07 January 2003

Like Son

It is a hell of a morning. The wind is cutting like a knife, cold and committed to the new year. The dawn is crisp and businesslike.

Colin Powell looked dubious last night, but the last pillar of the Axis of Evil announced that it was going to halt its nuclear weapons program. Not that I believe the Koreans for an instant, but it is still disconcerting to think that the Axis has caved in and simultaneously decided to beat their swords into plowshares. The capture of Saddam seems to have got the attention of Col Kaddaffy and the Dear Leader.

Maybe it is victory, of a sort. But the peace part is what has to come next and of course we are not there. Not yet.

A friend of mine out on the Coast launched an electronic missile at me last night. She was outraged at the intrusive nature of the travel restrictions that came with Condition Orange, and the notion that we are so divorced from common sense that we are suspicious of the very heart of our society, our mothers.

I wrote her and said she had put her finger directly on the crux of the issue.

What we are doing is absurd. But there are reasons.

I finished a take-away sandwich while waiting for a train at King's Cross Station in London a couple years ago. I looked for a wastebasket. I looked in vain. Odd, I thought, until I remembered that trash containers were one of the favorite places the IRA used to place bombs. The British are a tidy people, and places to put litter in crowded public places were ubiquitous.

Not anymore. That is the root of the terror tactic. Making the familiar strange. Denying you a sense of community and comfort. The attacks on restaurants and supermarkets in Israel are

The case in point. Making the familiar seem ominous.

Right here in town two men- one very young- nearly paralyzed this great city with a blue Impala and a single-shot rifle last summer. They commented on it at my younger son's graduation, how it changed all of their Senior years.

There also was a bit of information that was briefly discussed in the media and then popped like a soap bubble. The bad guys have apparently been recruiting hard for non-middle eastern appearing candidates for operations. They liked Jose Padillo, an ex gang-member also known as Abdullah al Muhajir. They sent him to Chicago to see if he could cobble together a radioactive "dirty bomb."

The Chechnyans and Palestinians have aggressively moved to non-stereotypical terrorists for bombing missions and have a small corps of women who are willing to make the ultimate sacrifice. Several have done so spectacularly. The key is to take away the familiar, and make everything strange..

I saw an interview with an international security consultant who said the bad guys are pioneering new tactics. He said some of them might use the all-concealing female outer garment- the burka- to conceal weapons and get close to targets. There is an institutional reluctance to intrude on woman's privacy under that mandatory concealment in some fundamentalist countries. He said the tactic was in fact pioneered by Israeli Commandos on an operational mission against Palestinian terrorists several years ago.

So that is why the officials entrusted with our security are casting a gimlet eye on us. I completely agree with you. I was once subjected to the full search while holding a valid U.S. Diplomatic Passport and an active-duty military ID card. I did not view myself as a likely terrorist, but submitted to the search anyway.

My son called from college last night. We talked about the final football polls. We had spent a disconsolate evening watching our team get pummeled in the Rose Bowl. Two of our three losses came out west this season. I believe we should never play another game on the West Coast. My son said we wound up ranked # 6 in the AP and Coaches poll, behind Ohio State (who we beat solidly) and 4th in the BCS, the much reviled system that brought us the split championship. C'est la guerre.

Next year.

He drove back up to school with a couple other kids from Northern Virginia to start the Winter Term. He had not called just to chit-chat. He had good news and a challenge. The good news was that he had been picked up for an alternate slot at one of the big intelligence organizations in town. The Agency has a special intern program that gives college kids an opportunity to see what the business is like, the reality of living in the secret world. It is a great experience. Based on a successful background investigation, the kids are granted interim security clearances and actually do real analytic or systems work. If they do well and the work appeals to them, they are good prospects for full-time employment after graduation.

Nothing is a sure thing. He didn't make the "definite" list, but as an alternate, if any of the primary candidates opt out, he could get a chance at starting in the family business. I am proud that he is interested in trying it out.

Having a clearance is the quid pro quo for this town. People normally get them by Federal service, since that is the only institution that can grant them. The easiest way to do that is to join the military like I did long ago, when dinosaurs ruled the earth. That was the entrée into the secretive intelligence community. This combines the prospect of both serving your country and having a job, a powerful combination.

But it comes with a cost. He was informed by e-mail that he had to fill out what is known as a "Standard Form 86." The SF-86 is the vehicle by which the Defense Investigative Service or its contractors conduct background investigations. The results of the investigation are what they base the decision on whether to give you a clearance.

My son got the form on-line. He was bemused by it. I didn't tell him how awful it was in the old days, feeding the sheets into a typewriter, trying to line up the keys in the little boxes. But it was the first day of classes and he was tired and since he was an alternate, he had to turn it around quickly. He called three times for information. The government asks a lot of questions. Who knows you, who will vouch for you, who your folks are and what your finances look like. He was bemused by it. Social security number, where you were born. It is a little overwhelming, and as you type the information into the form you realize that someone is going to be crawling over your life, asking questions.

It is not as bad as a polygraph, but it is the first step toward that. We'll see how it works out. I will be looking for the gumshoes to come around for an interview.

If not, he can always go back to managing the pool at the Country Club. But it is almost time to be done with college and start into the wide world.

Maybe that is why he sounded a little frustrated. I get that way myself, though I long ago stopped worrying about who was asking questions about me. Our lives are open books. It is just a question of who gets to open them.

Like father, like son.