Infidelity and Espionage

February 5, 1999

A recent spy fiction thriller is based upon the premise that a Soviet mole steals the love and the sexual complicity of George Smiley's wife while he steals Britain's top secrets. Secrecy, deception, seduction, and espionage go hand in hand in spy novels, but also in real life. That's why many in the intelligence community are privately expressing their concern over what could have happened with President Clinton's affair with Monica Lewinsky.

Even in a telephone conversation President Clinton acknowledged that foreign intelligence organizations could be listening in. So what did the president do to protect himself and the country from blackmail and foreign espionage?

Apparently not much. But others were concerned. One intelligence professional said, "It becomes clear that many people in the White House knew what was going on, in a general way. This is the kind of thing foreign intelligence would have targeted early and with high priority. The next question becomes, did the CIA or anybody else here pick up foreign intelligence reporting on the affair, and what became of any information they got. Is there a black box into which this stuff went?"

Did the president threaten national security? It is hard to know. The answer to that question is no doubt classified. His actions, to say the least, were risky. Here is a president romancing a careerless, unmarried, talkative intern half his age. And he was willing to do anything to keep his actions silent. He made himself a prime candidate for blackmail.

Whether the Senate considers this issue or not, the intelligence community better consider it. More is at stake than the office of the president. What could be at stake is national security.

I'm Kerby Anderson of Probe Ministries, and that's my opinion.

© 1998 Probe Ministries International