The EconomistAugust 3rd 2019 United States 351F
or decadesAmerica’s top intelligence
official, responsible for assessing and
co-ordinating information from the coun-
try’s multiple intelligence agencies, was
the Director of Central Intelligence, who
also headed the cia. Many had qualms
about this arrangement. Running an agen-
cy as large and complex as the ciawas a for-
midable job in its own right; combining it
with cross-government information as-
sessment and being the president’s chief
intelligence analyst was somewhere be-
tween unwieldy and impossible.
Those misgivings grew after the Sep-
tember 11th attacks, and the 9/11 Commis-
sion recommended creating a Director of
National Intelligence (dni) to head an of-
fice focused solely on intelligence co-ordi-
nation and reducing bureaucratic barriers
to sharing intelligence.
The job is something of a poisoned chal-
ice. It combines tremendous responsibility
with scant authority. America has 16 differ-
ent intelligence agencies (not including
the dni’s office); the dni cannot order
them to do anything. Except for the cia, the
heads of those agencies all report to other
bosses—the defence agencies to the de-
fence secretary, the fbichief to the attor-
ney-general, and so forth. The dni’s task is
to give the president honest intelligence
assessments, even if they are not what he
wants to hear.
Dan Coats did that. He defended the as-
sessment that Russia interfered in the 2016
election, even as Donald Trump publicly
accepted Vladimir Putin’s denial. He testi-
fied that Islamic State, which Mr Trump
claims to have defeated, remains capable
of causing harm in Syria. For such sins, his
relationship with Mr Trump suffered; he
will step down on August 15th.
Mr Trump intends to replace him with
John Ratcliffe, a conservative congressman
from Texas, who has, in the words of Mike
Morell, a former deputy ciadirector, “the
least national security experience and the
most partisan political experience of any
previous dni”. He was mayor of a small
town in Texas for eight years, served briefly
as interim usattorney for the Eastern Dis-
trict of Texas (the district’s lead federal
prosecutor), and is in his third term in the
House of Representatives and first on the
Intelligence Committee.
By contrast, Mr Coats spent 24 years in
Congress, was ambassador to Germany and
nearly became George W. Bush’s defencesecretary.Hispredecessor,JamesClapper,
rantwointelligenceagenciesandoversaw
fourasundersecretaryofdefenceforintel-
ligence.Thefirst dni, JohnNegroponte,
spent 37 yearsintheforeignservicebefore
servingasAmerica’sfirstpost-Saddamam-
bassadortoIraq.
ButwhatMrRatcliffelacksinexperi-
encehemakesupforindevotiontoMr
Trump.MrRatcliffefalselyaccusedRobert
Mueller,duringhiscongressionaltestimo-
ny,ofhavingexceededhisbriefasspecial
counsel.He propounded theconspiracy
theorythat“theremayhavebeena secret
society”offederalagentsworkingagainst
MrTrump.TheNewYorkTimesuncovered
embellishmentstohisbiography,includ-
ingoneclaimthathe“arrested 300 illegal
aliensina singleday”(prosecutorsdonot
havepowersofarrest),andanotherthathe
“convictedindividualsfunnellingmoney
toHamas”(hedidnot).
Mr Ratcliffe’s nomination is not as-
sured.EarlierthisyearMrTrumptriedto
nominatetwounqualifiedpartisans,Ste-
phenMooreandHermanCain,totheFed-
eral Reserve’s board of governors; both
withdrewtheirnamesbecausetheylacked
enoughcongressionalsupport.Atleasta
few Republican senators may similarly
quailathandinga difficult,non-partisan
jobtoa lightlyqualifiedpolitician.
Yet just thefloating of MrRatcliffe’s
name highlights the contempt that Mr
TrumphasforAmerica’sintelligenceser-
vices.HesaysMrRatcliffe’sjobwouldbeto
“rein...in” the intelligence services that
have“runamok”,by whichheseems to
meanthattheyofferedviewsthatdisplease
him.Thatisworrying;someofAmerica’s
greatest foreign-policy debacles have
stemmedfrompoliticisedintelligence. 7WASHINGTON, DC
Donald Trump may install a loyalist as
America’s top intelligence officialAmerican intelligenceShame the devil
I
t was the dust that he hated most.
Clouds in the high, thin, South Dakotan
air, that choked him as he dangled in a har-
ness on the mountainside. The men wield-
ed jackhammers, drilling holes so sticks of
dynamite could be pressed into the rock.
Then, as they retreated on a president’s
head—for a lunch of meatloaf sandwiches,
if lucky—fuses fizzed and granite blasted
off below. Few bothered with masks, except
when the boss, Gutzon Borglum, came on
site. One man snipped a hole in his to let
him smoke as he drilled. In any case the
damned particles got “into your eyes, ears,hair,noseandworstofall your throat.”
From 1938 to 1940 Nick Clifford was on
Mount Rushmore, first as dogsbody and
wood-chopper, then as labourer and
winchman. Signed up before he was a man,
he suspected they sought out his baseball
skills. The chief’s son loved the game and
his weekend team needed a pitcher. In the
week he enjoyed winching best. For that
you perched on one or other president’s
skull, taking in a grand view of the Black
Hills, and moved others’ harnesses into
place. Hourly pay was good for the tail end
of the Depression: 50 cents, rising to a
heady $1.25 for a skilled sculptor. Work
stopped in winter. No one got overtime.
Some 400 men were on site at some
point or other from 1927 to 1941. They blast-
ed 450,000 tons of granite, so the sculptors
could reveal the four presidents within. Re-
markably no one was killed, despite explo-
sions twice daily, dropped tools, accidents
with winches and one terrifying time when
the “bucket”—a contraption that hoisted
men and gear to the mountain top—hur-
tled, unrestrained, back to earth. A few died
fairly soon afterwards. The wife of one
worker suspected silicosis, perhaps wors-
ened by heavy smoking habits.
Mr Clifford didn’t light up. At 98, the last
surviving worker remains relatively hale
and won’t retire. Three days each week he
attends to visitors at the monument’s gift
shop. Always in blue denim shirt and pale
baseball cap, he poses for photographs, al-
though Carolyn, his wife, confides he hates
cameras. “I couldn’t be better,” he says, but
he declines even handshakes from chil-
dren or much conversation. The inquisi-
tive are told all their questions have already
been answered in his book, on sale for $12.
It includes a baseball card.
Most wonder about prosaic matters.
Was it hard toil? (Yes.) Was he scared, sway-MOUNT RUSHMORE
The last driller of Mount RushmoreNick CliffordLessons from stone
Looks on my works