As Clinton’s choice to head the CIA, Lake will soon face his most public test. Republicans have doubts about whether his reserve bespeaks not only shyness but also a tendency to deceive. On one hand, he is a Massachusetts professor whose demeanor befits a WASP who recoils at ““the sin of pride.’’ But he is also a bureaucratic samurai.
For now, Lake’s past is in the cross hairs, and the GOP would like to make him a collateral victim of the Asian money scandal. Republicans want to know if he had been aware of a U.S. intelligence report that claimed officials in the Chinese Embassy were plotting to give money to the Democrats. (Lake maintains that the story was ““news’’ to him.) And in fact, according to National Security Council records, Lake and his staff tried to steer foreign businessmen away from the president and the vice president. Still, campaign money isn’t Lake’s only problem. Senate Intelligence Committee chairman Richard Shelby has expressed ““deep concern’’ about whether Lake lied to Congress about Iranian arms shipments to Bosnia–although the Justice Department has found ““no evidence’’ of any criminal violation.
A self-styled man of principle, Lake is offended by charges of dishonesty. William Anthony Kirsopp, Lake’s grandfather, was a muckraking journalist; his father, a theologian. Lake himself, with degrees from Harvard and Princeton, pursued his own missionary work. He was 23 when he arrived in Vietnam in 1963–an idealist who thought ““hearts and minds’’ could be won through force and diplomacy. He tried both. A foreign-service officer, Lake often traveled with a firearm. In 1969 Lake went to work for Henry Kissinger. He resigned over the invasion of Cambodia, and the episode marked him as an honorable man–but also convinced some conservatives that he was unsuited for great-power conflict.
Lake has always tried to stay out of the papers. He learned that during the Carter years, when Secretary of State Cyrus Vance’s feuding with Zbigniew Brzezinski hamstrung policy. When Lake became Clinton’s national-security adviser, he avoided the Georgetown social scene, preferring to play rotisserie-league baseball. This reclusiveness masks the temperament of a Beltway warrior. In 1994 Lake was traveling with Clinton to an event in Colorado. While in transit, he altered the president’s speech, inserting a line that the United States might put ground forces in the Balkans. Warren Christopher was infuriated. Lake, one Clintonite says, can be ““a backstabber.''
Of course, that’s not a bad quality in a CIA boss–especially now. Langley is troubled, and some senators worry that Lake will meddle in policy rather than just broker information. It’s another irony in an ironic life: Lake’s future may depend on his promising to be even quieter than usual.
