End the outdated rules that led Petraeus to resign

By John Prados, WashPost, Published: November 16

John Prados, a senior research fellow at the National Security Archive, is the author of the e-book “Rethinking National Security” and the book “Islands of Destiny: The Solomons Campaign and the Eclipse of the Rising Sun.”He is working on a book about the CIA “Family Jewels.”

Because of an affair that had already ended, the nation this month lost the services of a highly skilled public servant. The hysterical reaction to the news of then-CIA Director David Petraeus’s liaison with his biographer, Paula Broadwell, has done more to harm national security than the affair itself.

Since early summer, the FBI had been, appropriately, investigating the harassing e-mails that Broadwell sent to another woman about Petraeus. Though the bureau eventually uncovered the affair, it found no reason to believe that the general had compromised anything related to security. Yet after the FBI informed the director of national intelligence, James R. Clapper — mistakenly, in my opinion, because no evident crime had been committed — Petraeus resigned ahead of the inevitable wave of public controversy.

That was a judgment call.

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