Ex-spies give peek behind covert curtain
Former CIA operatives headline event in Santa Fe
If you put a hundred regular people in a room with a handful of real-life American spies, what kinds of questions would they ask?
Do people inside the Central Intelligence Agency discuss the morality of torture?
Do you think the migrant caravan was covertly influenced by a different country?
Where did Pakistan acquire materials for nuclear weapons?
These inquiries and more pelted the panelists and host of a Saturday conference, Spies, Lies & Nukes: Inside International Espionage at La Fonda on the Plaza, where former CIA operatives spoke about their careers and their thoughts on government affairs.
Valerie Plame, a Santa Fe resident and former CIA operative who hosted the event, which continues Sunday, told The New Mexican earlier this month that she hoped the conference would help educate the public at a time when she feels the president has been “denigrating of the intelligence community.”
In a dimly lit ballroom — heavily decorated with tinwork fixtures and Southwestern motifs — doctors, artists, authors and businesspeople mingled with veterans of the CIA and other one-time government officials who discussed everything from torture to covert operations to nuclear weapons. It was an eclectic crowd. “I’ve lived in Santa Fe for a long time, and I know a lot of people — and I don’t know five people at this conference,”
said Charlie Goodman, a Santa Fe business owner.
Goodman decided he’d attend the conference, he said, just because he thought the topic was interesting.
“You get a different perspective about how the CIA is run,” Goodman said. “Most people believe it’s an aim-from-the-hip, off-thecuff approach.”
On Saturday, he learned that’s not necessarily true.
Mary Beth Long, the first female assistant secretary of defense and a former CIA operative, discussed how covert operations — such as the U.S. influencing foreign elections and economies — are overseen by a group of top government officials and legislators tasked with keeping an eye on the projects.
Long, who co-founded international companies in addition to working in government, said she came to the conference Saturday because it was a unique opportunity to discuss intelligence with other former CIA operatives and because she agrees with Plame that Americans need to learn what’s happening in the arena.
“One of my biggest fears in life is that the American population doesn’t understand, and doesn’t think it has to understand, what’s happening in intelligence,” she told The New Mexican. “… If we don’t have this dialogue, there’s no way for them to educate themselves. You have to have transparency.”
Glenn Carle, a longtime clandestine CIA operative who also served on the National Intelligence Council, spoke about his personal shock when the CIA started to use torture techniques during the war on terror, as well as his issues with advanced interrogation techniques and the war itself.
Saturday’s discussions raised plenty of questions for Laura Carpenter, a former Santa Fe gallery owner who was drawn to the conference by the lure of Santa Fe’s “underground” community of former CIA agents, like Plame.
“What’s right? What’s wrong?” Carpenter mused, after a panel on Covert Operations and the White House. “What are the unintended consequences? What’s happening right now in our country?”
Also attending was Santa Fe County Clerk Geraldine Salazar, who came for work — and because she loves her work, she said. She saw advertisements for the conference saying speakers promised to touch on election security.
“I’m responsible for fair and safe elections, so whatever I can learn from them is good,” Salazar said.
What did she learn Saturday? Plenty, she said, but she’s keeping her cards close to her vest.
Kathy Rivera, a Santa Fe resident who works in the electronics distribution industry, attended the conference just for fun.
“I’m a fan of spy novels, for one,” she explained.
While she had no preconceptions about what she might learn, Rivera said, she was pleasantly surprised — by the end of Saturday, she’d learned more about how foreign intelligence works through the CIA and also observed ties between the electronics industry and threats that foreign actors might pose when it comes to intellectual property, for example, and counterfeit goods.
Rivera, when she first read about the conference, said she could barely believe it was happening in Santa Fe.
“Is that happening here? I kept reading it and thinking it was going to say Arlington, Va., or D.C.,” she said. “This is not something that comes to our door every day, and I would probably very much regret it if I didn’t come — and I’m so glad that I did.”