During his first three years as CIA Director, William J. Burns led the agency to triple its resources to counter China’s understanding and mysterious alliances with Russia, Iran, and North Korea. I focused relentlessly.
But in the final 16 months of his tenure, the diplomat-turned-spy slipped back into his old ways.
During his more than 40 years at the State Department, Mr. Burns came to be seen as a master at building the “back channels” of his memoir’s title, critical aid operations invisible to allies and adversaries alike. .
As the Israel-Hamas war threatened to engulf the Middle East in an even bigger conflagration, President Biden tapped Burns to combine his intelligence role with his experience as a Middle East negotiator to help find a solution. I asked them to swim that back route again in order to do so. Ceasefire and release of hostages held in Gaza.
Soon, he was, by his own account, “on the phone every day” with David Barnea, the head of Israel’s foreign spy agency, and Qatari Prime Minister Mohammed bin Abdulrahman al-Thani, a Hamas-linked man. I was searching for a breakthrough. It could have some effect on bringing about a ceasefire and perhaps a new Middle East.
The distinction between diplomatic negotiators and intelligence agents is blurred in the region, and Burns’ entry and exit could be clandestine. “It will be easier to get around,” he said of the CIA’s seventh-floor office, which is stocked with memorabilia of the agency’s activities and successes and a framed map of Russia’s plans for expansion into Ukraine.
Mr. Burns is a unique figure in Washington. He has worked for Republicans and Democrats. In the early 2000s, he served as President George W. Bush’s ambassador in Moscow, where he met President Vladimir V. Putin and became the only member of Biden’s inner circle to know the Russian leader well.
Current and former officials said Burns would have been chosen to be secretary of state had Kamala Harris been elected president last November, but Burns was rejected due to diplomatic antics. He refused to confirm or deny. It would have been a return to the institution that defined his career and where he met his wife, Lisa Carty, who is now at the U.S. Mission to the United Nations. (They sat next to each other at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs Training Institute. Students were seated in alphabetical order.)
When he arrived at the CIA, some veterans there admitted they had doubts: “Why would a career diplomat lead a spy agency?”
By the time he packed up Friday, the agreement between Israel and Hamas was barely holding and a new conflict was on the horizon, several people said, and he had won over government agencies.
As Mr. Burns and his deputy, David Cohen, left the building for the last time, thousands of CIA employees lined the hallway and “claps,” a sign of the respect they had achieved.
A seasoned negotiator faces a critical moment
Burns’ career has included many tense negotiations, from the Israeli-Palestinian conflict to the Iran nuclear deal, which he secretly launched in 2013 with Biden’s national security adviser Jake Sullivan. It is.
But nothing, he says, matched the urgency of efforts to stop the conflict between Israel and Hamas before it spread to the region.
“This was probably the most complex negotiation I’ve ever been involved in in the sense that indirect negotiations were canceled twice,” Burns said.
Mr. Burns and Mr. Barnea negotiated with the Qataris and Egyptians, and the Egyptians spoke with the Doha-based Hamas leadership. These Hamas leaders negotiated with Hamas leaders in the Gaza Strip, who went underground and captured the remaining 95 or so hostages, living and dead.
“While many negotiations are being conducted with enthusiasm, here is the human plight of the hostages, their families and innocent civilians in Gaza who have suffered in appalling conditions for the past 15 months,” Burns said. said Wednesday. “This wasn’t just about text. It was about real people whose lives were at risk.”
Burns has made 19 visits to the region following Hamas’ attack on Israel on October 7, 2023, to address the Gaza war and hostage crisis. Until this week, the talks had loomed as the biggest unfulfilled mission, or even failure, of his time leading the spy agency.
But under pressure from President-elect Donald J. Trump, the opportunity negotiators were looking for presented itself. Negotiators announced Wednesday that a deal had been reached after last-minute efforts by Burns and the rest of Biden’s team.
Mr. Biden appointed Mr. Burns to lead hostage negotiations after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu appointed Mr. Barnea, the Israeli spy chief, to lead negotiations with Israel.
During the negotiation process, Hamas and Israel blocked the agreement at various points.
In the end, what Burns and the American team implemented that day was a multi-step plan to free some of the hostages in exchange for prisoners and aid. Some Israeli forces will withdraw. The thorny issue of Gaza’s governance was left for later negotiations.
Mr. Burns and Mr. Biden have been pushing this formulation for months. But what has changed, Burns said, is that Hamas’s military commanders feel “in a corner” and the military’s strength has declined. On the one hand, the blows Israel inflicted on Iran and Hezbollah created political space for an agreement.
“Israel’s political leaders are beginning to realize that perfection is not on the menu here, but they have achieved much of what they wanted to achieve,” he said.
Burns said the question now for Israel is how to turn tactical victories against Iran and Hezbollah into strategic victories. And Burns and his colleagues argue that a ceasefire and hostage release are a key part of that change.
Talking to my fellow intelligence chiefs helped me pursue this case. “I think we can be a little more cautious than diplomats in general intelligence work,” Burns said.
beat the spy
When Burns arrived at the sprawling Langley campus in early 2021, there was a degree of wariness about him among the CIA public.
Not all senior CIA officials stationed overseas get along well with embassies and, by extension, the ambassadors who oversee U.S. operations. But during his time in Amman, Jordan, and in Moscow, where CIA chiefs interacted with ambassadors almost daily, his management style appealed to analysts, case officers and even veterans of the CIA’s paramilitary division.
Rob Richer, the agency’s Amman station chief when Burns was ambassador, recalled that Burns “never said it was his idea.”
“He’s like a vacuum cleaner in terms of what he sucks in,” he said. “And he bounces ideas off of people around him.”
Current CIA officials, speaking on condition of anonymity because they work in secrecy, said Burns earned their loyalty by making two important decisions.
The first time was during the fall of Kabul in 2021, when Burns vowed to evacuate 9,000 special forces and 25,000 family members who cooperated with authorities.
The second time was when he persuaded Biden to allow some CIA agents to remain in Ukraine after the president ordered all U.S. officials to leave the country. Their presence was key to the partnership and the CIA’s success, Burns said.
Putin’s whisper
By the end of his first year in office, just as Mr. Burns was beginning to restore morale at the agency after the near-constant turmoil of Mr. Trump’s first term, it was the Ukraine war that would test him.
It played to Putin’s strengths. During the years that Mr. Putin spent in Moscow consolidating his power (and interacting with the U.S. ambassador), he became the government’s chief expert on the Russian leader.
Starting with a new “mother lode” of information arriving in the early fall of 2021, Burns became convinced that his former enemy was attempting to seize Kiev as a step towards Peter the Great’s restoration of his empire.
Over objections within the intelligence community, Mr. Burns, along with Mr. Sullivan and Director of National Intelligence Avril D. Haines, made this move in hopes of convincing allies who believed Mr. Putin was bluffing. Approved declassification of material.
The depth of the data showed that the CIA had penetrated deeply into the Russian military and obtained its plans and later even considerations for the deployment of nuclear weapons. Satellite photos, testimony from officials apparently close to the Kremlin, and communications revealed what the Russians were planning.
“What we’ve gathered, not only in this agency but elsewhere in the intelligence community, is very sophisticated, very detailed not just about the buildup in late fall 2021, but also about the plans for the next day,” he said. said. Burns said. Still, he acknowledged that most NATO allies are skeptical. “The late autumn of 2021 was quite lonely because we and the British were the only military personnel who were sure of the intentions of the Russian leaders.”
Mr. Biden sent Mr. Burns, rather than his secretary of state or national security adviser, to Moscow with the mission of warning Mr. Putin and preventing a war. But he let his grievances stew over the years to find a Russian leader who was even more committed to his goals.
Burns argued about the damage Putin would inflict on his country if he invaded Ukraine. “It turns out that President Putin has no qualms about what we put before him,” he said.
This warning did nothing to stop the invasion. But Burns’ early warning made it easier to rally allies and Congress.
Still, Republicans argue that even if the call was accurate, the CIA was unable to track other important events, namely how quickly the Afghan government would collapse, how Bashar al-Assad would flee Syria, and how Hamas would He said he could not understand how they were preparing to attack Israel.
Long game: China
One of Burns’ first actions was to establish a dedicated mission center for China. It will be a place where analyzes of China’s economic future, technological capabilities, intentions toward Taiwan, and CIA activities will be concentrated. But he also poured more money and manpower and Chinese speakers into the problem. China-related work currently accounts for about 20% of the agency’s classified budget, officials said.
Burns attended weekly meetings with China Center executives. One CIA official who has worked on China issues for 30 years said the meeting was “a great tangible manifestation of his personal commitment amidst everything else going on.”
John Ratcliffe, Trump’s choice to head the CIA, promised the agency would take more risks and take more aggressive covert action. But he praised Burns’ focus on China and vowed to redouble his efforts.
Burns said the agency is making progress in recruiting spies. This marks a major comeback 15 years after many CIA operatives were arrested and some executed in China.
“China is the greatest long-term geopolitical challenge facing our country,” Burns said. “And that’s the No. 1 priority in intelligence. This is a collaborative effort on the part of the authorities to collect intelligence. And it’s starting to pay dividends.”
He said the trick over the past four years has been to stay focused on priorities such as China while also paying the necessary attention to his “overflowing inbox” of impending crises.
“In government, that’s often the hardest thing to do,” Burns said. “But I think we managed the balance pretty well.”
