Mel Goodman
November 4, 2012
Ray is proud to claim former CIA analyst Mel Goodman, a former CIA analyst, as friend and colleague. His integrity got him in deep trouble with Robert Gates, who, as soon as Ronald Reagan was elected, became a devout protege of Director William Casey and very soon head of CIA analysis.
Gates could not abide anyone questioning the “growing Soviet threat” even in places where the Soviets were taking it on the chin and withdrawing with red tails between their legs..
Mel is almost unique, inasmuch as he had the guts to quit the CIA and then testify openly, supported by several other in-place CIA analysts, against Gates’ subsequent nomination to be CIA Director.
In the end, another Gates patron, Sen. David Boren of Oklahoma, then-head of the Senate Intelligence Committee, together with his loyal staff director, George Tenet, put in the fix. They turned to ex-prosecutor Sen. Warren Rudman to do an unconscionably deceitful attack on Mel. Still, 31 Senators voted against Gates — an unprecedented number — before or since.
After he left the CIA, Mel was a professor at the National Defense University for many years before retiring a few years ago.