling while you do it because you convince him that what hes doing is in his best interestwhen in fact it absolutely is not.

Having been told about the Christmas Day bomber, Cummings grabbed a Snickers bar and a Coke. That would be his Christmas dinner in 2009. His wife, Ellen, and three teenagers would enjoy turkey and cranberry sauce by themselves.

Cummings was now in charge of the case of Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, one of the FBIs most controversial and potentially most damaging terrorist cases.

Cummings jumped in his FBI car, a Dodge Charger. He turned on the sirens and the flashing blue and red lights and raced toward FBI headquarters.