Despite the suspicious circumstances, U.S. intelligence officials suggested that Woodruff may have been killed by a drunken soldier as his car sped past a checkpoint; three suspects were detained last week. Even so, the killing illuminated the CIA’s most delicate new brief. to help the West’s friends in what once was enemy territory. When the Soviet Union broke apart, many of the republics booted out their Moscow-controlled KGB apparatus and had to build their own intelligence services from scratch. Small CIA teams have visited some of the republics as advisers; staffers from congressional intelligence committees have run seminars on establishing legislative oversight of the new spy agencies. “They don’t know anything about working in an open society,” said one U.S. intelligence official. “They’re learning to be public servants.” At a time when the Clinton administration may start asking U.S. diplomats to help mediate disputes between former Soviet republics, it appears U.S. spies are already involved.
The ties with Georgia are particularly close for one simple reason: President Eduard Shevardnadze. The former Soviet foreign minister struck up a warm friendship with James Baker, who was then secretary of state, when the two conspired to end the cold war. During the Bush administration the ClA and the U.S. Army’s elite Delta Force brought several dozen Georgian security officers to the United States for hostage-rescue and other counter-terrorism training, informed sources told NEWSWEEK. Woodruff had worked for two months as the CIA’s Tbilisi station chief, posing as a State Department regional-affairs officer. One of his jobs was to help intelligence chief Guguladze upgrade the Georgian intelligence service–and to monitor the factional struggle for control of the republic.
For American spies, Russia is still the biggest game. CIA Director R. James Woolsey met in Moscow last week with his counterpart, Yevgeny Primakov, to discuss sharing information with the Russian Intelligence Service. Each side has its own agenda: the Russians want help fighting organized crime and drug trafficking, while the CIA is worried about chemical and nuclear weapons leaking out of the former Soviet Union. Woolsey would prefer to have his visits kept secret, say aides, but Russian officials insist on making them public to bolster the impression that the security services are already in sync. When Woodruff was shot, however, Woolsey made no attempt to hide the CIA connection; he flew straight to Tbilisi to retrieve the body.
The death could be a harbinger. If the Clinton administration is determined to prop up Boris Yeltsin and referee disputes with his neighbors, more CIA officers will inevitably be put at risk. Already, those chosen to serve in the former republics receive more training in counterterrorism and weaponry than their cold war comrades did. As the old Soviet Union sinks deeper into ethnic conflict, agents will increasingly need that kind of tactical edge. But even so, some will wind up in the wrong place at the wrong time in an increasingly chaotic part of the world.
