The Journal News by Richard Lardner
December 26, 2007
Michael G. Vickers, assistant secretary of defense for special operations/low-intensity conflict and interdependent capabilities, speaks in a November interview at the Pentagon.
With his owlish glasses and nasally voice, Mike Vickers isn't Hollywood's version of an international man of mystery. Yet this ex-Green Beret and former CIA agent engineered the clandestine arming of Afghan rebels who drove the Soviet Union out of their country nearly a quarter century ago in what was the largest covert action in the spy agency's history. The critical role Vickers played gets only modest attention in "Charlie Wilson's War," a movie about former Democratic Rep. Charlie Wilson of Texas, a Scotch guzzling playboy whose backroom scheming plunged the United States into the risky venture against the world's other superpower. The movie opens today. Vickers is played by Christopher Denham.
Unlike Wilson, who retired from Congress in 1996, Vickers remains deeply involved in secret programs. Now the Pentagon's top special operations official, Vickers advises Defense Secretary Robert Gates on counterterrorism missions around the world, manages the budget for U.S. commando forces and mediates the inevitable disputes among the generals over the best way to track down the enemy. In 1984, at age 31, Vickers was selected for the Afghan assignment despite his rookie status at the agency. His patron, a rogue CIA manager named Gust Avrakotos, recognized his talent for conducting guerrilla warfare. "Just lucky breaks," Vickers said in a recent interview.
Using his Green Beret training, Vickers transformed the Afghan resistance into a serious campaign that became the Soviet Union's Vietnam. As the war chest supplied by Wilson grew to hundreds of millions of dollars, Vickers delivered an increasingly more sophisticated arsenal to the Afghans: Russian AK-47 assault rifles with million of rounds of ammunition, rocket-propelled grenades and, eventually, U.S.-made Stinger missiles to down the deadly Soviet helicopters. The Soviets spent a decade battling the determined mujahedeen before pulling the battered Red Army from Afghanistan in 1989. Two years later, its economy in shambles, the Soviet Union collapsed and the Cold War was all but over. "Nobody thought this was possible at all - to drive the Soviets out of Afghanistan," Vickers said. "People thought we could bleed them some. It was a very improbable event, but sometimes the improbable happens."
Stealthy wars always have unintended consequences, however. Following the Soviet retreat, civil wars erupted, the Taliban took hold, and the country, flush with weapons, became a safe haven for Osama bin Laden's terrorist network. Following the Sept. 11 attacks, which were carried out by terrorists trained in Afghanistan, U.S. forces would invade the country they once helped liberate.
Vickers, 54, was born in Burbank, Calif., the son of a master carpenter who once built movie sets for 20th Century Fox. In 1973, he enlisted in the Army and passed the Special Forces qualification test. When he was not parachuting from airplanes in the middle of the night, he was training with the Navy SEALs to become a combat diver. As Vickers was earning his stripes, the U.S. military was preparing for the possibility of an atomic confrontation with the Soviets during the Cold War. Vickers volunteered to be on a secret "Green Light" team that - if needed - would drop into enemy territory with a small nuclear device. Once the bomb was planted and the timer set, they would head out to sea to be picked up by submarine. In 1983, after leading a classified counterterrorism unit operating in Honduras, Vickers left the Army for the CIA, a move he attributes to the "impulsiveness of youth." Vickers earned an award for valor during the invasion of Grenada and served on an agency team sent to hunt down the radical group behind the bombing of the U.S. Embassy in Beirut, Lebanon.
Even years later, Vickers does not give too many details about these assignments. "I can't talk a lot about that," he said when asked about his tour in Honduras. The Afghan program was running smoothly enough in 1986 for Vickers to think about the future. Avrakotos and other close colleagues were soon to shift assignments and Vickers realized he probably would be moved to a new post that would be dull by comparison. "I was just turning 33, and I didn't want to slow down," he said. Vickers left the agency, earned a master's degree in business from the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School and began a brief and not-so-brilliant entrepreneurial career. By the early 1990s, Vickers was working as a military affairs consultant. Eventually he joined the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, a Washington think tank.
The Pentagon often came to him for advice when he was at the center. Two years ago, then-Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld tapped Vickers and two retired Army generals to examine how U.S. Special Operations Command in Tampa, Fla., could improve the way it was handling the fight against terrorism. In April, President Bush nominated Vickers to be the assistant secretary of defense for special operations and low-intensity conflict. Used to being in the shadows, the experience of being a character in the movie "Charlie Wilson's War" is an odd one for Vickers. With Wilson's colorful past and his CIA patron Avrakotos' fondness for four-letter words, Vickers had to assure his wife, Melana, the film's R-rating wasn't because of him. "She told me that if there were any sex scenes in the movie with a character named Mike Vickers, I'd be dead meat," he said.
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Mr. Michael G. Vickers, Assistant Secretary of Defense for Assistant Secretary of Defense for Special Operations/Low-Intensity Conflict & Interdependent Capabilities (SO/LIC&IC) - SourceWatch Bio
CURRENT ASSIGNMENTS: Michael G. (“Mike”) Vickers was confirmed by the U.S. Senate as the Assistant Secretary of Defense (Special Operations/Low-Intensity Conflict & Interdependent Capabilities) on July 23, 2007. He is the senior civilian advisor to the Secretary and Deputy Secretary of Defense on the capabilities and operational employment of special operations forces, strategic forces, and conventional forces. He is also the senior civilian advisor on counterterrorism strategy, irregular warfare, and force transformation.
PAST EXPERIENCES: Prior to his appointment as ASD (SO/LIC&IC), Mr. Vickers served as Senior Vice President, Strategic Studies, at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments (CSBA). In this capacity, Mr. Vickers provided advice on Iraq strategy to President Bush and his war cabinet. He also was a senior advisor to the 2006 Quadrennial Defense Review, and Executive Director of the QDR “Red Team,” which provided an assessment of the QDR for the Deputy Secretary and Vice Chairman. In late 2005, Mr. Vickers conducted an independent assessment of special operations forces (“The Downing Report”) for the Secretary of Defense. He is the author of numerous publications, among which is “The Revolution in War” (2004).
From 1973 to 1986, Mr. Vickers served as an Army Special Forces Non-Commissioned Officer, Special Forces Officer, and CIA Operations Officer. During this period, Mr. Vickers had operational and combat experience in Central America and the Caribbean, the Middle East, and Central and South Asia. His operational experience spans covert action and espionage, unconventional warfare, counterterrorism (including hostage rescue operations), counterinsurgency, and foreign internal defense.
During the mid-1980s, Mr. Vickers was the principal strategist for the largest covert action program in the CIA’s history: the paramilitary operation that drove the Soviet army out of Afghanistan. Mr. Vickers oversaw a major change in U.S. strategy, provided strategic and operational direction to an insurgent force of more than 300 unit commanders, 150,000 full-time fighters, and 500,000 part-time fighters, coordinated the efforts of more than ten foreign governments, and controlled an annual budget in excess of $2 billion in current dollars.
Mr. Vickers received his B.A., with honors, from the University of Alabama. He also holds an MBA from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. He is married to Melana Zyla Vickers, and has five daughters.
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