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Mary O'Neil McCarthy: Fired CIA Leaker, Clinton Spec. Assistant

Clayton Hallmark | 22.04.2006 06:57 | Analysis | Globalisation | Repression

Mary O'Neil McCarthy is the senior CIA official who has been fired for blowing the whistle about the CIA's illegal secret prisons in Eastern Europe. Her leak provided the grist for the Pulitzer Prize-winning of Dana Priest of the Washington Post, breaking the news about the CIA black sites. She was a Special Assistant to President Clinton. She was serving, at the time she was fired, under the CIA's Deputy Director for Operations, Jose A. Rodriguez of McLean, VA.

Here are McCarthy's duties as National Intelligence Officer for Warning. Presumably this function would have including warning the President about the 9/11 attacks, if the CIA had intelligence about them. This lady should have a lot more beans to spill.

i. To oversee analysis of intelligence from all sources which might provide warning. In particular, he should be alert to alternate interpretations within the community and assess these with a view to the need for issuance of warning. He should encourage consultation and substantive discussion at all levels in the Community.

ii. To recommend to the Director or Deputy Director of Central Intelligerce the issuance of warning to the President and National Security Council, and to ensure the dissemination of such warning within and by the organizations of the Intelligence Community. When time is of the essence, the National Intelligence Officer may issue such warning directly to the President and the National Security Council, with concurrent dissemination to the Director and Deputy Director of Central Intelligence and senior officers of the Intelligence Community.

iii. To advise the Deputy Director for Collection Tasking and Deputy Director for National Foreign Assessment on appropriate Community response to developing warning situations.

iv. To develop plans and procedures for support of the Director of Central Intelligence in crisis situations.

v. To support the Deputy Director of Central Intelligence and the National Foreign Intelligence Board on warning matters.

vi. To chair the Warning Working Group (Paragraph 3c).

vii. To oversee the warning activities of the National Intelligence Officers (Paragraph 3d).

viii. To supervise the Strategic Warning Staff (Paragraph 3e).

ix. To arrange for intelligence research and production with respect to strategic warning.

x. To develop a warning consciousness and discipline throughout the Community.

xi. To seek improvements in methodologies and procedures for warning, including communications and dissemination of information.

xii. To arrange with appropriate organizations of the government for provision to the National Intelligence Officer for Warning and the Strategic Warning Staff of the information they need to carry out their mission.

xiii. To promote improved analyst training in indications and warning techniques and in other analytic techniques that might contribute to improved warning.

xiv. To advise the Deputy for Collection Tasking and the Deputy for Resource Management, as appropriate, on warning activities that relate to their responsibilities.

Here is the announcement of McCarthy's appointment as a Special Assistant to President Bill Clinton:

THE WHITE HOUSE
Office of the Press Secretary
June 16, 1998
STATEMENT BY THE PRESS SECRETARY
National Security Advisor Samuel R. Berger announced today the
appointment of Mary O'Neil McCarthy as Special Assistant to the
President and Senior Director for Intelligence Programs. Mrs. McCarthy
succeeds Rand Beers.
Mary McCarthy had been Director of Intelligence Programs on the
National Security Council Staff since July 1996. Previously, Mrs.
McCarthy served as the National Intelligence Officer for Warning from
1994-1996 and as the Deputy National Intelligence Officer for Warning
from 1991-1994. She began government service in 1984 as an analyst in
the Directorate of Intelligence of the Central Intelligence Agency.
Prior to her government service, Mrs. McCarthy held positions in both
the private sector and academia. She was a Director, then Vice
President of BERI, SA, a firm conducting financial and political risk
assessments, from 1979-1984. Previously, she had taught at the
University of Minnesota and was Director of the Social Science Data
Archive at Yale University.
Mrs. McCarthy has a B.A. and M.A. in history from Michigan State
University and an M.A and Ph.D. from the University of Minnesota. She
and her husband Michael McCarthy have a son, Michael.
(end text)



Clayton Hallmark