[Enchante]

If Clarke was in the Gelb-IPS circle in the '70s that certainly raises questions about possible far-left affiliations.... IPS is a truly radical, not liberal, organization. In "Against All Enemies" Richard Clarke mentions that he was an anti-war protestor in the Vietnam era. It's just a passing mention, but I find it 'interesting' that his first job out of college, long before Leslie Gelb brought him to the Dept. of State, was in the Pentagon!!! Why would a budding young leftist anti-war protestor go to work in the PENTAGON in 1973???? Suggests Clarke started out his professional life as a mole for the left??? I was in college in the late '70s, and I well recall that people who admired Ellsberg, Chomsky, et al would never be caught dead applying to work for the DOD.... unless perhaps someone wanted to take the "long march through the institutions" that 60s era radicals talked about when they plotted to "make a difference"........

"Richard Clarke was born in 1951, the son of a Pennsylvania factory worker. He studied at the Boston Latin School and graduated from the University of Pennsylvania in 1972. In 1973, he began work in the Federal Government as an employee in the Department of Defense."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_A._Clarke

[Fedora]

In "Against All Enemies" Richard Clarke mentions that he was an anti-war protestor in the Vietnam era. It's just a passing mention, but I find it 'interesting' that his first job out of college, long before Leslie Gelb brought him to the Dept. of State, was in the Pentagon!!! Why would a budding young leftist anti-war protestor go to work in the PENTAGON in 1973???? Suggests Clarke started out his professional life as a mole for the left???

Yes, that's very interesting. I wonder what antiwar groups Clarke's protests involved. At that time the VVAW and its active-duty counterpart, the GI Movement, were helping the American Friends Service Committee run an operation (which went under such names as National Action Research on the Military Industrial Complex aka NARMIC and Ad Hoc Military Buildup Committee aka AHMBC) to collect intelligence from antiwar military personnel about US military operations. Since about 1966-1967 the GI Movement had been encouraging draftees who were against the war to stay within the military and "bore from within" rather than dodging the draft.