For years, this » expert » managed to fool think tanks and media despite flashing warning signals.
How could someone, in the age of the Internet, manage to fake interviews with world leaders without being caught, while working for the famous investigative unit of one of the biggest American television networks ?
Broken by Rue89, the affair of the mythomaniac analyst is causing a stir in the United States. How did Alexis Debat, a self-proclaimed expert on terrorism, manage to build such a career for himself --as a regular contributor to the foreign affairs reviews Politique Internationale and National Interest, as a consultant for ABC News and an analyst of the prestigious Nixon Center attending conferences with the cream of the crop of American foreign policy circles ?
On September 5, Rue89 revealed that Debat had provided Politique Internationale with a fake interview, carrying his byline, with Senator Barack Obama, running for the Democratic party nomination for the 2008 presidential election. Our research showed that Debat was also inflating his resume, flattering himself with a PhD he never obtained as well as cooked-up positions.
Debat defends himself, saying he made the mistake of trusting « a third person » to ask his questions. But the spokesperson for the former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan, who was also « interviewed » by Debat in Politique Internationale, told us his was also a fake. As were the ones Debat « got » with Microsoft founder Bill Gates, New York city Mayor Michael Bloomberg, former president Bill Clinton, and many more.
Embarrassed reactions
When we discovered the fabricated Obama interview and contacted Patrick Wajsman, the editor of Politique Internationale, he told us he was stunned, considering himself the » first victim » of the imposture.
At ABC News, where Debat has been working as an expert, Jeffrey Schneider, the vice-president for communication, told us the network was warned in May about Debat's academic credentials and immediately opened an investigation. The contract between Debat and the network was (very discreetly) canceled in June.
At the Nixon Center, which severed ties last Tuesday with Alexis Debat, the reaction was first » no comment » ; then, » could you repeat everything on the answering machine of the director ? »
All of them seemed taken by surprise.
However, there was no shortage of warning signs over the last years. The big mystery in this affair is why none of Debat's employers seem to have paid attention.
Stephane Dujarric, then a spokesman for UN secretary-general Kofi Annan, remembers that in 2005 he asked Politique Internationale not to run a fabricated interview of Annan. Politique Internationale had contacted the United Nations to ask a couple of extra questions to Annan to complete an interview done by Debat. Dujarric could find no record of such an interview. He called ABC News to reach Debat. Debat replied the interview was made » through a third person » (seems like a pattern) on May 26. On that Day Annan was actually in Ethiopia attending talks on Darfur… To resolve the incident, Wajsman gave Dujarric a subscription to Politique Internationale.
» I didn't run the Kofi Annan interview because I applied a principle of precaution in that case » Patrick Wasjman told us. Apparently the incident did not suffice for him to sever ties with the author of the interview. » I didn't believe one moment it had been fabricated. See, the guy was an ABC News consultant ! »
At ABC News the story officially starts in May. At that time, as Rue89 revealed, a reporter within the network who was suspicious of Debat's work, carried her own research on Debat's resume and acted as a whistleblower.
Since the Debat story broke, questions are pouring in about ABCNews. » How can they talk about what the Taliban are doing when they are not even able to track a PhD ! How good is Brian Ross if he needs Debat ? This is a media problem, not a Debat problem » says Mark Perry, an expert of military intelligence who befriended Debat. » Why do my sources say ABC did not conduct a more extensive investigation of his work when it asked him to resign back in June ? , » asks journalist and foreign affairs specialist Laura Rozen, on her blog.
Over the years, Debat was a source for many ABC News scoops : on Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan… Like its competitors, the network has strict ethical rules, with a director of » standards and practices » . Information is supposed to be vetted or reliably confirmed. But fact-checking was not easy with Debat's scoops as they were always attributed to anonymous sources hiding from within the shadowy world of secret services in Pakistan, France or the US.
A correction from the ministry of Defense
Debat, 35, a cordial and good-looking young man, has been suspected of embellishing his resume for a while.
In September 2002 Jean-François Bureau, spokesperson for the French defense Department asked Liberation to run a correction after the French newspaper quoted Debat on the role Zacarias Moussaoui played on 9/11.
» (…) » On September 11, Moussaoui had his return ticket to France. He was supposed to be interviewed and detained in France » said Alexis Debat, presented on ABC News as a » former official of the French Defense Ministry » . In Paris, the Defense Ministry distanced itself from this statement, saying Alexis Debat » never belonged to this ministry » .
When Guillemette Faure met Debat in June 2005, while researching a Figaro story about the CIA headquarters, she had already heard of his taste for exaggeration. He indeed accepted to meet, saying » I'm just back from Pakistan. I have information about the Bin Laden trail » . His accounts were filled with amazing and colorful detail (babies are not authorized to give their last name at the CIA nursery….). On his thick business card, there is no company name. Only » Alexis Debat, Ph.D » .
To a question sent later by email regarding his Ph.D, he replies » Edenvale University » issued the degree. But what a Google search turns up is a university which only exists in the form of an Internet page, selling diplomas by phone.
Many reporters, analysts and diplomats, in Washington and New York have been suspicious of Debat. How could it be that none of their conversations ever reached ABC News's finest sleuths ? Stéphane Dujarric, the UN spokesperson who disputed the accuracy of Kofi Annan's interview, used to work for ABC News.
Within the investigative unit at ABCNews, Alexis Debat was some times nicknamed » Pepe Le Pew » . The Frenchman was under the wing of star journalist Brian Ross within a unit custom-made for him. Ross was allotted exceptional latitude and considerable resources after the attacks of 9/11. The decision by ABC News, at least on its website, to let Ross cover the Debat fiasco appears odd, to say the least, since the Frenchman was de facto reporting to Ross.
The art of the fake interview
» Alexis Debat is a fraud who succeeded » as André Kaspi put it. Kaspi is the professor of American History at the Sorbonne who was initially suposed to supervise Debat's Ph.D. He was actually a brillant fraud who fooled not only a French review but the US capital as well.
Debat paid attention to details. Just after an alleged interview of Michael Bloomberg, Debat sent an email to Patrick Wajsman at Politique Internationale :
» Dear Sir,
The interview with Michael Bloomberg went well. It lasted a little less than one hour but I managed to go over all our questions. I think the interview is prestigious enough to be worth the lead of the next issue » .
Lies were harmoniously imbricated. Like when a so-called Bill Clinton is quoted as happily saying to Debat » I see that you talked to my wife » … in an » interview » that ran several issues after an interview purporting to be Hillary Clinton's.
If the exclusive scoops and interviews have not raised more suspicion, it may also well be because Alexis Debat never goes against the wind of public opinion. On September 2nd on the Sunday Times of London, he revealed secret plans of the Bush administration to bomb Iran » in three days » . Four years ago at the height of French-American tensions on Iraq, he explained how Uday Hussein, son of Saddam, forced two French students on a trip in Baghdad to have sex at gunpoint while being videotaped. Surfing on the ambient francophobia, he said that according to a cable he saw, the French government covered up the incident. » I mean, after all, this is Saddam Hussein's son ! »
A spiral of credulity
The credulity of the first feeds the next one. » We relied on ABC News for his credentials » , says Anne Bell, publicist of the Jim Lehrer Newshour on PBS, where Debat appeared, depending on the news, as an expert on terrorism or the French riots. » Brian Ross and the Nixon Center… These are pretty credentials, they carry some weight… , » a member of the military told us. » You won't believe the list of the people who attended his briefing »
At 35, Alexis Debat was pretty successful. He had a respectable position in a well-regarded think tank, he was a regular face on television, he was quoted in newspapers… why did he need to keep fabricating interviews in a French journal with a limited circulation ? This is another mystery of this stunning story.
When Debat was hired by the Nixon Center on May 22nd 2006, the press release of the conservative think tanks proudly announced the arrival of a » creative and insightful analyst » . They could not have found better words to describe their new recruit.
Guillemette Faure and Pascal Riché
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De
19H38 | 15/09/2007 |
I hear from sources inside ABC that actually Brian Ross protected Debat from some of the initial probes, and used his position to block what lower-level researchers questioned about Debat's background. After a very controversial cocaine investigation involving a unit headed by Geraldo Rivera in the 1980's, ABC adopted strict rules barring associates of suspected employees from being involved in investigations of their units, but those rules are now being violated by allowing Ross to whitewash the Debat affair. I bet his investigation soon will find all the blame is on Debat, and none on Ross's incredulous attitude towards this fabulist. This is a great story. Keep it going.
De
23H55 | 15/09/2007 |
News organizations are no longer interested in the truth, but simply want to be told what they want to hear. Let's start looking at all the other « experts » who contribute to these magazines …
De
14H29 | 16/09/2007 |
I met Debat shortly before he joined the Nixon Center. He was playing the usual Washington DC game, name dropping and claiming access to « intelligence » (some of which was fantastic). He came across as vain, self-promoting and just another Washington « analyst. » He boasted of having been with the French Special Forces in Bosnia. When I asked where he demurred as the operations were « secret. » Given that we were ten years after the end of the Bosnia war, that struck me as odd. Another person present remarked afterwards that Debat was a liar. Debat had struck me only as a BS artist and a waste of time. The other person, who was in the security business and so who had dealt with ex-Special Forces people, explained that Debat had the build and hands of a person who had always worked in offices. Special Forces operators tend to be physically rather hardy, while Debat is on the slight side.
De
17H15 | 16/09/2007 |
Back in 1987, Ralph McGehee, author of Deadly Deceits and a retired CIA analyst with 25 years of award-winning service under his belt, told me that there were about 400 CIA employees on the payroll of US newsrooms and about 4000 world wide. I think you've ID'd two of them here.
De
04H35 | 17/09/2007 |
Outstanding reporting. I hope you will continue to keep digging on this story.
Among the interesting questions arising today, can you please investigate if it is true that « Mr. » Debat is still on the payroll of the Pentagon (via Andrew Marshall). And is it also true that the Amir Taheri has been one of his editors at Politique Internationale ?
De
15H08 | 17/09/2007 |
He's here, he's there, he's everywhere,
The busiest chap you've ever met ;
And yet when you check his neat-new passport,
He's traveled only on the Net.
--Leon Freilich
De
23H02 | 17/09/2007 |
He got away with it because he's French and his name is Alex. If he was Tom, American, had a desk job at one time at the Pentagon, went to Boston University (as opposed to the Sorbonne), and had an American accent -- people would have checked him out more thoroughly.
De
07H58 | 18/09/2007 |
This reader would like to know if any of Debat's writings based on these alleged interviews created created any news ? In the wake of your revelations (great work, by the way) Debat's online stories are being wiped off the Internet. Were these innocuous stories he wrote, or were they news-generating in any way ? I did find some of his think tank analyses, which read as if they are authoritative, but in the end didn't contribute much to the debate. I can see how he could fly under the radar by being not particularly controversial or ground-breaking.
De
06H55 | 19/09/2007 |
This is a fascinating story. Is Debat married, did he have any social life, was he active in Washington society, did his income give him enough money to buy a house ? Tell us more about Debat.
De
18H31 | 23/09/2007 |
His credibility was not questioned because he said what people wanted to hear. Most people prefer to fit the facts to their existing prejudices, rather than the other way round. It is not just the media but the political leaders and the intelligence agencies as well. Remember the alleged WMD in Iraq ? Strong warnings from French officials remained unheard of in the USA, just because they did not suit US public opinion. As for Mr Debat, the French Ministry of Defense spokesman officially denied he belonged to the MoD as early as 2002 (he should have said it in English, though, as apparently no one in the US has bothered learning the language of Molière).
Believe me, I'm French. ; -)
De
19H34 | 23/09/2007 |
Have things changed much ? Monsieur Debat was shrewd enough to navigate the waters of ABC and the nation's capital, but it only goes to show how easy it is for us to assume something is credible because of its source or because other influential people believe it is true.
Sic transit gloria