The available declassified documentation suggests, however, that what the CIA sees as outstanding most Americans would regard as reprehensible. Because so much of Ward's career took place under cover, and because so much of the related documentation consists of black blotches censoring information the CIA says would damage national security if released, it is very difficult for outsiders to second guess the CIA's judgment.

It may well be that Terry Ward's work saved lives and made the U.S. more secure. But that is secret. The declassified record points to the opposite conclusion, when we correlate the documents with what is known of Ward's career:

* While Ward served in CIA stations in countries such as Argentina and Peru, the CIA used two manuals to train Latin American militaries and security services in interrogating suspects, one dating from 1963, the other an update in 1983. When a furor arose in Congress and the press in 1984 over the CIA's training methods, including multiple allegations of torture, the CIA rewrote the 1983 manual. One passage read in the original, "If the debility-dependency-dread state is unduly prolonged, the subject may sink into a defensive apathy from which it is hard to arouse him. It is advisable to have a psychologist available whenever regression is induced." The latter sentence was overwritten to read, "This illustrates why this coercive technique may produce torture." Other sections remained unchanged, such as the one admonishing interrogators to check the electric outlets before selecting an interrogation room, to make sure the necessary transformers were on hand for electric shock treatment.

* A 1997 CIA inspector general's report established that by 1986, when Ward was deputy chief of the Latin American division, the CIA knew the Honduran military--including the CIA's own paid assets at the highest levels--had organized a death squad called Battalion 316. The IG noted that CIA Director William Casey specifically assured Congress in 1986 that the CIA would fully investigate this death squad, but it certainly didn't do so during the next two years, when Ward was station chief and CIA paymaster in Honduras. Last month the Honduran government began paying $2.1 million to Battalion 316's victims, now estimated at 184 murdered.

* A State Department-funded investigation in 1986 and 1987, while Ward was deputy division chief for Latin America and then Honduran station chief overseeing the Nicaraguan contra operation, established that the contras repeatedly tortured and murdered their prisoners. Journalist Sam Dillon's 1991 book "Comandos" puts Ward on the scene in 1987 when the contras carried out a lengthy "counterintelligence" campaign within their own ranks, including CIA polygraph experts as well as routine torture and indefinite detention, while the contras' CIA handlers "turned the other way."

* On Oct. 15, 1991, the CIA station in Guatemala sent an "eyes only" cable to Ward, then the chief of the Latin American division, summarizing the murder of U.S. citizen Michael Devine and stating "the entire command structure of the military zone where the killing took place was controlled by men known to be capable of murder under the most casual pretext"--at least one commander was a CIA asset. After discussing several other cases, the cable concludes by reporting that "the extrajudicial killing of certain categories of persons is almost routine."

* On June 28, 1996, the President's Intelligence Oversight Board reported that during the period of Ward's direction of Latin American operations, the CIA provided "vital" funding, ranging from $1 million to $3.5 million per year, to the Guatemalan military intelligence services, whose human rights records "were generally known to have been reprehensible by all who were familiar with Guatemala." The board said, "We learned that in the period since 1984, several CIA assets were credibly alleged to have ordered, planned, or participated in serious human rights violations such as assassination, extrajudicial execution, torture, or kidnapping while they were assets--and that the CIA was contemporaneously aware of many of the allegations." The board concluded that the CIA rewarded its officers for recruiting assets regardless of any damage done to other U.S. interests such as human rights or civilian control of foreign militaries.

If all this makes for a "Distinguished Career," one can only ask the CIA: What qualifies as undistinguished?

The writer is director of George Washington University's National Security Archive, a research library.

© 2000 The Washington Post Company

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