Dear Colleagues:

Spies have been part of foreign relations at least since Joshua checked out Jericho. The case for what we now call “Intelligence” was made by Sun Tzu about 2500 years ago. He wrote that spying was not just necessary but efficient and humane:

“Raising a host of a hundred thousand men and marching them great distances entails heavy loss on the people and a drain on the resources of the State.”

“The daily expenditure will amount to a thousand ounces of silver. There will be commotion at home and abroad, and men will drop down exhausted on the highways.”

“As many as seven hundred thousand families will be impeded in their labor.”

“Hostile armies may face each other for years, striving for the victory which is decided in a single day.”

“This being so, to remain in ignorance of the enemy’s condition simply because one grudges the outlay of a hundred ounces of silver in honors and emoluments, is the height of inhumanity.”

“One who acts thus is no leader of men, no present help to his sovereign, no master of victory.”

“Thus what enables the wise sovereign and the good general to strike and conquer, and achieve things beyond the reach of ordinary men, is foreknowledge,”

“Now this foreknowledge cannot be elicited from spirits; it cannot be obtained inductively from experience, nor by any deductive calculation.”

“Knowledge of the enemy’s dispositions can only be obtained from other men.”

Now spying has been enhanced by extensive technology; information gathering shades into “black ops”; and a massive intelligence community is divided into organizations with different cultures, difficult to govern, oriented to a wide variety of different threats, and sharing uncertain relations with their political overseers. The development of a huge intelligence apparatus within the national security state has long fueled worries that its actions would be focused in scary ways on U.S. citizens, or pursue foreign policy means that would blow back on the United States, as arguably happened with discovery of the use of “enhanced interrogation techniques” at Guantanano and Abu Ghraib.

“Intelligence failures” such as Saddam Hussein’s nonexistent “weapons of mass destruction” feed distrust of the organizations, yet television and movies are saturated with stories of brave agents breaking bureaucratic rules to save us.

For decades, Vince McHale taught CWRU students about the uses of and tensions about “intel” in his course on United States Intelligence and National Security. They learned about the history and development of the U.S. Intelligence community, within the inherent conflict between the necessity for spying and its uncomfortable fit with both democratic politics and the separation of Congress from the Executive. Counterintelligence can fit poorly with Intelligence, and with the demand to keep the intelligence agencies out of “domestic surveillance.” He emphasized not just U.S. experience, but how that differs from the use and governance of the Intelligence operations in Russia, the U.K., Israel and other countries. He highlighted efforts to create and maintain an Intelligence profession with an appropriate code of ethics, and the new politics and pressures created by growing roles of non-state actors, and the temptations of new technology.

He joins us to discuss how these relatively familiar tensions about the community are now joined by the effects of President Trump’s election, the charges of Russian influence on the election, and Trump’s approach to Intelligence matters, so far.

All best regards,
Joe White
Luxenberg Family Professor of Public Policy and Director, Center for Policy Studies 

About Our Guest

Dr. Vincent E. McHale received his Ph.D. from the Pennsylvania State University in 1969 where he was also awarded a certificate in Russian area studies. After teaching at the University of Pennsylvania, he joined the faculty of CWRU in 1975, serving until he retired as Marcus A. Hanna Professor in 2014.

Professor McHale’s early research focused on French and Italian electoral politics, but his research and publications expanded to include politics, political systems, and socio-political change across Europe. He also has published on crime and violence in 19th-century Europe. His books include Vote, Clivages Socio-politiques, et Developpement Regional en Belgique (1974), Evaluating Transnational Programs in Government and Business (co-edited, 1980), and a two-volume edited work, Political Parties of Europe (1983). Early in his career, he was principal investigator for a National Science Foundation grant (NSF-IG-72) focusing on developmental change, social dissent, and political opposition in Europe. He was project director for a two-year United States Department of Health, Education, and Welfare grant entitled “Transnational Issues: A Proposal for Curricular Development” (G00-760-3403).

This latter grant provided the foundation for the undergraduate international studies program at Case Western Reserve University. He served as Director of the International Studies program, building it to the largest interdisciplinary major in the College, from 1993 to 2011. He also served as Chair of the Department of Political Science from 1976 through 2003.

Dr. McHale has been a recurring lecturer at the Sherman Kent School for Intelligence Analysis, in Washington, D.C.; and he continues to serve as a consultant on European elections and political issues for the United States government.

Where We Meet

The Friday Public Affairs Lunch convenes each Friday when classes are in session, from 12:30 p.m. to 1:30 p.m. Our programs are open to all and no registration is required. We usually meet in the Dampeer Room of Kelvin Smith Library.

* Kelvin Smith Library requires all entrants to show identification when entering the building, unless they have a university i.d. that they can magnetically scan. We are sorry if that seems like a hassle, but it has been Library policy for a while in response to security concerns. Please do not complain to the library staff at the entrance, who are just doing their jobs.

The Dampeer Room is on the second floor of the library. If you get off the elevators, turn right, pass the first bank of tables, and turn right again. Occasionally we need to use a different room; that will always be announced in the weekly e-mails.

Parking Possibilities

The most convenient parking is the lot underneath Severance Hall. We regret that it is not free. From that lot there is an elevator up to street level (labeled as for the Thwing Center); it is less than 50 yards from that exit to the library entrance. You can get from the Severance garage to the library without going outside. Near the entry gates – just to the right if you were driving out – there is a door into a corridor. Walk down the corridor and there will be another door. Beyond that door you’ll find the entrance to an elevator which goes up to an entrance right inside the doors to Kelvin Smith Library.

Schedule of Friday Lunch Upcoming Topics and Speakers:

March 3: Staffing and Organizing the Trump Presidency. With David B. Cohen, Ph.D., Professor of Political Science, University of Akron.

March 10: Nuclear Weapons. With William J. Fickinger, Ph.D., Emeritus Professor of Physics.

March 17: No program, Spring Break.

March 24: Energy Storage: A Key to Sustainability. With Daniel A. Scherson, Ph.D., Frank Hovorka Professor of Chemistry and Director, Ernest B. Yeager Center for Electrochemical Sciences.

March 31: Merkel’s Challenge: Managing Trump, Putin, and a Million Syrians. With Mark K. Cassell, Ph.D., Professor of Political Science, Kent State University.

April 7: Program to be Determined

April 14: Brazil’s Political Crises. With Juscelino F. Colares, Ph.D., Schott-Van den Eyden Professor of Business Law and Associate Director, Frederick K. Cox International Law Center.

April 21: Program to be Determined

April 28: Putin’s Russia. With Kelly M. McMann, Ph.D., Associate Professor of Political Science and Director, International Studies Program.