"In that era, a summons to a meeting with any Division Chief - much less the head of what was then the most secretive operational component - could be unnerving for any junior officer. The initial moments of my appointment with then-C/SE, Dave Forden, were appropriately unsettling. He began by asking me whether I had stolen anything lately. Having never purloined anything ever, I was taken aback."
"After I answered no, he asked if I could pass a polygraph exam. Again surprised, I responded that I could the last time I took one. 'Good', Forden said, 'you are coming to SE to replace Ed Howard in Moscow'. Howard, whom I had met during training, had been fired from CIA for a variety of offenses. He later defected to the USSR, betraying his knowledge of CIA operations and personnel to the KGB."
A single meeting with Aldrich Ames occurred at a 1989–1990 cocktail party that may also have included Robert Hanssen. Ames's betrayal produced long-lasting consequences for colleagues and CIA operations. The loss of an agent had a deeply personal impact on the officers responsible for handling that asset. Late in 1982, a trainee was summoned to the office of Soviet Division chief Dave Forden and faced unnerving questions about theft and polygraph performance. The trainee was told to replace Ed Howard in Moscow; Howard had been fired and then defected to the USSR, revealing CIA operations and personnel to the KGB. Plans for the Moscow assignment were later canceled.
Read at The Cipher Brief
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