The spies who became politicians

[htpcl]

Nice to meet you! Bond. James Bond. Look at these names now... Andropov, Bush, Putin, Kinkel, Panetta, and now Ungureanu. All of them have one thing in common. They jumped over from professional espionage and plunged into politics. Nothing too unusual, some would say. Dangerous!, others would counter. And who would be right?

Comments

[onefatmusicnerd]

Panetta was more of a political operative sent to handle the politics of the CIA, because intelligence people seem lousy at that shit.

I think that before becoming the head of the CIA his intelligence experience came from working as Clinton's Chief of Staff, and being an S2 for a year or two in Vietnam.

And come to think of it, other than a (rumored) year or two in the OSS, Bush was the same deal.

[dwer]

I agree-- Bush and Panetta were both political appointees.

[htpcl]

The problems start when one's intelligence legacy starts messing with their decision-making and affecting their policies. That's the main reason why most former Eastern bloc countries adopted laws that were aimed at "cleansing" their politics from former servants of the communist regimes. My country was too reluctant to do that, though - mostly because real democratic revolution never happened here in the first place, instead the old guys renamed themselves from communist to socialist and largely remained in power. The files of the former secret services haven't been completely revealed, which has tainted the political process over the past 20 years, every time someone disturbing the political landscape with some unpleasant revelations about the past of some of their rivals. Even our incumbent president turns out to have been part of those services. The new one has promised that he won't let any former spies into his team, but that remains to be seen

[onefatmusicnerd]

Yeah, but Leon Panetta spent 30 years as a budget wonk and auditor, went to the CIA to clean ship, for 30 months. This guy is an accountant...

[underlankers]

One of the most impressive things about Stalinism to me was the number of secret police agencies he created and then slaughtered his way through. Yagoda, then Yezhov, then Beria (and perhaps Stalin's death was Beria attempting to avoid that and then failing as Zhukov dealt him that same fate anyhow). But then the Stalinists shot their generals, too, and most dictatorships needed their generals too much to even consider such a thing. Of course once Stalin croaked this didn't last, and that's when the problems set in. Stalin always strikes me as the biggest Magnificent Bastard in the bloody, sordid history of Magnificent Bastards in this regard, executing his secret policemen on grounds of having falsely executed others.

Unfortunately in the USA people tend to overrate democratic institutions in terms of reining in sufficiently-minded authoritarian SOBs.

[htpcl]

I remember there was a hypothetical situation being discussed here some time ago: would Petraeus be good for president? And is he electable?

[telemann]

He has been one already: served in the House of Representatives, and was Chairman of the House Budget committee.