CIA no big deal in India anymore CHIDANAND RAJGHATTA TIMES NEWS NETWORK [ SATURDAY, AUGUST 31, 2002 11:57:38 PM ] WASHINGTON: India is in the grip of the CIA! So what, did you say? Precisely. The once-dreaded three-letter acronym, not long ago a byword for sinister shenanigans, hardly creates a ripple in India these days. How else do you account for the fact that several South Asia hands in the US administration who have visited India in recent times come from the CIA, and there is nary a squeak in New Delhi? The latest visitor to New Delhi who has CIA pedigree is Lisa Curtis, advisor to Assistant Secretary of State for South Asia Christina Rocca. Curtis, a former CIA analyst who has dealt extensively with South Asia, held talks with Hurriyat leaders last week in a bid to persuade them to take part in the Assembly election. Although a former CIA staffer, Curtis is a political appointee in the state department brought in as aide to Ms Rocca, who herself was a CIA operative before she moved to the Hill to work with Senator Sam Brownback, who propelled her into the administration. Another familiar South Asia hand who came from the Agency was Bruce Riedel, former Senior Director and adviser to the President on South Asia in the Clinton administration. Riedel went out with the Democratic administration and is now on a sabbatical at King's College, England. One reason why the CIA has lost is menacing overtones is perhaps because its actions of late have tended to be supportive of India, probably recognising greater dangers. After all, former US ambassador to India Daniel P Moynihan, records that the CIA bankrolled even Mrs Gandhi's Congress Party against the Communists in Kerala, despite her perpetual rant about foreign hands and destabilisation. While Curtis has been working on the Hurriyat, Riedel played a key role in the landmark change of US policy that resulted in Washington backing India during the Kargil flare-up. Such reassuring gestures and change in attitude is perhaps what emboldened Home Minister L K Advani to step into the portals of the CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia, during his visit here in January. Subsequent to the visit, Indian officials say, there has been plenty of cooperation between the two sides, including in the law enforcement front. One result of that was evident earlier this week, when the American FBI -- which now has an office in New Delhi -- and the Indian CBI staged an unprecedented joint sting operation to net an Indian software engineer who was trying to peddle source code purloined from a US company over the Internet. Such a joint action, let alone three CIA analysts coming to India, would have been unthinkable a decade or two back. http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow.asp?art_id=20800121 CIA track record 50 years back? Noticed as early as 1950,the new york herald tribune reported listed five events that the 'company' failed to predict.The North Korean attack that year,the fall of Checkoslovakia,the Tito-Soviet split and the Communist victory in China. p34-'Oyster,the story of ASIS.'Toohey-Pinwell.89.