Infidelity, Lies and National Security 
By Jim Hoagland
Washington Post

Thursday, January 14, 1999; Page A27 

    Depressingly little remains unilluminated about the private dealings 
and communications of William J. Clinton and Monica S. Lewinsky. But 
there is one corner of this drama that could bear more light as the Senate 
moves toward its day of judgment: 
    Clinton recognized in a telephone conversation with his young 
paramour that foreign intelligence organizations could, without much 
trouble, be listening in on their phone sex and other musings, according to 
Lewinsky's detailed and unchallenged testimony. What then did the 
president do to protect himself, and national security, from blackmail and 
damage, other than propose an absurd cover story to Monica? 
    The president was not alone in being aware of the national security 
implications of the scandal created by his furtive couplings in the Oval 
Office. An intelligence professional made this observation to me recently: 
"It becomes clear that many people in the White House knew what 
was going on, in a general way. This is the kind of thing foreign 
intelligence would have targeted early and with high priority. The next 
question becomes did the CIA or anybody else here pick up foreign 
intelligence reporting on the affair, and what became of any information 
they got. Is there a black box at Langley into which this stuff went?" 
    Seduction, betrayal and espionage are closely related arts that often 
feed on each other. That reality echoes through Clinton's observation to 
Monica about his self-created vulnerability, as well as through the best spy 
fiction. John Le Carre has a Soviet mole steal the love and sexual 
complicity of George Smiley's wife while he steals Britain's secrets as 
well. 
    Secrecy, deception and a desire for revenge lie at the heart of 
betrayal -- be it of a nation, a spouse or a friend, however different the 
circumstances and consequences of each individual act of betrayal are. 
Understanding the relationship between infidelity, lies and national 
security made Smiley a great counterspy. 
    But fiction does not rival the Bill and Monica story. 
    To create a shared secret in which the risks of discovery are so 
wildly disproportionate -- as the president did in romancing a careerless, 
unmarried, talkative intern half his age -- is the height of recklessness for a 
national leader. 
    Such irresponsibility is the only basis the Senate would have in this 
case for considering the removal of Clinton from office. The counts of 
perjury about sex and obstruction of justice can and should be left to the 
courts. The morality of Clinton's betrayal of marriage vows should be left 
to the pastors, priests, rabbis and their secular counterparts, television's 
talking heads. 
    But the Senate needs to understand, and through its deliberations 
explain to the nation, what national security risks the president took and 
how they were handled. In its final action, the Senate should make an 
explicit judgment on whether or not there was a betrayal of the trust the 
nation put in Clinton to protect national security at all times, and how 
serious any such betrayal was. 
    It may be that we are so far beyond the Cold War that presidential 
indiscretions carry only trifling security risks today. Clinton seemed to 
take such a position in the conversation reported by Monica. If that is his 
view, his lawyers should have a chance to advance it before the Senate. If 
it is not, they can so state and try to reconcile a different view with the 
president's nonchalance. 
    Two reminders of the dangers and costs of espionage emerge at the 
moment to complicate that task, however. One is a new book, "The 
Haunted Wood," by Allen Weinstein and Alexander Vassiliev. They have 
assembled recently opened official archives on Soviet espionage in 
America into a chilling and convincing account that leaves no doubt about 
the treason of Alger Hiss, Earl Browder and others who preyed on unwary 
U.S. officials. 
    Betrayal of the nation is a shockingly casual and promiscuous matter 
for many of the Americans recruited by the KGB and GRU. The secrecy 
and infidelty of espionage was part of the attraction for some, who 
believed they had joined "an elite . . . secretive club fighting for a noble 
ideal." 
    Clinton is also enmeshed in a major national security decision 
involving betrayal and spying. He has agreed to a request from Israeli 
Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu to consider a pardon for Jonathan 
Pollard, who is serving a life sentence for providing truckloads of 
America's most secret documents to Israel. 
    As this week's New Yorker magazine recounts, the U.S. intelligence 
community is convinced that information that Israel paid Pollard to steal 
found its way to the Soviet Union and other countries that had more use 
for it than did Pollard's Israeli handlers. Exactly how that happened is in 
dispute, partly because of Israel's continuing refusal to provide a full 
accounting of what Pollard did. 
    Almost all of Clinton's advisers have weighed in strongly against a 
Pollard pardon, and have let that advice be known to the press. The leaks 
indicate the president's people fear that he may be about to turn Pollard 
loose, in what would be a new burst of terrifying casualness about national 
security. 

(c) Copyright 1999 The Washington Post Company