But now the chief investigator is under investigation. Last week National Public Radio revealed that the Justice Department has begun to look into allegations that Hitz smeared a CIA station chief with false testimony. It appears that someone in the CIA lied, according to Justice sources; the only question is whether the IG himself knew about it. It is possible that Hitz, 55, a veteran CIA officer recruited out of Princeton in the 1960s, was a victim of his subordinates’ sloppiness. Hitz refused last week to comment.
The case of Janine Brookner, the station chief Hitz allegedly tried to ruin, is pure sleaze. As the agency’s top spook in Jamaica in the late 1980s, Brookner was disciplined at Hitz’s recommendation for allegedly drinking and making sexual advances toward her male subordinates. Brookner, known in the press as Jane Doe Thompson, sued for sexual discrimination in 1994. She charged that she had been set up by her employees after she had accused them of misconduct, including wife-beating. The Justice Department sided with Brookner. A few hours after one of the main witnesses in the IG’s case proved bogus, Attorney General Janet Reno hastily settled the case, awarding Brookner $410,000. In the IG report, the witness was described as a CIA official who had been salaciously accosted by Brookner at a Christmas party. But the “CIA official” turned out to be a DEA employee who denied that Brookner had done anything improper–and he told Justice the IG’s office had never even interviewed him.
The Brookner case is only one of several brought by female CIA case officers claiming systematic discrimination by the agency’s old-boy network. The current director, John Deutch, is trying to make amends by recruiting and promoting more women. But the lawyer representing several case officers, Victoria Toensing, a former Justice Department official, is hoping for an investigation on Capitol Hill. She may not have to try very hard. Congressional sources told NEWSWEEK that Senate Intelligence Committee chairman Arlen Specter, who dropped out of the GOP presidential race last week, is eager to probe the CIA. Given their penchant for disinformation, CIA hands have always found irony in the words carved by the entrance of the agency’s headquarters-“The Truth Shall Make You Free.” These days, it’s more likely to get you a subpoena.
