In light of CIA Director Michael V. Hayden's virtual plea to be kept on in the Obama administration, it's interesting to look back at a similar instance in 1976, when George H.W. Bush tried to get President-elect Jimmy Carter to retain him as his spy chief.

Carter loved the CIA briefings he had been getting during his campaign against President Gerald R. Ford, according to the agency's official history of presidential transitions.

Sometimes the sessions, which usually took place at his modest home in Plains, Ga., went on for six hours.

"Carter was a very careful and interested listener and an active participant," writes longtime CIA official John L. Helgerson, the study's author.

"All who were present remember that he asked a great many questions, often in minute detail. He was especially interested in the nature of the Intelligence Community's evidence, including satellite photography of deployed Soviet weapons."

Later, after winning the election, Carter "seemed to enjoy and benefit from the substantive discussions held at Blair House during his visits to Washington in the transition period."

Not so, though, when Bush, a future president himself, came to Plains looking to keep his job as DCI.

Carter was cold, Helgerson writes.

"Carter was unambiguous in his response after Bush finished his discussion of the pros and cons of his staying on as Director. The DCI had finished with an observation that -- all things considered -- he probably should be replaced. The President-elect, according to Bush, 'simply said, okay, or something like this, with no discussion, no questions about any of the points I had made.... As in the rest of the briefing, Carter was very cold or cool, no editorializing, no niceties, very business-like."

During their talk, Bush described "more than a dozen sensitive CIA programs and issues" for Carter, the CIA history says.

In contrast to the lively sessions he'd been having with his regular CIA briefers, "Carter had virtually no comment and asked no questions during the whole session" with Bush, the CIA history says.

"He had not indicated whether he thought the operations were good or bad, or that he was surprised or not surprised. He asked for no follow-up action or information. Bush commented that Carter 'seemed a little impatient, he didn't say much but seemed to be a little turned off. He tended to moralize.'"

The former Navy submarine nuclear officer found some CIA operations not to his liking, according to the CIA history.

"In fact, Carter was 'turned off' and uncomfortable with many of the Agency's sensitive collection programs. He ordered some discontinued ..."

Carter's running mate, Minnesota Sen. Walter Mondale, tried to break the tension by complimenting Bush on his handling of the agency in the wake of a rash of revelations about CIA assassination plots and domestic spying carried out by his predecessors, "rather generously (saying) that things had gotten better since I'd been there."

But the three quickly moved on to "a discussion of the timing of the announcement of a new CIA Director-designate."

One of the reasons Carter cited for removing Bush, who had been a Republican congressman before being appointed as ambassador to the U.N. and later China by President Nixon, was that he wanted to "depoliticize" the CIA directorship.

Subsequently, "senior Agency officers later found it ironic that his first choice for CIA Director was Theodore Sorensen, the former Kennedy political adviser and speechwriter," Helgerson writes.

Sorensen was forced to withdraw his name within weeks of his nomination "because of mounting criticism that he had played a very political role in the [John F.] Kennedy administration."  His membership in a Harvard socialist club during the Great Depression also drew fire.

Sorenson was replaced by Adm. Stansfield Turner, whom many Agency veterans consider one of the worst CIA directors in its history, mostly because he fired legions of covert operatives in favor of greater reliance on technological means of spying, such as satellites.

Sorenson may have missed a bullet, his reputation sealed as a speech writer,  rather than soiled as a spy master.

Once referred to by Kennedy as his "intellectual blood bank," wrote probably the most famous line ever in a presidential inauguration: "We shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe, in order to assure the survival and the success of liberty."

Within months, Kennedy fired his CIA director, Allen W. Dulles, following the Bay of Pigs disaster.

In light of CIA Director Michael V. Hayden's virtual plea to be kept on in the Obama administration, it's interesting to look back at a similar instance in 1976, when George H.W. Bush tried to get President-elect Jimmy Carter to retain him as his spy chief.

Carter loved the CIA briefings he had been getting during his campaign against President Gerald R. Ford, according to the agency's official history of presidential transitions.

Sometimes the sessions, which usually took place at his modest home in Plains, Ga., went on for six hours.

"Carter was a very careful and interested listener and an active participant," writes longtime CIA official John L. Helgerson, the study's author.

"All who were present remember that he asked a great many questions, often in minute detail. He was especially interested in the nature of the Intelligence Community's evidence, including satellite photography of deployed Soviet weapons."

Later, after winning the election, Carter "seemed to enjoy and benefit from the substantive discussions held at Blair House during his visits to Washington in the transition period."

Not so, though, when Bush, a future president himself, came to Plains looking to keep his job as DCI.

Carter was cold, Helgerson writes.

"Carter was unambiguous in his response after Bush finished his discussion of the pros and cons of his staying on as Director. The DCI had finished with an observation that -- all things considered -- he probably should be replaced. The President-elect, according to Bush, 'simply said, okay, or something like this, with no discussion, no questions about any of the points I had made.... As in the rest of the briefing, Carter was very cold or cool, no editorializing, no niceties, very business-like."

During their talk, Bush described "more than a dozen sensitive CIA programs and issues" for Carter, the CIA history says.

In contrast to the lively sessions he'd been having with his regular CIA briefers, "Carter had virtually no comment and asked no questions during the whole session" with Bush, the CIA history says.

"He had not indicated whether he thought the operations were good or bad, or that he was surprised or not surprised. He asked for no follow-up action or information. Bush commented that Carter 'seemed a little impatient, he didn't say much but seemed to be a little turned off. He tended to moralize.'"

The former Navy submarine nuclear officer found some CIA operations not to his liking, according to the CIA history.

"In fact, Carter was 'turned off' and uncomfortable with many of the Agency's sensitive collection programs. He ordered some discontinued ..."

Carter's running mate, Minnesota Sen. Walter Mondale, tried to break the tension by complimenting Bush on his handling of the agency in the wake of a rash of revelations about CIA assassination plots and domestic spying carried out by his predecessors, "rather generously (saying) that things had gotten better since I'd been there."

But the three quickly moved on to "a discussion of the timing of the announcement of a new CIA Director-designate."

One of the reasons Carter cited for removing Bush, who had been a Republican congressman before being appointed as ambassador to the U.N. and later China by President Nixon, was that he wanted to "depoliticize" the CIA directorship.

Subsequently, "senior Agency officers later found it ironic that his first choice for CIA Director was Theodore Sorensen, the former Kennedy political adviser and speechwriter," Helgerson writes.

Sorensen was forced to withdraw his name within weeks of his nomination "because of mounting criticism that he had played a very political role in the [John F.] Kennedy administration."  His membership in a Harvard socialist club during the Great Depression also drew fire.

Sorenson was replaced by Adm. Stansfield Turner, whom many Agency veterans consider one of the worst CIA directors in its history, mostly because he fired legions of covert operatives in favor of greater reliance on technological means of spying, such as satellites.

But Sorenson may have missed a bullet, his reputation sealed as a speech writer,  rather than soiled as a spy master.

Once referred to by Kennedy as his "intellectual blood bank," Sorenson wrote probably the most famous line ever in a presidential inauguration: "We shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe, in order to assure the survival and the success of liberty."

Within months, Kennedy fired his CIA director, Allen W. Dulles, following the Bay of Pigs disaster.

Adm. Dennis C. Blair, the former Pacific forces commander who once coordinated military operations at the CIA, is still on tap to become the nation's next top intelligence officer, despite an unexplained delay of an official announcement from President-elect Obama, sources familiar with the process say.

Blair has been touted as a shoe-in for the nomination by unnamed congressional and other anonymous sources.

But weeks have passed since his name first surfaced as a cinch for the Obama administration's director of National Intelligence.

Even in the absence of a formal announcement, however, Blair is being prepped for confirmation hearings on his expected nomination.

 "I know he's being prepared for his hearing," said a top former intelligence official, who also asked for anonymity in exchange for talking freely about the process.  

In contrast, the president-elect's national security team has had trouble finding an appropriate candidate to become the CIA's next chief.

One knowledgeable source said that the Obama team was "back to zero" on finding a CIA chief, an assertion rejected by a transition official.

Running the spy agency has become less attractive to personalities who once might have sought the position, sources say, ever since it was subsumed by the new national intelligence directorate (ODNI), set up after the surprise 9/11 attacks.  

"A lot of people don't want the job," said the source, because the CIA chief is no longer top dog in the fractious, 16-agency intelligence community, and no longer gives the President his daily briefing.  The Obama team has gone down "some blind alleys" in finding the right person, the source said.

Whereas in pre-9/11 times the job might have been a springboard to bigger things, now "it's a career ender" because it requires direct supervision of such contentious policies as renditions and interrogations.

"You've got to just really love it," a former top CIA official said,  "because it's too painful otherwise."

In 1995, Blair was appointed associate director of the CIA for military support, "responsible for direction and coordination of Intelligence Community support to military operations," acording to the agency's Web site.

Careful planning, including extensive intelligence gathering and a "disinformation" campaign to lull Hamas into thinking an attack was not imminent, preceded Israel's dramatic assault on Gaza, according to a reputable Israeli newspaper.

"Long-term preparation, careful gathering of information, secret discussions, operational deception and the misleading of the public - all these stood behind the Israel Defense Forces 'Cast Lead' operation against Hamas targets in the Gaza Strip, which began Saturday morning," Haaretz correspondent Barak Ravid reported.

The intelligence missions targeted Hamas's "permanent bases, weapon silos, training camps, the homes of senior officials and coordinates for other facilities," the paper said, citing "sources in the defense establishment."

Meanwhile, to mislead the Islamist Sunni group's leadership, "Israel continued to send out disinformation in announcing it would open the crossings to the Gaza Strip and that [Prime Minister Ehud] Olmert would decide whether to launch the strike following three more deliberations on Sunday -- one day after the actual order to launch the operation was issued," the paper said.

Such preparations marked a dramatic departure from Israel's assault on Hezbollah positions in southern Lebanon in July 2006, which quickly bogged down amid unexpectedly stiff resistance, analysts said.

Among the fiercest critics of the Lebanon campaign then was Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak, notes my CQ colleague Jonathan Broder, who has reported on and in the Middle East for three decades, beginning with the Associated Press and Chicago Tribune.

 "Barak was very critical of Israel's lack of intelligence-gathering and other important preparations before the 2006 war against Lebanon, which resulted in Hezbollah's emerging victorious in the minds of many Arabs and the perception of Israel's deterrent capacity being badly damaged," Broder commented for me  "The precision of Israel's attacks against Hamas leaders and their installations this time shows that Barak was not going to make the same mistake."

But if Israel goes ahead with an anticipated ground assault, says James Abourezk, a Lebanese American former Democratic Senator from South Dakota, it will encounter "pretty stiff resistance." 

Hamas has about 25,000 fighters in Gaza, said Abourezk, who frequently leads citizen tour groups to Syria.

"So Israel might not launch a ground incursion because Hamas has some pretty tough fighters in there."

On the other hand, "Israel can do pretty much anything it wants" because of its firm backing from the United States in general and the Bush administration in particular, he said.

The White House and State Department have blamed Hamas's rocket attacks on Israel for precipitating the crisis.

"The violence will keep going until the U.S. puts a stop to it," Abourezk said.

Today Bush administration officials said they were working hard to restore a ceasefire in Gaza. 

"[In] reality the risks to maritime flows of oil are far smaller than is commonly assumed," Blair and Kenneth Lieberthal wrote in the May/June issue of Foreign Affairs. 

"First, tankers are much less vulnerable than conventional wisdom holds. Second, limited regional conflicts would be unlikely to seriously upset traffic, and terrorist attacks against shipping would have even less of an economic effect. Third, only a naval power of the United States' strength could seriously disrupt oil shipments."

"According to a participant who would speak only if he was not identified, that led Cambone to stalk over to Blair after the meeting, jab his finger into his chest and declare that he expected more out of him," Newsweek said.

"Blair worked on a report that helped the Air Force decide to pursue a multiyear contract for F-22 Raptor fighter jets. At the same time, he was on the board of EDO Corp., a subcontractor to Lockheed Martin on the F-22 project. After news reports about the apparent conflict of interest, Blair resigned as the head of IDA and his board seat at EDO."

The Justice Department's Inspector General gigged the FBI today for allowing its agents in Iraq and Afghanistan to do some creative writing on their time sheets.

Give me a break.  As soon as I read the headline on the 88-page scolding, I thought of Frank Burns, M*A*S*H's lovably feckless martinet, and his handwringing sidekick, Hotlips Houlihan. The Army lifers revelled in uncovering minor rules violations amid the hell of war.   

Can anyone here spell Green Zone? 

 "The OIG found that the FBI inappropriately permitted employees to regularly claim overtime for activities that are not compensable as 'work,' such as time spent eating meals, exercising more than 3 hours per week, and socializing," a press release accompanying the report said.

Imagine the party-hearty life in Afghanistan.

It also said the FBI had "adjusted the work week" for its underfire agents and technicians, giving them extra pay for Sundays, etc.

Gee, these guys must be millionaires by now.

And "socializing," for anyone who knows anything about Iraq after five years there, amounts to heavy drinking, playing video games and watching DVDs, with maybe a little regretful sex thrown in, cooped up in the cheek-to-jowl enclave known as the Green Zone.

Shocking.  

"I agree, big deal," said a former top FBI official with plenty of experience investigating overseas terrorism, who also happens to be a decorated Vietnam vet.

"We were sending civilians to a war zone.  With regard to shifting the formal work week, does the IG have a freaking clue?  By that I mean that, as you well know, the work week in a Muslim country is Sunday through Thursday. Geez."

The FBI's response reminded me of Hawkeye and B.J. standing contrite before Colonel Potter.

"We accept that Headquarters management, in an effort to quickly develop a simple system to compensate FBI employees who volunteered to leave their domestic assignments and serve in war zones, allowed a flawed system to develop and remain in place too long," said top spokesman John Miller, in a prepared statement.
 "Early in the conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq ...FBI employees lived with sniper attacks, mortar fire, and roadside bombs as part of their daily work environment. They attempted to adapt a long established, domestic pay system for domestic law enforcement to unprecedented wartime assignments for FBI personnel."

It won't happen again, sir.

Here at SpyTalk HQ, we eagerly await the Justice Department's rigorous prosecution of American war profiteers.

It had to happen someday:  A Middle Eastern oil exporter glimpsing the bottom of the barrels.

The booming United Arab Emirates, facing declining oil reserves, will be issuing a call for bids early next year for the construction of "several" nuclear power plants, the Paris-based Intelligence Online (IO) newsletter is reporting.
 
Westinghouse (now a U.S.-Japanese company) and France's Areva "are geared up to bid for the huge contract," it said.

The Bush administration has favored the deal, arguing that it's an object lesson on U.S. support for peaceful nuclear power development in the region.    

"This is a real counter-example to what Iran is doing," a senior US official was quoted as saying in the Wall Street Journal over the weekend. "We're seeking commitments from nations within the Middle East."

The clock's running out for the Bushies, however. As my CQ colleague Matt Korade pointed out Dec. 9:

"Under Section 123 of the Atomic Energy Act of 1954 (PL 83-703), Congress must be given 90 days to approve this kind of nuclear trade deal. Because there is not enough time left in the current session, the Bush administration has indicated it probably will not submit the agreement for approval before the next Congress takes office, a congressional aide said."

There are other hurdles.

Last week Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen of Florida, the top Republican on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, introduced a resolution (HR 7316)  "that would bar any agreement or the issuing of licenses to export nuclear technology unless the president certifies to Congress that the UAE has met certain requirements," as Korade described it.

They include "taking effective action to prohibit the transfer of sensitive technology to Iran for a one-year period and enforcing U.S. sanctions and non-proliferation law."

But an earlier effort isn't working very well, Intelligence Online says.

Under pressure from the Commerce Department's Bureau of Industry and Security, the UAE last year adopted a law on export controls designed to prevent the transfer of classified American technology to Iran.

But the law "has failed by far to put a halt to trade between Dubai and Tehran," despite U.N. sanctions, IO reported.

As for the Obama team, it's not commenting on the issue.

But it's interesting to note that the French company in the running for the UAE's business, Areva, is represented by Covington & Burling, the Washington superlawyer firm where Obama's attorney general-designate, Eric Holder, worked until recently.

On the other hand, Areva is competing for major contracts here, IO reported, and can't afford to alienate members of Congress

Reports that the Blackwater private security company had deployed an anti-pirate vessel to the waters off Somalia are premature, a company spokeswoman says.

The 183-foot, helicopter-equipped McArthur remains at anchor in Virginia Beach, Va., said Blackwater spokeswoman Anne E. Tyrrell in a brief phone interview.

But it's ready to sail on a moment's notice.

"There is some talk of getting it over there now in anticipation of security contracts, since it takes 28 days to get to Somalia," she said.

Blackwater's proposals to shipping companies in London in early December were "favorably received," she said, but have yet to yield any contracts.

The company's reputation suffered another blow on Monday, Dec. 15, when five of its former security guards were indicted on voluntary manslaughter and other charges in connection with killings in Iraq

And its image problems don't end there.

Founded by former Navy SEALs, Blackwater faces a multimillion-dollar fine for allegedly shipping hundreds of automatic weapons to Iraq without the necessary permits, McClatchy newspapers reported last month.

"Some of the weapons are thought to have ended up on the country's black market ... but no criminal charges have been filed in the case," the Washington bureau's Warren Strobel reported.

Today, the U.N.Security Council approved a U.S. resolution allowing countries to pursue Somali pirates on land as well as at sea.

The resolution gives its member countries the right to use "all necessary measures" by land or air to stop anyone using Somali territory to plan, help or carry out acts of piracy and armed robbery at sea, the BBC reported.

Tyrrell said she was "not aware" of any interest from governments in hiring Blackwater to help provide security for its flagged vessels in the pirate-infested region.

The North Carolina-based company has made proposals to private shippers to deploy the McArthur and its 14-member crew as a "deterrent" against pirate attacks, Tyrrell said.

"The ship wouldn't fire unless it was fired upon," she said.

* "Despite their reputation as plugged-in experts on other countries, many C.I.A. officers do not even have Internet access at their desks. Worse yet, they don't think they need it."

* "C.I.A. spies reported on several occasions that Al Qaeda had plans to attack American military bases overseas -- in countries that a quick Web search would have shown had no such bases."

"The expertise of academia, where decades of insight often go untouched, could be balanced with a seasoned detective or tough prosecutor adept at turning a crook. The more military the topic, the more military folks you would want on its pursuit."

The increasingly bold attacks on NATO supplies in Pakistan should be cause for serious worry, U.S. counterterrorism operatives are saying.

The attacks mean that Islamic extremist fighters in the region are adopting the tactics that their fathers and uncles employed more than a quarter century ago -- with CIA backing - to drive the Soviets out of Afghanistan.

The objective: to choke off supplies to occupying troops on the ground.

"The bad guys understand our operations and what our lifelines are all about," said an analyst with counterterror experience in the region.

A little over a decade ago I sat in the living room of Hamid Gul, a still-powerful former head of Pakistani intelligence, listening to him rail in cold fury about the United States.

A hawk-like man with laser black eyes, Gul was known as the "father of the Taliban" for his role in midwifing the fundamentalist Afghan coalition into a fighting force that took Kabul and ruled the country with a puritanical zeal until ousted by the U.S. in the wake of 9/11.

Now he's been fingered by the U.S. as one of four former top Pakistani intelligence officers supporting Islamic terrorism.

The FBI agent who stands accused of accessing bureau computers for a notorious Hollywood private eye is no stranger to controversy.

Mark Rossini, 46, was a favorite go-to guy for national security reporters when he worked in the FBI's media relations office. He had come to the job after several years working with the CIA and other intelligence agents at the National Counterterrorism Center, in Virginia.

Tall, handsome and gregarious, Rossini enjoyed schmoozing with reporters over good cabernet and cigars at Les Halles, a French restaurant around the corner from the FBI headquarters on Pennsylvania Avenue.   

Over the past year the recently divorced counterterrorism specialist had also been squiring his raven-haired actress girlfriend, Linda Fiorentino, to the Palm and other top restaurants in Washington and New York.

One hand giveth out, the other keepeth secret. That's the mixed-use practice of Congress when it comes to deciding what's classified.

My colleague Tim Starks uncovers a pile of nuggets about congressional secrecy in his not-to-be-missed CQ Weekly cover story, now available online.

"Naturally, the Intelligence committees and their ilk that handle classified information need an outlet to do so behind closed doors," Starks points out.

But the Senate Armed Services Committee considers the annual Defense authorization bill in private, while the House Armed Services Committee doesn't. So, clearly, the Senate panel could open its markup sessions if it wanted to -- the House panel does, after all.
 
Meanwhile, the Senate Intelligence Committee marks up all its legislation in secret, but the House Intelligence Committee does so in a session labeled "open/closed."

Ostensibly, that means the session is open to the public until such point lawmakers need to kick everyone out and discuss classified matters, Starks reports.

But in reality, none of it is done in the open because the bills are taken up in a committee room that the public is not allowed to enter. And committee Democrats, who complained about Republicans marking up bills in secret, haven't followed through on their pledge to make transcripts of the so-called "open" portions of their business meetings available.
 
And the bill that actually funds the Pentagon and most of the intelligence community?

That measure, the annual Defense spending bill, is marked up completely in the open in the Senate. In the House, the Appropriations Subcommittee on Defense handles it behind closed doors, but when it gets to the full committee, anyone can watch.

 
And that's just a hint of what's going on, Starks writes.
 
"For all its apparent openness, its televised debates and public hearings, Congress is more secretive than its reputation suggests," he says.

The U.S. warned India, perhaps even twice, about impending attacks on Mumbai from Pakistan, according to anonymous senior officials.

But what about Pakistan?  If the reports are correct, did U.S. intelligence warn the Pakistan government that terrorists were about to launch the Mumbai assault from its territory?

If not, why not?

And if so, what did Pakistan do about it?

That seems to be the most obvious element missing from the story so far, that terrorists launched their assault from Pakistan.

The effect of saying that India was warned in advance is to portray its security officials as incompetent, if not derelict. (Some have already resigned.) 

In other words, it tends to spread at least some of the blame for the attacks to Indian officials, at least temporarily, and away from the growing conclusion that Pakistan is to blame for the tragedy.

I have no reason to doubt that a "senior U.S. official" - probably Condoleezza Rice, en route to India -- told the Associated Press that the "Bush administration warned India before last week's brutal attacks in Mumbai that terrorists appeared to be plotting a mostly waterborne assault on its financial capital."

Other unnamed officials, including "a senior counterterrorism official" and Pakstani intelligence sources, chimed in along the same lines, adding details to the allegation that at least some of the terrorists came by sea.

Some news organizations had already found Pakistanis who said they saw suspicious looking men come ashore.

"Waterborne" can only mean from Karachi, the sprawling Pakistani port teeming with al Qaeda-linked terrorists and groups backing armed assaults on India over the disputed territory of Kashmir.

Were Pakistani security forces provided with the alleged U.S. warning as well, so they could hunt down the plotters?

Or did the U.S. withhold it, on grounds that Pakistani military, intelligence and security units, riddled with extremist Muslim spies, cannot be trusted?

White House spokeswoman Dana Perino, aboard Air Force one with President Bush en route to North Carolina, declined to answer any questions about the affair.

"I'm not able to talk about any of our intelligence community -- any of their cooperation with any other country," she told reporters, according to the White House transcript.  "It would not be appropriate for me to do so, so I have to decline to comment on that."

Likewise, a CIA spokesman declined comment, saying the agency "does not, as a rule, publicly discuss exchanges with other intelligence services."

The National Intelligence Directorate did not immediately respond to e-mail inquiries.

A Pakistani spokesman said he would need more time to provide a definitive answer to the question.

Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari, interviewed Tuesday by CNN's Larry King, said his government was "in no way responsible" for Mumbai.

"Even the White House and the American CIA have said that today," he asserted -- falsely -- according to an advance transcript.  "The state of Pakistan is of course not involved. We're part of the victims, Larry."

Zaradi also said he "would not know" if Lashkar-e-Toiba, the militant, Pakistan-based group fighting to end Indian dominance of Kashmir, was involved with the Mumbai suicide-massacre.
 

"If indeed they are involved, we would not know," he said.

"Again, they are people who operate outside the system. They operate like -- al Qaeda, for instance, is not state-oriented. They operate something on that mechanism, and we would love to -- I've already offered to India full cooperation on this incident, and we intend to do that."

Zadari also suggested no one found to be involved would be turned over to India.

"If we had the proof, we would try them in our courts, we would try them in our land and we would sentence them," he said.


(For more on this, see tonite's PBS show, WorldFocus.)

"Look at their targets. The two hotels they attacked--the Taj and the Oberoi--are old, iconic Indian hotels. It used to be true that these places were affordable only by Westerners. But this is no longer true, and it's one of the big changes over the last ten years in India. The five-star hotels today are filled with Indians. Businessmen, wedding receptions, parties...these are real meeting places now, and even those who cannot afford to stay there often pass through the lobby."

"I think he is correct, and besides, the real business center of Mumbai is now out by the airport and this is where the 'Western' hotels he mentions are primarily located.  So in this sense, if their targets were Westerners, while many would be, and were, in the Taj and Oberoi, the real target-rich environment would be where Zakaria mentions."