Stay Out of Trouble by Not Speaking to Western Spies
by Robert Fisk
Almost 30 years ago, a British diplomat asked me to lunch in Beirut.
Despite rumours to the contrary, she told me on the phone, she was not a spy but a mere attaché, wanting only to chat about the future of Lebanon. These were kidnapping days in the Lebanese capital, when to be seen with the wrong luncheon companion could finish in a basement in south Beirut. I trusted this woman. I was wrong. She arrived with two armed British bodyguards who sat at the next table. Within minutes of sitting down at a fish restaurant in the cliff-top Raouche district, she started plying me with questions about Hezbollah's armaments in southern Lebanon. I stood up and walked out. Hezbollah had two men at another neighbouring table. They called on me next morning. No problem, they said, they saw me walk out. But watch out.
Ever since this woman lied to me - more than two years later, her relative told me she was frightened by her line of work as an intelligence agent - I have avoided Western embassies throughout the world. With the exception of Irish, Swedish and Norwegian diplomats whom I know, you will find me at no Western missions anywhere. And I have never been kidnapped. But about the same time as this deceit was practised on me by the British embassy, the Iranians published in book form their massive, incredible volumes of US secret files from the American embassy in Iran. Students had spent years since the 1979 Islamic revolution painstakingly sticking together the shredded diplomatic cables to Washington from the US mission in Tehran. The Americans seized every copy taken to the US - these were the glorious pre-internet days of paper - but I bought the set and still have the lot in Beirut.
And, lo and behold, one of them is attaché Bruce Laingen's conclusion (13 August 1979) that "the Persian psyche is an overriding egoism ... The practical effect of it is an almost total Persian preoccupation with self and leaves little room for understanding points of view other than one's own". I read that and reported it to The Times almost 30 years ago. And then up pops the very same cable on WikiLeaks, breathlessly highlighted by The New York Times and its dwarf the International Herald Tribune, as if this is an extraordinary scoop. There is - as usual - no human memory at The New York Times. Sorry, the Iranians got there first. And this week, aware that the documents may contain the names of hapless journalists who blurted out their knowledge to the "defence" attachés of Western embassies in the Middle East, I was happy to know I absolutely could not be among them.
It was fascinating, though, to watch Hillary Clinton initially denouncing the WikiLeaks flood as an "attack on the international community". She twice warned journalists that they might also find their names in the embassy cables - so no more bleating about freedom of the press when WikiLeaks might betray the warriors of the media. It was even more intriguing to watch the effect. No sooner had La Clinton refused to confirm that the 250,000 perfectly genuine documents were real - she called them "alleged documents" - than the BBC lady piped up with a question, also referring to the "alleged documents"; as if the story the BBC had been leading with on the hour, every hour, for the past 24 hours might be a hoax. Al-Jazeera, alas, caught the same bug later.
...
http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/fisk/robert-fisk-stay-out-of-trouble-by-not-speaking-to-western-spies-2163651.html
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