The Third Option by Loch K. Johnson

Author:Loch K. Johnson
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Published: 2021-01-15T00:00:00+00:00

Figure 8.1 Decision and Reporting Paths for Covert Action, Established in 1975.

Source: Loch K. Johnson, American Foreign Policy and the Challenges of World Leadership: Power, Principle, and the Constitution (New York: Oxford University Press, 2015): 392.

Actual policymaking can be quite different from formal law, however, and the DNI has become “deeply involved” in Third Option decisions.7 In the first place, the DNI is the chief representative of the entire Intelligence Community. This means that a covert action proposal must be included in the DNI’s National Intelligence Program, or NIP—the annual spy budget (sans military intelligence, which is located in a separate appropriations compartment).

Moreover, in a document sent to lawmakers each year, known as the Congressional Budget Justification Book (CBJC, which has a classified annex on intelligence activities), the reasons that a particular covert action appears in the NIP and deserves funding are spelled out. These reasons must be defended by both the D/CIA and the DNI. As a result, it becomes important for the Agency to bring the DNI on board in support of a clandestine intervention, since he—and with the Biden administration, she: Avril Haines—may well be queried by lawmakers about the operation. Two voices, the D/CIA and the DNI, both visiting SSCI and HPSCI (as well as the Appropriations Committees), are able to provide a stronger case than one person alone. The reality is that without the DNI as an advocate, a Third Option proposal might well stall out in Congress. Finally, D/CIAs have found it politically wise to have the weight of the DNI—a senior professional colleague—included in the vetting process, as a CA proposal initially wends its way upward within the executive branch hierarchy from Langley to the Oval Office.

On the post-decision side of covert action, having the DNI aboard also gives the Agency an opportunity to have an ally in shouldering the blame, should things go wrong. Former Air Force three-star general and DNI Clapper has said that he routinely told each of the four D/CIAs with whom he served during his six-years-plus on the job as DNI (2010–17): “If you want me around when the plane crashes, have me around when the plane takes off.”8 Each of the Agency’s directors abided by this old Air Force saw and embraced a policy of transparency toward Clapper on all Third Option initiatives. Referring back to Figure 8.1, the DNI now stands between the DCI (renamed the D/CIA in 2004) and the NSC, as the final senior intelligence official to sign off on a proposal for a clandestine intervention before the Council’s staff, then the president and the other top three members of the NSC, evaluate its merits.

As one might suppose, the Agency’s stations overseas—on the front lines of America’s secret foreign policy—are significant germinators of new Third Option ideas. In 1980, for instance, many proposals bubbled up to Headquarters from COSs around the world, usually in response to directives from Headquarters that seek recommendations on how to solve various global challenges.9 Occasionally, clandestine schemes are concocted

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