The head of US intelligence assumed the role of negotiator in the Gaza war

In his first three years as CIA director, William J. Burns focused relentlessly on tripling the agency’s resources devoted to understanding China and countering Russia and its secret partnerships with Iran and North Korea.

But in the last 16 months of his duty, the spy who became a diplomat plunged back into his old life.

During his 40 years at the State Department, Mr. Burns was regarded as a master at creating the “back channel,” the title of his memoir, an invisible, vital aid tool for allies and foes alike.

With the Israel-Hamas war threatening to plunge the Middle East into an even bigger conflagration, President Biden asked Mr. Burns to navigate that back channel again, combining his intelligence role with his experience as a Middle East negotiator to help find a way. ceasefire and the release of hostages held in Gaza.

Soon he was “on the phone every day” with David Barnea, the head of Israel’s foreign intelligence agency, and Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani, the Prime Minister of Qatar, who has ties to Hamas. a ceasefire and perhaps some leverage to create a new Middle East.

The distinction between a diplomatic negotiator and a spy is blurred in the region, and Mr. Burns’s comings and goings can be secret. “It makes it easier to come and go,” he said in his seventh-floor CIA office, with memorabilia of the agency’s operations and successes and a framed map of Russia’s plan to move into Ukraine.

Mr. Burns is a singular figure in Washington. Worked for Republicans and Democrats; In the early 2000s, he was George W. Bush’s ambassador to Moscow, where he met Vladimir V. Putin, making him the only member of Biden’s inner circle who knew the Russian leader well.

If Kamala Harris had been elected president last November, Mr. Burns would have been her choice for secretary of state, current and former officials said, something he declined to confirm or deny out of some diplomatic reluctance. It would be a return to the institution that defined his career — and where he met his wife, Lisa Carty, who is now on the U.S. mission to the United Nations. (They sat next to each other at the Foreign Service Training Institute. Students sat in alphabetical order).

When he arrived at the CIA, several veterans there admitted to their suspicions: Why would a career diplomat lead a spy agency?

When it convened on Friday, with a deal barely holding together between Israel and Hamas and new conflicts on the horizon, many said the agency had won.

As Mr. Burns and his deputy, David Cohen, left the building for the last time, thousands of CIA operatives lined the corridors to give a “cheers,” a sign of the respect they had earned.

A master negotiator faces a critical moment

Mr. Burns’ career has included many tense negotiations, from the Israeli-Palestinian conflict to the Iran nuclear deal, which he and Mr. Biden’s national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, brokered in secret in 2013.

But, he said, nothing matches the urgency of efforts to stop the Israel-Hamas conflict before it spreads to the region.

“It was probably the most complex negotiation I’ve ever been involved in, in the sense that indirect negotiations were eliminated twice,” Mr. Burns said.

Mr Burns and Mr Barnea held talks with the Qataris and Egyptians, who spoke to the Doha-based Hamas leadership. Those Hamas leaders were negotiating with Hamas leaders in Gaza who were hiding underground and holding about 95 hostages, some alive and some dead.

“A lot of negotiations are passionate, but here you have the humanitarian plight of the hostages and their families, the innocent civilians who have suffered terrible conditions in Gaza for the last 15 months,” Mr Burns said on Wednesday. “It wasn’t just about the texts. It was about real people whose lives were in danger.”

After Hamas attacked Israel on October 7, 2023, Mr. Burns made 19 trips to the region to work on the Gaza war and the hostage issue. Until this week, the negotiations were seen as a major unfulfilled mission, or even a failure, of his tenure as head of the intelligence agency.

But under pressure from President-elect Donald J. Trump, the opportunity negotiators had been looking for appeared. With a last-minute push from Mr. Burns and the rest of Mr. Biden’s team, negotiators announced their deal on Wednesday.

Mr. Biden named Mr. Burns in charge of the hostage negotiations after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu named Israel’s intelligence chief, Mr. Barnea, in charge of Israeli negotiations.

During the negotiations, both Hamas and Israel blocked the agreement at various points.

In the end, this was the approach that Mr. Burns and the American team developed: a multiphase plan to release prisoners and some hostages in exchange for aid. Some of the Israeli soldiers will withdraw. Complex issues related to the management of Gaza were left for later negotiations.

Mr. Burns and Mr. Biden have been pushing the formula for months. But what had changed, Mr Burns said, was that Hamas’ military commanders felt “besieged” and their forces degraded. On the other hand, Israel’s strikes on Iran and Hezbollah created a political space for understanding.

“The Israeli political leadership is beginning to see that perfection is not on the menu here, but they have achieved much of what they set out to achieve,” he said.

The question for the Israelis now is how to turn their tactical victories against Iran and Hezbollah into strategic victories, Mr. Burns said. And Mr Burns and his colleagues argue that the ceasefire and the release of hostages are an essential part of that transformation.

Talking to the intelligence chiefs helped to get the job done. “I think with intelligence work in general, you can be a little bit more reserved than you are as a diplomat,” Mr. Burns said.

Defeat spies

When he arrived at the sprawling Langley campus in early 2021, there was some wariness about Mr. Burns among CIA rank-and-file employees.

Not every senior CIA officer stationed abroad is on good terms with the ambassador who oversees the embassy and thus American operations. But in Jordan, Amman and Moscow, where CIA station chiefs are in almost daily contact with the ambassador, his management style has attracted analysts, case managers and even military veterans in the agency’s paramilitary division.

Mr. Burns “never said anything was his idea,” recalled Rob Richer, the agency’s station chief in Amman when Mr. Burns was ambassador.

“It’s like a vacuum cleaner because of what it sucks up,” he said. “And then it bounces off the ideas of the people around it.”

Current CIA officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they work undercover, said Mr. Burns won loyalty when he made two key decisions.

The first was when Kabul fell in 2021, when Mr Burns promised to evacuate along with 9,000 commandos working with the agency and 25,000 family members.

The second was that he persuaded Mr. Biden to allow a handful of CIA officers to remain in Ukraine after the president ordered all American government employees to leave the country. Their involvement, Mr. Burns said, was key to the partnership and the CIA’s success.

Putin whisperer

At the end of his first year, it was the war in Ukraine that tested Mr. Burns, just as he began to restore morale at an agency after the near-constant turmoil of Mr. Trump’s first term.

This has affected his power: All those years in Moscow, as Mr. Putin has consolidated power (and communicated with the American ambassador), making him the government’s chief expert on the Russian leader.

Starting with a “mother batch” of new intelligence arriving in early autumn 2021, Mr Burns became convinced that his old enemy was planning to try to seize Kiev, a step towards restoring Peter the Great’s empire.

Over objections from the intelligence community, Mr. Burns – along with Mr. Sullivan and the director of national intelligence, Avril D. Haines – allowed the material to be declassified, hoping to reassure allies who thought Mr. Putin was bluffing.

The depth of the data showed that the CIA had penetrated deeply into the Russian military, obtaining its plans and later considerations for the deployment of nuclear weapons. Satellite photos, accounts from sources apparently close to the Kremlin, and communications revealed what the Russians were planning.

“What we gathered at this agency, and elsewhere in the intelligence community, was exquisite, not only in the build-up of the military in the late fall of ’21, but in great detail in planning for the next day.” Burns said. However, he admitted that most NATO allies are skeptical. “We were pretty lonely in the late fall of ’21 because we and the British were the only two services who were sure of the intentions of the Russian leaders.”

Mr. Biden, not his secretary of state or national security adviser, sent Mr. Burns to Moscow to warn Mr. Putin and try to stop the war. But he found a Russian leader who, over the years, had lost his grudges and was more intent on his cause.

Mr Burns made his case about the damage Mr Putin would do to his own country if he invaded Ukraine. “I saw Putin completely unapologetic about what we said in front of him,” he said.

The warning did nothing to stop the invasion. But Mr. Burns’ early warnings made it easier to rally allies and Congress.

Still, Republicans said that even if the call was accurate, the CIA failed to grasp other important developments: how soon the Afghan government could collapse, how Bashar al-Assad would flee Syria and how Hamas was preparing to attack Israel.

Long game: China

One of Mr. Burns’ first acts was to establish a mission center devoted to China. It would be a meeting point for analysis of China’s economic future, technical prowess, intentions towards Taiwan, and CIA operations. But he poured more money and people – and Mandarin speakers – into the problem; Today, China-related work makes up about 20 percent of the agency’s classified budget, officials say.

Mr. Burns attended a weekly meeting with senior officials of the China center. According to one CIA official who has worked on the China issue for 30 years, the meeting is “a great concrete manifestation of his personal commitment as things go.”

John Ratcliffe, Mr. Trump’s choice to lead the CIA, has promised an agency that takes more risks and conducts more aggressive covert operations. But he praised Mr. Burns’ focus on China and promised to step up his efforts.

Mr Burns said the agency had made progress in bringing in spies. It will be a significant reversal 15 years after many CIA operatives in China were captured and some executed.

“China is the biggest long-term geopolitical challenge facing our country,” Mr Burns said. “And that’s the biggest intelligence priority. It is a joint intelligence gathering effort by the agency. And it starts paying dividends.”

The trick of the last four years, he said, has been to focus on priorities like China, while also giving the “overflowing inbox” of urgent crises the attention they need.

“It’s often the hardest thing in government,” Mr Burns said. “But I think we managed the balance very well.”