Ex-CIA operative Plame: 'It's not inconceivable' Paul Whelan is a spyPHOEBE WALL HOWARD | DETROIT FREE PRESS | 14 minutes ago
Whelan, 48, an executive with the auto parts manufacturer BorgWarner in Auburn Hills, was picked up by Russian authorities on Dec. 28 on suspicion of spying.
ELISSA ROBINSON, DETROIT FREE PRESS
Paul Whelan of Novi, held in a czarist-era Russian prison on spy charges, would attract the notice of any seasoned intelligence team, a former CIA covert operations officer told the Free Press.
"As long as there are nation-states, there will be espionage. It is a very real threat and even more so today," said retired officer Valerie Plame, now an author who was famously outed as a CIA operative during the second Bush administration.
Whelan, 48, an executive with the auto parts manufacturer BorgWarner in Auburn Hills, was picked up by Russian authorities on Dec. 28 on suspicion of spying. His twin brother said the ex-Marine, whose military record included a larceny conviction, was in Russia for a friend's wedding. The Russians indicted Whelan on Thursday.
No one knows what about the Russians' assertion is true except, perhaps, U.S. government officials, who have said little about the case and likely have access to information they have not revealed, Plame suggested.
Is it possible Whalen could be a spy? "It is not inconceivable," Plame said.
She noted, "There are many Americans that seek to serve their country in various ways. That's probably all I should say."
Other former CIA operatives and scholars of espionage, though, say it's most likely Whelan is being framed by Russian President Vladimir Putin for political reasons, a scenario Plame did not discount. They also agree that Whalen's story has eyebrow-raising and contradictory oddities.
He had traveled regularly to Russia since about 2006 and had a Russian social media account through which he connected with members of the country's military, but lacked strong command of the language, the New York Times reported. On Friday, Ireland’s Department of Foreign Affairs said Whelan had asked for help as an Irish citizen, and officials confirmed he is a U.S., British and Irish citizen.
"There do seem to be real question marks around this story, at least in the public domain," Plame said Thursday. "That he was discharged from the military, from the Marines, dishonorably. That he's got this big interest in Russia; he travels there a lot. Huh? He's an auto parts guy? Really? I don't know. He could be completely innocent. The Kremlin could be trying to be provocative. Or there could be something there."
His brother, David, a resident of Ontario, said in a Washington Post op-ed piece that the family was surprised to learn of Paul's dishonorable discharge from the Marines and, "As for his international connections, our family spans continents, and Paul’s four passports reflect his birth (Canada), parents (Britain), grandparents (Ireland) and choice (United States)."
Post-Cold War
Plame, who now lives in Santa Fe, New Mexico, described an unpredictable international landscape where anything is possible and everything must be considered.
"The Cold War was a bipolar world. We had one big enemy. Now, with the rise of nuclear terrorism, rogue nation states and a very active Russia and China," espionage is ubiquitous, she said.
Plame was publicly named as a CIA operative in 2003, ultimately leading to the conviction of Vice President Dick Cheney's chief of staff, Scooter Libby. President Donald Trump pardoned Libby in April.
As a career CIA operative who can't safely confirm publicly the length of her undercover career, Plame said international threats are real. And Americans must take them seriously.
"By and large, I am quite alarmed at the intensity and depth that Russia has gone to disrupt all of our systems," she said. "They have sown chaos and they have done it really well. They have sown doubt in our electoral system. I think that is very serious. It goes to the very heart of our belief in our democracy and our way of life."
Plame expressed concern about America's ability to navigate the geopolitical situation with so much transition in Washington, including the government shutdown. She said the U.S. State Department has "really atrophied and really suffered under this presidency."
"For all we know, the people that might be in that office might not be reporting to work because of the government shutdown," Plame said.
She hoped that State Department officials were communicating regularly with the Whelan family. "They're probably best advised to say nothing right now. The situation is so muddy that I think adding to it would be detrimental to Mr. Whelan's eventual release from captivity."
Plame was clear that she was offering her perspective based on public comments from Whelan's twin brother and records released by the U.S. military. Her observations about Whelan were echoed by a scholar whose expertise involves military history and espionage.
Spy charge can't stick
But others said his bad-conduct discharge from the service would almost certainly disqualify him from spy work.
Whelan's military records show he was a reservist in the Marines from May 1994 until Dec. 2, 2008. He was discharged after being convicted "on several charges related to larceny," including using another person’s Social Security number and writing bad checks, according to a military court document. Whelan also tried to steal $10,000 from the U.S. government while he was on an air base in Iraq, according to military documents.
According to an account published earlier this week in a Russian state media outlet, Whelan met in his hotel room with a Russian citizen who gave him an electronic device with classified Russian intelligence information. "Five minutes after the transfer, FSB officers broke into the room" and detained Whelan, the Russian account states. FSB is the Russian intelligence agency that is a successor of the Soviet-era KGB.
"That sounds like a classic setup," said Ned Price, a former CIA analyst and National Security Council staffer.
Price and other ex-CIA officials said Whelan does not fit the profile of a so-called "NOC," which stands for "non-official cover" and is the moniker for someone with no formal ties to the U.S. government and working covertly as a spy.
"The whole point of being a NOC is to have no discernible ties to the U.S. government. This person served in uniform for 15 years," Price said.
Even more problematic, Price said, is Whelan's discharge from the Marines.
"NOCs are trusted with the most sensitive intelligence the United States government possesses, and they are incorporated into the most sensitive and delicate operations we undertake," Price said. "Someone who has been discharged in this way from the U.S. military … would be unlikely to pass vet."
He conceded there were some "odd" things in Whelan's background, such as his citizenship in multiple countries.
Spy agencies in America have a history of relying on global companies to assist with intelligence collection, say historians who specialize in espionage.
Whelan’s work
To date, no evidence has been made public that ties Whelan to the CIA or the National Security Agency. The American, who had a work history in law enforcement, faces up to 20 years behind bars if convicted of espionage.
He has been a security specialist for the automotive parts supplier BorgWarner since 2017. Previously, he worked for Kelly Services, a temporary staffing agency that touts itself as a “global leader” with an ability to place workers “in top companies across a variety of industries” across the world since 1968.
Paul N. Whelan, 48, of Novi was arrested Dec. 28, 2018, by the Russian government and accused of espionage. His family insists he's innocent, saying he is a world traveler and was detained by mistake. In this undated photograph, Paul Whelan is seen at the Cape of Good Hope in South Africa.
Paul N. Whelan, 48, of Novi was arrested Dec. 28, 2018, by the Russian government and accused of espionage. His family insists he's innocent, saying he is a world traveler and was detained by mistake. In this undated photograph, Paul Whelan is seen at the Cape of Good Hope in South Africa.
WHELAN FAMILY PHOTO
While BorgWarner has customers all over the world and employs 29,000 people in the U.S., Europe and Asia, none of the company's international sites is in Russia, said company spokeswoman Kathy Graham.
Some international analysts believe Whelan is being held hostage by Russian President Vladimir Putin in hopes of negotiating the freedom of a Russian cooperating with special counsel Robert Mueller in the ongoing investigation into U.S. election manipulation. Whelan is being held in Lefortovo detention center, built in the late 1800s and later used as a KGB prison.
Whelan's work history
At BorgWarner, he has not been responsible for cybersecurity nor was he in charge of industrial espionage duties as part of his job description.
Whelan oversaw security of facilities, assets owned by the company and its people, Graham confirmed. Whelan did not work in information technology, Graham said.
In a 2013 deposition in an age discrimination suit against Kelly Services, he described his role this way: “Kelly Services is a global company, and we work with federal agencies all the time ... at the foreign embassies, or we work with HUD or DEA, FBI, ATF, whomever in the United States. We work with federal agencies in Canada, and what have you, all over the place. So we come in contact with federal agencies and officers all the time.”
'Whelan is being framed'
Chris Costa, executive director of the International Spy Museum, a nonprofit organization based in Washington, D.C., said, “My analysis suggests that this individual Paul Whelan is being framed” by Russia's Federal Security Service, known as FSB.
The spy museum collects and shares intelligence artifacts and stories to provide a global perspective on an all-but-invisible profession that has shaped history and continues to have a significant impact on world events.
“From a historical standpoint, whether we’re talking about the FSB or former KGB, our museum puts stories together that illustrate the cat-and-mouse game of counterintelligence,” he said. “The FSB is very, very pervasive and a solid security service. They’re very adept at dirty tricks."
Costa, like others nationally and internationally, including Plame, suggested that Putin could be "looking for leverage" in hopes of swapping the American for the Russian Maria Butina, who has pleaded guilty to acting as an unregistered agent of Russia.
More: Maria Butina pleads guilty to conspiracy as agent of Russia in USA
“It’s an embarrassment, the fact that the Russians have got their hands caught in the cookie jar,” he said, citing the poisoning of a Russian former spy and his daughter in Britain, in addition to tampering with U.S. elections.
“The Russians are going back to their playbook that they used throughout the Cold War. They’re very aggressive,” Costa said. “They’re taking shots at the United States.”
The claim that a businessman could actually work as a spy is not lost on fans of novelists John Le Carré or Robert Ludlum. History shows that the scenario is plausible.
Globally, corporations do passively work with intelligence services, Costa said. It may be a simple question during a crisis, and “of course, companies are going to cooperate in most cases.”
Not only have companies cooperated in the past, but they’ve been essential.
Finding people who can speak a foreign language fluently, cultivate cultural resources and develop social contacts was, and continues to be, important, said Professor Brian Hayashi, chairman of the Department of History at Kent State University in Ohio.
Whelan may be a logical target because he fits the profile, said Hayashi, author of an upcoming book being published by Oxford University Press about the little-known recruitment of Americans who were of Chinese, Japanese and Korean descent who worked as U.S. spies during World War II.
The book documents corporate cooperation with the intelligence community, too.
“Western Union was heavily involved in the transmission of telegrams,” he said. “They were able to get different radio companies involved with American intelligence.”
The U.S. government would scan for coded messages in telegrams going abroad, particularly between Berlin and Tokyo, Hayashi said. “In some cases, they allowed for American intelligence to look at the telegrams.”
He continued, “American intelligence will go to various communications companies, in the past and even today, and try to get information.”
Missionaries as spies
Apart from formal cooperation, American intelligence can filter communications by capturing keyword searches and targets using technology.
“You never really know what’s going on,” Hayashi said. “We just don’t know.”
Top CIA agents have been journalists, religious missionaries and English teachers, he said. More and more, “sad to say,” nongovernmental organizations are included too — “the CIA may try to slip somebody in there.”
The automotive industry isn't immune, Hayashi said.
“It included one of the spies that the Office of Strategic Services — the predecessor to the CIA — used during World War II in China," he said. "One of the automotive executives went to China, and slipped in and was ostensibly working to re-establish the American car industry in China. In reality, he was there as an agent for the OSS.”
In that case, the agent double-crossed the U.S. to serve British interests. He was Canadian and his boss was an influential executive whose work led to the creation of the American International Group (AIG) in finance and insurance, Hayashi discovered.
More recently, the Daily Mail of Britain reported in August 2015 that "enemy spies" were attempting to recruit civil servants in a bid to steal Britain’s secrets by "befriending" them on LinkedIn, the social network site for hundreds of millions of professionals.
Secret agents working for countries including Russia and China created fake profiles on the site to lure unsuspecting victims, British intelligence warned.
News reports have noted that Whelan had an active Russian social media account and had connected with Russian soldiers.
These days, coverage of the Whelan case has inspired countless press calls to BorgWarner from throughout the U.S., England, Russia and France, Graham said.
News of the Russian police action didn’t actually surprise Hayashi, he said.
“I know something of the KGB — I had to deal with them in my book,” he said. “I can assure you, if the FSB is similar to its predecessor, the KGB, then the wider issue of Russian interference in American elections and politics is nothing new. The KGB had an entire section devoted to such activities. ... They got as high as the next prime minister of the Labour Party to Margaret Thatcher in the 1980s.”
Meanwhile, America hasn’t had a lot of trouble getting its own agents inside Russia because the new, younger generation opposes old-school KGB thinking that Putin, a former agent in the spy agency, represents, Hayashi said.
“I doubt Mr. Whelan was there to spy but, still, one does not know for sure without seeing any evidence," he said. "The likelihood is that he is innocent but happened to be in Russia at the wrong time. It is also possible he might have stumbled onto something accidentally and the Russians may want to cover that up.”
As it all unfolds, BorgWarner — which builds products that make vehicles move, from clutches and friction plates to transfer cases to turbochargers to electric motors and parts for combustion, hybrid and electric vehicles — is quietly awaiting the return of its executive.
BorgWarner Powertrain Technical Center in Auburn Hills.
BorgWarner Powertrain Technical Center in Auburn Hills.
BORGWARNER
Aaron Retish, a Wayne State University professor who has taught modern Russian and post-Soviet history for 16 years, is in England now, and watching the Whelan case.
It's unusual for the Russian government to arrest any American visiting the country on a tourist visa, Retish said.
Butina connection?
“Russia has arrested some people for coming in on a wrong visa or not registering. But this, the Russian media reports, was a spy sting," he said. "So something must have happened. Who knows? They’ve done this a couple of times with some U.S. diplomats and some British diplomats, but they were all eventually deported and not arrested.”
There is wide speculation that Whelan’s arrest in Russia could somehow be tied to Butina, who was trying to influence American political groups, including the National Rifle Association, but Retish said it’s too soon to make any such connection.
“I know that American news outlets have been trying to link the two, saying that this is some setup for a swap, but … there are so many other moving wheels,” Retish said, in the geopolitical landscape.
Butina, he noted, was not charged with espionage, which the Russian government alleges against Whelan.
“She was arrested for being a foreign agent," Retish said. "That makes it a lot different."
Comparisons are being made, he said, between Butina and the Russian spy Anna Chapman, who was arrested in the United States nearly a decade ago and pleaded guilty to conspiracy charges.
“She was a Russian woman who was married and living in the United States and was also kind of this classic spy. She was living the normal life, but she was also spying for Russia and then she was eventually caught,” Retish said. “Even her husband supposedly didn’t know about it. She was eventually released and came back to Russia for a while and became a celebrity. She was praised by Putin.
“That’s kind of where the similarities end between the two. Chapman was a spy. Butina was a foreign agent, an unregistered foreign agent. It could be eventually that Butina actually has more significance on the political field because of all the connections that she had, than Chapman. But that is the only other big swap that you had.
“This is just a weird case with Whelan because Putin just came out saying … he hoped to have neither conversation and a meeting with Trump. And you could see that there could be a potential upswing in U.S.-Russian relations, especially with the U.S. pulling out of Syria, which is also something that Putin praised.
“It’s an odd time to arrest someone, but you never know what is happening behind the scenes. This is also how Putin works. When you least expect it, something like this happens.”
More: Novi man accused of 'spy mission' in Russia: What we know
More: Businessman: Here's why Russia nabbed Novi man accused of spying
Contact Phoebe Wall Howard:
phoward@freepress.com or 313-222-6512. Follow her on Twitter @phoebesaid. Free Press staff writer Kristen Jordan Shamus and USA TODAY staff writer Deirdre Shesgreen contributed to this report.
Originally Published 1:10 pm EST January 3, 2019
Updated 16 minutes ago
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