IT'S A SMALL WORLD:

CIA blind to its shortcomings before 9/11, former spy says
14 years an agent, she now offers an insider's view in book

Matthew B. Stannard, [San Francisco] Chronicle Staff Writer

Melissa Boyle Mahle's first brush with the clandestine world of espionage was Fr�d�rique, a mysterious Frenchwoman who unexpectedly joined Mahle as a volunteer at an Israeli archaeological site in 1985 -- and then vanished, with an Israeli security team hot on her trail.

Fr�d�rique, Mahle eventually learned, was actually Christine Cabon, a French secret agent hiding in Israel after infiltrating Greenpeace New Zealand, where she collected information other agents used to bomb the Greenpeace ship Rainbow Warrior.

The encounter planted a seed in Mahle's psyche that eventually drew the UC Berkeley graduate into a career with the Central Intelligence Agency, specializing in the Middle East and counterterrorism. Fourteen years later, after witnessing the agency's response to Sept. 11 and leaving the agency on less than the best of terms, Mahle decided to put down her thoughts in writing.

[...]

I dug at the same site in 1985 and stayed in the room next door to the mysterious Fr�d�rique.

MORE: I've gotten out my 1985 diary and read the entries for the time I spent at Tel Dor that summer. It does mention the incident and adds that I never spoke to this woman, who was at the site for three weeks, and when I heard the Israeli Secret Service was looking for her it took me a while just to place who she was.

I probably met Melissa Boyle Mahle but I don't remember her. No Melissa is mentioned in my diary, and her picture doesn't look familiar. It was a big dig with lots of staff and volunteers and we probably just hung out with different people.

That event was not the only interesting political rumor at the site that year, but perhaps I shouldn't go into such things here. If you see me at a conference and want to buy me a beer, maybe I'll tell you more.