committees usually composed of departmental representatives at the assistant
secretary level or just below it.The NSC staff had senior directors who would
sit on these interagency committees, often as chair, to facilitate agreement and
to represent the wider interests of the national security advisor.
Kansi, an Islamic extremist from Pakistan, shot and killed two CIA employees
at the main highway entrance to CIA headquarters in Virginia. (Kansi drove
away and was captured abroad much later.) Only a month afterward came the
World Trade Center bombing and, a few weeks after that, the Iraqi plot against
former President Bush.
cotics, and terrorism (a portfolio often known as "drugs and thugs"), the vet-
eran civil servant Richard Clarke. President Clinton and Lake turned to Clarke
to do the staff work for them in coordinating counterterrorism. Before long,
he would chair a midlevel interagency committee eventually titled the Coun-
terterrorism Security Group (CSG).We will later tell of Clarke's evolution as
adviser on and, in time, manager of the U.S. counterterrorist effort.
tion,America's security has depended on the clarity of the message: Don't tread
on us. A firm and commensurate response was essential to protect our sover-
eignty, to send a message to those who engage in state-sponsored terrorism, to
deter further violence against our people, and to affirm the expectation of civ-
ilized behavior among nations."
ists, whether they strike at home or abroad." In February, he sent Congress
proposals to extend federal criminal jurisdiction, to make it easier to deport
terrorists, and to act against terrorist fund-raising. In early May, he submitted a
bundle of strong amendments.The interval had seen the news from Tokyo in
March that a doomsday cult, Aum Shinrikyo, had released sarin nerve gas in a
subway, killing 12 and injuring thousands.The sect had extensive properties and
laboratories in Japan and offices worldwide, including one in New York. Nei-
ther the FBI nor the CIA had ever heard of it. In April had come the bomb-
ing of the Murrah federal building in Oklahoma City; immediate suspicions
that it had been the work of Islamists turned out to be wrong, and the bombers
proved to be American antigovernment extremists named Timothy McVeigh
and Terry Nichols. President Clinton proposed to amend his earlier proposals
by increasing wiretap and electronic surveillance authority for the FBI, requir-
ing that explosives carry traceable taggants, and providing substantial new
money not only for the FBI and CIA but also for local police.