Trices Group Book Review Journal

Inside

Smith, Ivian C.

by:

Nelson Current

Publisher:

Location:

2004

Andrew Newman Design (Corbis)

Cover:

Paperback

Type:

Lynard Barnes

reviewed by:

01/12/2005

Comment:

Excellent perspective on FLE

One from the suits.

If you have read some of the books reviewed in this journal concerning the FBI and other federal law enforcement agencies, you have encountered "the suits" complaint. Loosely, "the suits" are the management bureaucracy responsible for decision-making–or lack of decision making–in federal law enforcement agencies. The complaint is often that "the suits" do not know law enforcement "on the streets", are more a hindrance than help to the men and women on the street, and that they are generally incompetent, self-promoting opportunists. I. C. Smith, as a former Special Agent In Charge in the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), does nothing to dispel the complaints, but, as a suit, he has a few complaints of his own–about "the suits".

An aside here: in reading books on the subject of law enforcement and intelligence gathering, it is impossible to lay aside even for a moment the fact that some 3,000 people died on American soil on September 11, 2001 in a horrific act of terrorism. The consequence of that memory is that it is impossible to read an autobiography of someone involved in law enforcement or intelligence and not ask, what did you do leading up to 9-11? Invariably, there is no suspense in getting an answer. The answer is always immediate and crystal clear: a finger fact, a finger opinion, a finger conjecture raised and pointed at someone else. This is not a condemnation of those who point fingers, but merely recognition that doing so serves no erstwhile purpose other than to salvage an ego. A variation of the finger-pointing tactic is the sage advice tactic–same result, same effect.

INSIDE is really a good read. You must get pass the federal career travelog in order to get to the significant material, but the journey is worth it. To be fair of course, that travelog is background to establish credentials as well as inform. Then there is the Clinton-bashing. Was William Jefferson Clinton, forty-second President of the United State, really "one who compromised for personal political gain"? At the risk of going off on an entirely different subject, we can toss in a few names like Richard Milhouse Nixon, Lyndon Baines Johnson, Franklin and Theodore Roosevelt, and Abraham Lincoln, and then ask, What's your point? As America matures as a nation-state, its citizenry seems more inclined to elect nation-Priests rather than citizen-leaders as President. But we digress.

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Ivian C. Smith joined the FBI in May 1973 and would retire in July 1998. He grew up in Ouachita Parish, Louisiana, and spent "four years, one month, and twenty-seven days" in the U.S. Navy. He joined the Monroe Police Department and went to college at night. Upon graduation from Northeast Louisiana State College (University of Louisiana at Monroe) he applied for and was accepted into the FBI. He states that the FBI he joined in 1973 had a "blue-collar work ethic".

In October 1995, Smith was transferred to Little Rock, Arkansas as Special Agent in Charge (SAC) where he guided the state FBI into corruption investigations. It is from this vantage point that the last two-thirds of book are written. He goes into detail regarding the working relationship between the FBI and the U. S. Attorney's Office. In pursuing corruption investigations in Arkansas, I.C. Smith ran up against, for lack of a more appropriate phrase, the American political-legal system.

Starting with the investigation of a local sheriff who engaged in shakedown and extortions of various sorts to the CAMPCON campaign finance investigation in December 1996 and hoovering closely around the Whitewater investigation which looked into a Clinton real estate deal which occurred some twenty years before, I.C. Smith was involved at some level. He expertly discusses the three-corner junction at which law enforcement, legal prosecution and politics meet. His examination is convoluted but precise. After testifying before a Senate committee looking at campaign finance corruption, Smith concludes that ". . .as long as there are those who believe they have the right to govern, and that to govern they must win at any cost even if it means lying and cheating, the assault [on the political process of this country] will continue."

There is something missing form Smith's assessment of "the assault" on the American political process, though the foundation for his assessment is absolutely correct–the atmosphere from the top that says anything goes in advancement of the "greater cause". From the top down, he cites instances in which individuals were willing to compromise ethics in order to keep their jobs. An Assistant U. S. Attorney does not pursue a prosecution because higher ups do not want it; an investigative task force committee-walks its way through the investigation because higher ups do not want the investigation. In these and other instances, Smith cites what he did to at least raise the issue of ethics. His efforts, for the most part, were met with silence by those above him, the exception being the memorandum he wrote eventually resulting in his call to testify before the Senate committee looking at campaign finance corruption.

Accountability and consequences. In the American political-legal system, it is the politician–the higher ups–who are accountable for both the political and legal machinery that governs the day to day lives of the American people. Ultimately it is the American people themselves who are both responsible and accountable. From this perspective, I.C. Smith's assessment of "the assault" on the American political process is only partially correct. The men and women who run for political office should have ethical standards which embrace and uphold legality. Some do, some don't. Odds are greater than you will have more of the latter than the former because some who are active in the political arena feel that they are "on a mission of higher purposes". Checks and balances. What Smith leaves out of his assessment is the complacency of the American people toward the origins of the billions of dollars poured into the political arena to get politicians elected. He also leaves out a question or two on the ethics of the political appointees and entrenched bureaucrats embedded in the government legal machinery who simply "go-along" to "get-along".

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One of the ethical fights Smith hints at in the book is a skirmish he had with FBI headquarters over its mandate to devote resources to counter-terrorism. At the time, Smith's FBI office was knee-deep in Arkansas political corruption cases among others. He states that the communications from the Terrorism Section at FBI HQS "demanded that I divert resources . . .into nonexistent domestic terrorism investigations just to justify paying for domestic terrorism resources that had been budgeted without field office input." It was at this point that he started thinking about retirement. It was not the only reason.

There was an ongoing FBI Office of Professional Responsibility (OPR), investigation underway involving Smith. He was accused of opening an insurance fraud investigation in retaliation against a suspect who had accused one of his FBI agents of compromising an ATF operation. SAC Smith relates this story over several chapters. The particulars you may read for yourself, but you will note that it seems a common thread in books written by former federal law enforcement officers that, somewhere in their careers, they cross paths with OPR. Makes you wonder whether anyone will ever write a book about the books–there may be something to the thread.

With over twenty years experience in federal law enforcement, Smith has formed some pretty straightforward opinions which, surprisingly, are not that much different from others who have written about the bureaucratization of federal enforcement agencies.

There is a hint–just a hint–that Smith adheres to a belief that there were some "good ole days" when integrity, ethics and ability counted more than having friends in high places when it came to law enforcement and career advancement. The history of federal law enforcement indicates something different. However, starting with the U. S. Marshals Service in 1789, to the Pinkerton Detective Agency and White House Police in 1860 which morphed into the U. S. Secret Service in 1922, the United States has been extraordinarily fortunate in fielding law enforcement officers acutely aware of their place in a democratic society. But the bureaucratization of federal enforcement agencies has created an insular world in which these same men and women are required to serve two masters–the democratic society of which they are a part and the bureaucratic empire in which they must work to get a paycheck. The middle-management level of these agencies is filled with men and women whose primary function is to serve the empire, not the people. Smith phrases it a bit differently, stating, "There has developed in senior leadership the ability to surround themselves with self-serving sycophants who tell them what they want to hear and duck the responsibility of providing true and accurate advice. Decision-making was largely driven on the basis of career considerations, not advancing an investigation, not on what is in the best interest of the FBI."

The "suits" of the street agents are, apparently, in the words of I. C. Smith, "empty suits" to some of the "suits" themselves. And it goes on.

Read INSIDE. Not earthshaking, but informative and very well structured.

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