[Peace-discuss] Spy story; or, The Neocons and Israeli Foreign Policy

[C. G. Estabrook]

A blog comment has the best short answer to the questions I raised the
other night: why is this matter surfacing now?

"If Franklin was 'flipped', and was acting undercover, he is now no longer
of any use to the FBI [i.e., now that his name has been published as a
spy]. Given that the leak happened on the Friday evening before the
Republican convention, it's clear that the leaker wanted the news buried
as soon as possible. A good guess would be that the leaker is someone
close to a high administration official... who was acting to short circuit
the investigation before it got any closer to the top."

Or as Juan Cole says,

"It appears to be the case that someone in the Pentagon got wind that
Larry Franklin had been flipped, and was terrified that the investigation
might go on up the ladder at the Pentagon, in AIPAC, and with the
Israelis. So they leaked news of the investigation to make sure that
everybody clammed up and shredded everything."

A remarkable diagram of the matter is at

<http://www.threetwoone.org/uggabugga/2004/pentagon-spy02.gif>.