Former CIA director Leon Panetta clashed with the agency over his hard-hitting memoir "Worthy Fights," and let the publisher start making copies before he'd gotten the final OK from the agency, an apparent violation of a secrecy agreement, The Washington Post reports.
The memoir was ultimately approved by the CIA's Publications Review Board before it hit store shelves this month, and though the rush to publish was legally risky, the CIA appears not to be pursuing the matter,
the newspaper reports.
The Post also reports that the road to publication was rife with fights between Panetta and the CIA, and that the former director was so frustrated with delays and demands for redactions that he appealed to CIA Director John Brennan – and then threatened to go ahead even without agency clearance.
"It was contentious," an unnamed former U.S. official told The Post.
Yet the CIA's apparent decision not to pursue the potential violation posed by Panetta's quick publication could make the agency's ability to negotiate with other tell-all authors tough, The Post reports.
"If he doesn't follow the specific protocols, then why should there be any expectation for anybody underneath him to do so?" Mark Zaid, a Washington lawyer who has handled cases involving authors and the CIA's review board, told the newspaper.
The Post notes the Obama administration has aggressively reacted to others accused of violating secrecy agreements, including the former Navy SEAL who bypassed the CIA and Pentagon in publishing
"No Easy Day: The Firsthand Account of the Mission That Killed Osama Bin Laden," his tale of the operation to kill terror leader Osama bin Laden.
As defense secretary, Panetta publicly scolded ex-SEAL
Matt Bissonnette, and the Pentagon sued him to recover book proceeds. The legal fight remains unresolved, The Post reports.
The newspaper also notes that a federal judge recently ruled in the CIA's favor against a former officer who, under the pseudonym Ishmael Jones, had submitted a book critical of the agency and published it without permission.
At the time, Panetta issued a news release saying that "CIA officers are duty-bound to observe the terms of their secrecy agreement with the agency," The Post reports.
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