One of those copies went to an aide of then-Senator Jesse Helms, the ranking member on the Foreign Relations Committee, with jurisdiction over the State Department. The aide quickly recognized the document in the photograph as a copy of the National Intelligence Daily (NID)—“one of the government’s most sensitive intelligence documents,” according to the New York Times. The NID was produced by the CIA every day and went to the president and a small group of top advisers. Each copy was carefully numbered, and it was forbidden to discuss its contents in hallways or on the telephone. And posing prettily with his hands placed casually over the document was the smiling countenance of Ronald I. Spiers, the undersecretary of state for management and the fourth-ranked officer in the Department of State.
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I Triggered a State Department Leak More Serious Than Hillary Clintons - POLITICO Magazine
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