"Spiritual Crises Among Intelligence Operatives," "Lessons from Abu Ghraib," "Assassination: The Dream and the Nightmare" and "The Perfidy of Espionage." All panels at a spy ethics conference this weekend, the NYT's Scott Shane reports.

Check out the quote Dewey Clarridge gave the paper on his opinion about such a conference:

"It doesn't make much sense to me," said Duane R. Clarridge, who retired in 1988 after 33 years as a C.I.A. operations officer and who will not attend the conference. "Depending on where you're coming from, the whole business of espionage is unethical."

To Mr. Clarridge, "intelligence ethics" is "an oxymoron," he said. "It's not an issue. It never was and never will be, not if you want a real spy service." Spies operate under false names, lie about their jobs, and bribe or blackmail foreigners to betray their countries, he said.

"If you don't want to do that," Clarridge concluded, "just have a State Department."

Posted by Laura at January 27, 2006 10:48 PM