Thursday, July 22, 2004
WaPo: Archives Staff Was Suspicious of Berger
What he did not know as he labored through that long Thursday was that the same Archives employees who were solicitously retrieving documents for him were also watching their important visitor with a suspicious eye.
After Berger's previous visit, in September, Archives officials believed documents were missing. This time, they specially coded the papers to more easily tell whether some disappeared, said government officials and legal sources familiar with the case.
The notion of one of Washington's most respected foreign policy figures being subjected to treatment that had at least a faint odor of a sting operation is a strange one...
Sure does.
OK, so he did it. He's admitted to doing it. The question is whether he did it "absentmindedly" and somewhat innocently, or whether he was sticking papers down his shorts, as some are alleging and Berger denies, which would indicate something more. Maybe the investigation will answer that. Either way, he doesn't look good (a man in his position should know better, no?), but the bigger question is of malice.
As far as timing, every time something happens, it seems the "timing" question comes up. It seems like every week there's some politically important thing going on in Washington - go figure. "Some are saying this leak is timed to take attention away from..." pick one: new economic numbers, new report on x, new poll numbers, new security scandal, recent bombings, recent diplomatic row, etc, etc... There's never a convenient time for news like this. Hey, next time, don't take papers out of the archives. Then you've got no problem, right?
If it ends up being an innocent matter, then the people who are overselling it will look bad, if not then there's only one person to blame. The investigation will hopefully tell. Well, it won't tell for sure what the motiviations were, of course. Obviously Berger would be focused in on documents having to do with the Clinton Administration's doings wrt Al Qaeda - that's what he was there for. So whatever disappeared, one can imagine all sorts of motivations and scenarios, whether the "disappearances" were a matter of sloppiness or intent.
Look for much spin and counterspin in the weeks to come - hardly a Nostradamic observation.
Roger L. Simon is on this with the mystery writer's take, and Belgravia Dispatch finds the NYT spinning.
