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Secret C.I.A. Site in New York Was Destroyed on Sept. 11
NYT (Registration Required) ^ | 11/04/2001 | JAMES RISEN

Posted on 11/03/2001 3:18:24 PM PST by VA Advogado

Secret C.I.A. Site in New York Was Destroyed on Sept. 11

By JAMES RISEN

WASHINGTON, Nov. 3 — The Central Intelligence Agency's clandestine New York station was destroyed in the Sept. 11 attack on the World Trade Center, seriously disrupting United States intelligence operations while bringing the war on terrorism dangerously close to home for America's spy agency, government officials say.

The C.I.A.'s undercover New York station was in the 47-story building at 7 World Trade Center, one of the smaller office towers destroyed in the aftermath of the collapse of the twin towers that morning. All of the agency's employees at the site were safely evacuated soon after the hijacked planes hit the twin towers, the officials said.

The intelligence agency's employees were able to watch from their office windows while the twin towers burned just before they evacuated their own building.

Immediately after the attack, the C.I.A. dispatched a special team to scour the rubble in search of secret documents and intelligence reports that had been stored in the New York station, either on paper or in computers, officials said. It could not be learned whether the agency was successful in retrieving its classified records from the wreckage.

A C.I.A. spokesman declined to comment.

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The agency's New York station was behind the false front of another federal organization, which intelligence officials requested that The Times not identify. The station was, among other things, a base of operations to spy on and recruit foreign diplomats stationed at the United Nations, while debriefing selected American business executives and others willing to talk to the C.I.A. after returning from overseas.

The agency's officers in New York often work undercover, posing as diplomats and business executives, among other things, depending on the nature of their intelligence operations.

The recovery of secret documents and other records from the New York station should follow well-rehearsed procedures laid out by the agency after the Iranian takeover of the United States Embassy in Tehran in 1979. The revolutionaries took over the embassy so rapidly that the C.I.A. station was not able to effectively destroy all of its documents, and the Iranians were later able to piece together shredded agency reports. Since that disaster, the agency has emphasized rigorous training and drills among its employees on how to quickly and effectively destroy and dispose of important documents in emergencies.

As a result, a C.I.A. station today should be able to protect most of its secrets even in the middle of a catastrophic disaster like the Sept. 11 attacks, said one former agency official. "If it was well run, there shouldn't be too much paper around," the former official said.

The agency's New York officers have been deeply involved in counterterrorism efforts in the New York area, working jointly with the Federal Bureau of Investigation and other agencies. Many of the most important counterterrorism cases of the last few years, including the bureau's criminal investigations of the August 1998 bombings of two United States embassies in East Africa and the October 2000 bombing of the U.S.S. Cole in Yemen have been handled out of New York.

The United States has accused Osama bin Laden and his Al Qaeda terrorist network of conducting both of those attacks.

But United States intelligence officials stress that there is no evidence that the hijackers knew that the undercover station was in the World Trade Center complex.

With their undercover station in ruins, C.I.A. officers in New York have been forced to share space at the United States Mission to the United Nations, as well as borrow other federal government offices in the city, officials said. The C.I.A.'s plans for finding a new permanent station in New York could not be determined.

The agency is prohibited from conducting domestic espionage operations against Americans, but the agency maintains stations in a number of major United States cities, where C.I.A. case officers try to meet and recruit students and other foreigners to return to their countries and spy for the United States. The New York station, which has been led by its first female station chief for the last year, is believed to have been the largest and most important C.I.A. domestic station outside the Washington area.

The station has for years played an important role in espionage operations against Russian intelligence officers, many of whom work undercover as diplomats at the United Nations. Agency officers in New York often work with the F.B.I. to recruit and then help manage foreign agents spying for the United States. The bureau's New York office, at 26 Federal Plaza, was unaffected by the terrorist attack.

The destruction of the C.I.A.'s New York station has added to the intense emotions shared by many of its employees about the agency's role in the battle against terrorism. For some, the station's destruction served to underscore the failure of United States intelligence to predict the attacks.

In the immediate aftermath of the attacks, morale suffered badly within the C.I.A., some officials said, as the agency began to confront what critics have called an intelligence failure on the scale of Pearl Harbor.

But the terrorist attacks have also brought an urgent new sense of mission to the agency, which has been flooded with job applications as well as inquiries from former officers eager to return to work. Congress is pouring money into the agency's counterterrorism operations, and the C.I.A. seems poised to begin focusing its resources on terrorism in much the same way it once focused on the Soviet Union in the cold war.

The attacks were not the first in which the C.I.A. was directly touched by terrorists. In 1983, seven agency officers died in the suicide car bombing of the United States Embassy in Beirut. Among the others killed was the agency's station chief in Lebanon, William Buckley, who died in captivity after being kidnapped by terrorists in 1984, and Richard Welch, the agency's Athens station chief, who was shot to death by Greek terrorists in 1975.


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To: VA Advogado
Well, I'll give you the benefit of the doubt, and a half-hearted apology; however, I would suggest in the future that you don't wait until post #13 to explain that you were just kidding in post #6.

I don't mean to be hard on you, but understand, there are liberals lurking around here just waiting to seize on stuff like this in order to broadbrush all of us as racists, etc. etc.

Going back to my cave now....

21 posted on 11/03/2001 4:04:30 PM PST by yooper
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To: pa_dweller
user - unknownnews

pwd - unknown

Sounds like the universal user name for some of their reporters.

22 posted on 11/03/2001 4:06:05 PM PST by VA Advogado
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To: yooper; MindBender26
Going back to my cave now....

LOL ok. Friends.

23 posted on 11/03/2001 4:07:00 PM PST by VA Advogado
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To: VA Advogado
I always get yelled at.......:(:(:(
24 posted on 11/03/2001 4:10:37 PM PST by classygreeneyedblonde
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To: VA Advogado
The intelligence agency's employees were able to watch from their office windows while the twin towers burned just before they evacuated their own building...

... while they asked each other why no one saw this coming.

25 posted on 11/03/2001 4:12:02 PM PST by CubicleGuy
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To: max61
My cousin was in Tower 7. She allegedly works for the SEC. After reading this article, I'm starting to doubt that :-)

She did make it out OK.

26 posted on 11/03/2001 4:12:03 PM PST by rightisright
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To: CIApilot
I'd be willing to bet most terrorists know this station was there.

I think you may be giving them too much credit. I'm sure foreign intelligence agencies knew it was there, but these camel jockey terrorists aren't really into the intelligence business.

In any event, I don't think it was targeted. This was one of the adjacent buildings and the terrorists couldn't be sure that it would be damaged. They certainly didn't target Langley, and that would have been the most obvious target if they were going for our CIA capabilities.

27 posted on 11/03/2001 4:12:34 PM PST by Dog Gone
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To: VA Advogado
Go and sin no more, my son. All is forgiven. (
28 posted on 11/03/2001 4:12:36 PM PST by MindBender26
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To: VA Advogado
Hopefully, the tailor shop that serves as the secret entrance to the world headquarters of the United Network Command for Law and Enforcement remains standing...
29 posted on 11/03/2001 4:13:49 PM PST by CubicleGuy
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To: classygreeneyedblonde
I always get yelled at.......:(:(:(

We're yelling at you with love in our voices.

30 posted on 11/03/2001 4:14:55 PM PST by Dog Gone
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To: CubicleGuy
Hopefully, the tailor shop that serves as the secret entrance to the world headquarters of the United Network Command for Law and Enforcement remains standing...

You are in SUCH big trouble.

31 posted on 11/03/2001 4:15:43 PM PST by Dog Gone
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To: VA Advogado
Actually, it's a real site. unknownnews.

Some good stuff there but, be warned, lots of barf alert too!

32 posted on 11/03/2001 4:16:29 PM PST by pa_dweller
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To: Dog Gone
You are in SUCH big trouble.

Why?

Surely, there are no agents for THRUSH posting here...

33 posted on 11/03/2001 4:18:29 PM PST by CubicleGuy
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To: Dog Gone
awwwwwwwwwwww then go ahead and yell.......:)
34 posted on 11/03/2001 4:22:23 PM PST by classygreeneyedblonde
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To: Cicero
I wonder if the fourth plane was heading for . . . Langley.

Wouldn't that be a kick in the head -- they knew it was a plot on the drawing table.

35 posted on 11/03/2001 4:26:28 PM PST by Ironword
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To: MindBender26; VA Advogado; yooper
VA, I thought your #6 was LOL funny, and I assumed it was said sarcastically, not seriously. Guess I have a warped sense of humor as well?
36 posted on 11/03/2001 4:43:04 PM PST by Amelia
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To: Ironword
I dunno, but it does lead you to wonder whether the CIA should have so many assets in one big complex right in plain sight.
37 posted on 11/03/2001 4:43:31 PM PST by Cicero
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To: Amelia
VA, I thought your #6 was LOL funny, and I assumed it was said sarcastically, not seriously. Guess I have a warped sense of humor as well?

Amelia, its always a little scary to find someone that thinks like me. :)

38 posted on 11/03/2001 4:46:48 PM PST by VA Advogado
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To: max61
I know all the employees of the Commodity Exchange Control Commission got out alive (I have a cousin who works for them in Washington, and that's what he tells me.) I know the SEC spaces were destroyed. I wonder if everybody survived.

. The federal agency for which I work in D.C. now puts all documents on computer, and everything is backed up off site. I'd be very surprised if that had not been true of the federal agencies in the WTC and adjoining buildings.

39 posted on 11/03/2001 4:48:28 PM PST by aristeides
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To: Amelia
Warped sense of humor, and huge dedication, may needed to get us all through next 24 months.
40 posted on 11/03/2001 4:53:48 PM PST by MindBender26
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