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Whether there are new Wilhelm Hoettls being recruited in the Bush administration's war on terrorism isn't likely to be known for some time. The US-backed Northern Alliance that toppled the Taliban in Afghanistan's major cities has its own share of shady characters who may yet come back to haunt the West. Historians are already ready to render judgment on what still seems decidedly uncertain.

"The Northern Alliance is not the best route, but you have to take what you get," said Yoram Schweitzer, researcher at the International Policy Institute for Counter-Terrorism in Israel.

After the Sept. 11 attacks on the United States, the Bush administration has enjoyed mostly unquestioning support, even though it's unclear how effective any US action will ultimately prove to be in combating terrorism.

"It is quite clear that how the public reacts depends on whether there is a war on or not," said Richard Helms, an OSS officer who later became the CIA director during the Nixon administration. "I think it's only natural that in times of war, people have a change of heart."

Today, privacy advocates and civil libertarians have been outshouted by a mainstream that is in a by-any-means-necessary mood. This classic peace-to-war attitude adjustment has taken some of the taboo out of ethnic profiling, extensive eavesdropping, immigration curbs tailored toward suspect cultures, and military tribunals with the power to both try and execute foreign nationals at war with the United States.

Yet Holtzman acknowledged the difficulty of foreseeing the future ramifications of decisions being made at this very moment. "I hope we have some really strategic thinkers," she said.

Seeing parallels in threats to US

Though for far different reasons, Critchfield, like Holtzman, sees similarities between the spread of Communism after World War II and the current wave of Islamic fundamentalism, extreme Arab nationalism, and sundry other movements that consider the United States an ideological enemy.

"I think the situation then has an enormous parallel to the Middle East today," said Critchfield, the CIA chief for the region in the 1950s and early 1960s. "I think that the problem of terrorism replaces the ambiguity of the Communist threat."