Spooked by a mole

As the CIA station chief in Cairo in the 1950s, he was on first name terms with Gamal Abdul Nasser. Inevitably came the day when he suggested to the great leader that since politics was a costly undertaking, the American government could provide him with 3 million a huge amount at that time. To the master spy8217;s surprise, Nasser agreed readily. The cache of cash was brought in. However, just when Copeland was preening himself over his 8216;achievement8217;, Nasser mortified him by announcing that since it had tried to 8220;bribe8221; him, he was using the sum of 3 million to set up a monument to the CIA8217;s 8220;monumental folly8221;. This turned out to be a totally functionless tower that still stands on the banks of the Nile. The Egyptian have given it a delightful but, alas, unprintable name.

To mention similar or worse follies and disasters of the real spy world would need too much space. Let only a few be tick-marked. For instance, at the height of the Cold War, the CIA stole, though for a few hours only 8212; a Russian sputnik. On that very day, John Kenneth Galbraith revealed that Nikita Khrushchev, when told that there was no secret in Moscow that the KGB could not get hold of in two weeks, had commented, 8220;No, no, one week.8221;

Some years later, British Prime Minister Harold Wilson complained publicly that MI-5, the counter-intelligence agency of his country, was maintaining a vigil on him. For its part, the MI-5 went to the Queen and to the deputy leader of the Labour Party, James Callaghan. Shortly afterwards, Wilson quietly resigned and Callaghan took his place.

The Philby affair must also be mentioned, if only to emphasise its enormity 8212; the founder of the anti-Soviet section of the British Secret Service was himself the KGB8217;s chief agent 8212; and also its India connection. Several of Philby8217;s superiors in MI-6, whose negligence or worse enabled Philby and his Cambridge cohorts to escape to Moscow and overtly to serve the KGB for the rest of their lives, had earlier served in our own Intelligence Bureau, with its provenance in Colonel Saleeman8217;s set-up to deal with the Thugs and Pindaris.

Since Independence, the record of Indian intelligence and counter-intelligence has been a mixed bag of some successes, more failures and, regrettably, quite a few cases of hounding innocent souls, the Samba spy case, the fate of naval captain and nuclear expert S.N. Rao, and the harassment of two space scientists in Kerala being some of the ghastly instances in point.

In 1985 it was discovered that relatively junior officials of the PMO had been routinely photocopying all classified documents throughout the day and merrily selling them every evening at Hailey Road to one Coomar Narain. The principal secretary to the PM had to resign. The French ambassador was asked to leave. Narain conveniently died long years before some of the culprits were awarded sentences of imprisonment. There was also the block-buster case of the Larkin brothers, one a retired air marshal and the second a retired major-general, who were caught for selling the secrets of the air force to their 8216;controller8217; in the US embassy and duly convicted.

A lot more alarming and sensational discovery at the time of Brasstacks 8212; which some saw as a prelude to a full-scale war between India and Pakistan 8212; was that Pakistani generals had in their possession copies of the Indian Army8217;s Orbat 8212; Order of Battle 8212; that had deliberately been inflated somewhat. For this startling affair no one has even been accused, let alone punished.

It is in this context that Jaswant Singh8217;s sudden disclosure in his book of memoirs, A Call to Honour, about the alleged mole in Narasimha Rao8217;s PMO leaking out sensitive nuclear secrets, has to be viewed. In all fairness, whatever he had to say, with whatever expectations, has lost its shine. First, there is the curious fact that for ten long years 8212; for six of which he was holding high office 8212; he sat tight on information that was literally explosive. Ram Jethamalani, as eminent a lawyer as he is irrepressible, has bluntly told him that he has committed a criminal offence under the Indian Penal Code. Second, the former external affairs minister has made different statements at different times in the course of a single day. There is striking consensus in the media that he has raised more questions than he has answered.

To cap it all, he has become very coy. He would not name the mole publicly but would share his information only with the prime minister. Yet, he would not seek an appointment with Dr Manmohan Singh but would wait for the PM to send for him. No wonder, what should have been a serious discussion on a grave issue of national security has degenerated into a partisan and farcical political debate. Meanwhile, irresponsible sections of the media have arrogated to themselves the right to drag into dirt impeccable reputations.

Without beating about the bush, let it be said that alleged espionage from the fountainhead of the government is not a matter of private discussion between two individuals 8212; the prime minister and the former foreign minister. The entire nation has a vital stake in it. This dirty linen has got to be washed in public.

The writer is a well-known political commentator