- WASHINGTON - Hounding security-conscious
public servants is not a new phenomenon.
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- FBI agent Robert G. Wright Jr. has been relegated to
"meaningless paper-pushing," according to Judicial Watch General
Counsel Larry Klayman. He is being punished for blowing the whistle on
FBI bungling that may have led to Sept. 11.
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- In this, Wright follows a long honorable and often sacrificial
tradition of those in government who have tried to protect America from
its enemies.
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- Most are familiar with the case of FBI agent Gary Aldrich,
who in 1996 wrote the book "Unlimited Access" exposing the total
breakdown of security at the Clinton White House. The higher-ups made life
uncomfortable for him. Ultimately, he retired rather than "go along
to get along."
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- Much the same can be said for Notra Trulock, a security
official at the Department of Energy who played a major role in exposing
Bill Clinton's China scandal. FBI agents raided his home without a warrant,
searched his computer and, by the way, struck his dog. "Good he didn't
have any children around," Klayman observes.
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- But this has run true to form within the bureaucracy
for decades.
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- Otto Otepka's Nightmare
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- Take, for example, the case of Otto Otepka. Not exactly
a household name. But he went through a living hell when he tried to protect
the U.S. from security risks.
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- Otepka was a top security official in the State Department.
During the 1950s, he had run one of the most efficient shops in the federal
government. He was widely recognized as fair but firm in investigating
those who attempted to enter the State Department in sensitive roles involving
foreign policy.
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- In the 1960s, when the Kennedy/Johnson crowd took over,
Otepka's refusal to clear appointees who were obvious security risks (some
with communist connections), suddenly landed him in the doghouse with then
Secretary of State Dean Rusk.
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- The result was that Otepka and his closest associates
were isolated and made as miserable as possible.
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- The 1970 book "The Ordeal of Otto Otepka" by
William J. Gill describes this story in chilling detail.
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- Referring to an article that appeared in the (now defunct)
New York Herald Tribune:
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- "No one speaks to the man and he speaks to no one.
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- "When he enters the elevator, the conversation fades
to a painful silence. In the corridors, one or two people nod in polite
recognition, but quickly lower their eyes.
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- "He sits behind his bare desk to face another morning
in solitude." No mail, no department instructions. There is a phone,
but it never rings.
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- 'A Human Island'
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- "Otepka is a human island, ostracized by all other
State Department workers."
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- On one occasion, a fellow employee visited Otepka in
his office. When this employee returned to his own desk, he was immediately
summoned by his supervisor and ordered not to call on Otepka again.
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- Otepka's problems increased when he testified about the
security risks to the Senate Internal Security Subcommittee.
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- It wasn't long before the Rusk regime at State tried
to go after him on trumped-up charges that were ultimately dismissed as
not having passed the laugh test.
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- But the psychological warfare against Otepka's "top-notch
security officers" was every bit as brutal. They ended up relegated
to an abandoned annex.
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- Again from Gill's book: "To amuse themselves, they
arranged a display of cockroaches on the office wall under an improvised
sign which read 'This place is bugged.'"
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- Ultimately, it all became too much for a secretary who
innocently shared their exile. One morning while at her desk, a mouse "climbed
out of her wastebasket and ambled off on its daily rounds."
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- When the wife of one of the exiles got the word of the
situation to Chicago Tribune bureau chief Willard Edwards, he was skeptical,
until he had a look for himself and made the front page with it.
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- That prompted Sen. John J. Williams, R-Del., and Rep.
H.R. Gross, R-Iowa, to conduct an inspection. "They wandered through
the deserted eight-story structure ... appalled at the rubbish and the
filth."
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- 'Only Crime Is Telling the Truth'
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- Williams described the place as "an isolation ward
or cooler for employees whose only crime is telling the truth to a Senate
committee."
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- Ultimately, because the lawmakers raised a high-profile
ruckus, Rusk shifted the employees to other work. Their old security jobs
no longer existed because Rusk "knew he would run the supreme risk
that they would discover many more security risks who had doubtless received
clearances in the last five years since he cleaned house."
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- When the Kennedy/Johnson era ended and Richard Nixon
took over, he managed to solve the politics of the problem without solving
the problem. Otepka was nominated to the Subversive Activities Control
Board, then on its last legs, but welcoming someone with his expertise.
His Senate confirmation came only after the bitter, mean-spirited opposition
of left-wing Democrats running interference for their people. Not at all
unlike Democrat cover-ups for Clinton years later.
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- Klayman of Judicial Watch says if that kind of treatment
is accorded Robert Wright,, he "will be a rich man," as a result
of legal action.
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- Otto Otepka, Gary Aldrich and Notra Trulock have done
the political bleeding that just may have paved the way for justice in
Robert Wright's case.
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