Arkin, who served in Army intelligence from 1974 to 1978 and is skilled at navigating classified files, was a very effective spy for the Soviets and Cubans during the Cold War before he discovered he could earn more money with less career risk working for leftists in the U.S. intelligence community; so yes, it’s likely he’s supporting an agenda here by distributing a strategic leak on behalf of his anonymous “source”. Arkin got his start at the Center for Defense Information (CDI: for a detailed discussion, see William Poole’s 1979 article, “The Anti-Defense Lobby Part 1: Center for Defense Information”: https://www.heritage.org/defense/report/the-anti-defense-lobby-part-1-center-defense-information; James Tyson’s later “Target America” and S. Steven Powell’s IPS expose “Covert Cadre” also have some useful information). CDI was an IPS project financed by the Fund for Peace, then being directed by left-wing financier Charles Stewart Mott, who was sort of a poorer version of George Soros and one of the deep pockets behind the Eugene McCarthy and George McGovern Presidential campaigns. CDI was cofounded by Gene La Rocque, a Naval officer who threw his support to Soviet-sponsored antiwar groups aligned with John Kerry’s VVAW upon his retirement in 1972; and Eugene Carroll, who remained a Naval officer until 1980. CDI’s partners included the World Peace Council, a prominent Soviet front. In collaboration with CDI and other left-wing groups, Arkin headed an IPS project called the Arms Race and Nuclear Weapons Research Project, which lobbied against funding for projects the Soviets didn’t want the U.S. building, such as the B-1 bomber and SDI. Toward this end, Arkin leaked classified material to Leslie Gelb of Pentagon Papers fame, revealing locations of U.S. military installations. The Reagan administration wanted to prosecute him for this; but after stints at left-wing fronts such as Greenpeace, the Bulletin for Atomic Scientists, and Human Rights Watch, he got picked up by NBC during the Clinton administration, leading to his current work for Newsweek as a conduit of leaks from select FBI sources.
PS: Arkin’s collaborator on the above, Richard Fieldhouse, got a position on the staff of Carl Levin and leveraged it into work for the Senate Armed Services Committee; today he runs a company called Insight Strategies, LLC that operates in the DC area.
PS: Arkin’s collaborator on the above, Richard Fieldhouse, got a position on the staff of Carl Levin and leveraged it into work for the Senate Armed Services Committee; today he runs a company called Insight Strategies, LLC that operates in the DC area.
Correction: I mentioned Charles Stewart Mott, but I was actually referring to his son Stewart R. Mott (Stewart Rawlings Mott), who was bankrolled by a fund named after his father.