Open Letter to General Dan Caine, Chairman, Joint Chiefs of Staff

Dear General Caine:

My time as an officer in the US Navy was completed well before you were born but my career as a senior official of the CIA in its later years would have corresponded with the launch of your military career. I retired from the CIA twenty years before your arrival there as Associate Director for Military Affairs. Like you, I am a veteran of military service and over the course of my working life I spent nearly fifty years in service to the National Security of our country. I have no other qualifications to be so presumptuous as to address the vexing issues you face every day, or those that you will no doubt have to face in the coming months. I can, however, speak to you as an American citizen who understands something of the precarious mix of national security, international affairs and domestic tranquility and who is deeply troubled with the state and direction of our country.

Today you and the joint chiefs are perilously close to what may be a definitive stage in our history. The American military and its proud heritage, like our country as a whole, has its blemishes, but it stands as a highly respected pillar of support that stiffens our back, keeps us safe, excels in a special kind of precision, and boasts an overpowering global capability. It is in the eyes of many today the most respected of our shattered institutions when it comes to defending the nation and its guiding principles.

A crucible of decision that can decide our republic’s immediate fate seems to loom. You may be called on to deploy US forces unnecessarily and illegally to an American city, or to seize the territory of a NATO member and friend of longstanding. What you and the Joint Chiefs do in the coming days, weeks and months may well redirect the course of American history and, in that instant, promise to set your name apart from the other 22 men who have preceded you since 1949.

Americans have paid much attention to and are agonizing in varying measures over the swelling scope and rising risks of the President’s unchecked arrogation of power. We are very unsure of his mental soundness. Our country is essentially divided into fifths, with two fifths supporting the president and three fifths desperate in the hope that there will be a reassertion of a balancing political hand from another quarter; trust in the congress has evaporated because it lacks the legislative gallantry and courage the founders so pointedly handed down to them. The courts struggle. For months now, there has been public discussion of how the officer corps would deal with an illegal order from the President or the Secretary of Defense. That broad public worry is now reduced to an assumption that such a moment will fall on you.

The President is threatening the introduction of thousands of federal forces into the state of Minnesota. Such an act would be a vulgar abuse of power with lasting consequences and would set a frightening precedent. The US Congress has abrogated constitutional protections by its inaction, and the manufactured basis for such action by the President is blatantly specious.

Worse, the US Military seizure of Greenland and the effrontery of taking it from a NATO ally by force or coercion of any type would stain us and the American military for decades and in ways difficult to foresee, justify or repair. As of this moment the President has eased his belligerence and sworn off a military incursion into Greenland. For now. Mr. Trump has a good deal of time to change his mind.

The deep concerns expressed in this letter are difficult to write. I am highly respectful of the charges you bear. I can empathize with the weight of that burden. But you must wrestle with the righteousness of choosing and following one of two divergent paths. Your sense of tradition, cohesiveness and the historical traditions of a Chairman’s relationship with the Chief Executive rest on the one hand; the misconstrued orders of an errant and confused president are stacked on the other. Somewhere in that dilemma lies the best choice for the republic, if not necessarily for the remainder of your illustrious career.

The strength of your personal grasp of where the rule of law and the path of constitutional probity lead you and the service chiefs would seem to beckon.

William R. Piekney served as US Naval officer for four years and served in the CIA for 30 years in Europe, Africa and the Middle East. He was under deep cover early in his career and later was station chief numerous times, including West Africa, Pakistan and Egypt. As a member of the Senior Executive Service he directed the Agency’s African operations and then East Asia operations, traveling extensively to those regions to maintain and develop relations with host intelligence and security services. Overall he has spent nearly fifty years in the U.S. Intelligence Community and in related national security affairs. Following his service in CIA Mr. Piekney was the DCI’s representative to the Secretary of State’s Accountability Review Board investigating a terrorist attack on a U.S. installation in Saudi Arabia; was appointed as the Director of Studies at a CIA then DNI sponsored think tank during which he lead several highly classified Intelligence Community-wide studies involving nuclear weapons in the subcontinent and countering terrorism in the United States; he headed the Human Intelligence section of the George W. Bush Presidential Commission on The Intelligence Capabilities of The United States Regarding Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD Commission); and consulted for international clients on defense and national security issues.

Mr. Piekney received the CIA’s Distinguished Intelligence Medal, the CIA’s Intelligence Commendation Medal, and the State Department’s Superior Honor Award. He was also awarded the rank of Distinguished Officer of the Senior Intelligence Services. He is a member of The Steady State.

Founded in 2016, The Steady State is a nonprofit 501(c)(4) organization of more than 360 former senior national security professionals. Our membership includes former officials from the CIA, FBI, Department of State, Department of Defense, and Department of Homeland Security. Drawing on deep expertise across national security disciplines, including intelligence, diplomacy, military affairs, and law, we advocate for constitutional democracy, the rule of law, and the preservation of America’s national security institutions.