[Congressional Record Volume 147, Number 86 (Wednesday, June 20, 2001)]
[Senate]
[Pages S6511-S6512]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




 SPECIAL AGENT TIMOTHY F. DEERR, FORMER EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, AIR FORCE 
                    OFFICE OF SPECIAL INVESTIGATIONS

  Mr. THURMOND. Mr. President, I rise today to honor a dedicated and 
innovative public servant, Timothy F. Deerr, the former Executive 
Director of the Air Force Office of Special Investigations, who 
recently retired after more than 26 years of loyal and selfless 
service.
  As any citizen of the United States should know, two major powers 
emerged from the ashes and ruins of World War II--the United States of 
America and the now defunct Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. The 
ideologies and interests of these two nations were diametrically 
opposed and the aspirations of Soviet communists for global control 
made it imperative that America's foot soldiers and leaders in national 
security affairs exercise vigilance and sacrifice in defense of 
freedom. For almost fifty years, these two superpowers engaged in a 
``cold war,'' where conflict was waged through proxies, brinksmanship, 
espionage, and counterespionage. It was in this environment in 1975 
that Timothy Deerr joined the battle as a civilian Special Agent of the 
Air Force Office of Special Investigations.
  By the time he completed his career earlier this year, Timothy Deerr 
had spent most of his professional life as a cold warrior and spy 
catcher. But, before he entered what has alternately been called the 
``world's second oldest profession'' and the ``wilderness of mirrors,'' 
he started out as a criminal investigator in Dayton, Ohio. It was here, 
at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, that Special Agent Deerr learned 
and

[[Page S6512]]

honed his skills as an investigator, gaining invaluable experience in 
how to read people, analyze facts, and test hypotheses.
  After 6 years of working criminal cases in Ohio, Special Agent Deerr 
swapped the Buckeye State for the divided city of Berlin. Since renamed 
as the Capital of a united Germany, Berlin was then a city carved into 
sectors of control--a virtual battleground of espionage and counter-
espionage activities. Intelligence operatives from the east and west 
worked feverishly against one another, both to steal secrets and to 
protect secrets from being compromised. For two years, Special Agent 
Deerr conducted critical and successful counterintelligence operations 
defending against foreign intelligence services stationed in the 
communist sector of Berlin. As a demonstration of the sensitivity of 
the operations he conducted, his experiences and cases in Berlin remain 
classified to this day, twenty years after he initially reported for 
duty there and ten years after the fall of the Berlin Wall.
  From 1987, when he left Berlin, until 1994, Special Agent Deerr 
earned and held positions of increasing responsibility and importance 
within the Office of Special Investigations, including those of Chief, 
Central European Counterintelligence Operations, Wiesbaden, West 
Germany. Later, as the OSI Director of Counterintelligence, he managed 
OSI counterintelligence investigations and operations around the world 
and represented OSI and the Air Force on a number of senior policy 
boards that crafted our national counterintelligence strategy and 
policies.
  While freedom loving people in the United States and throughout the 
world heralded and celebrated the implosion of communism in the early 
1990s, an ironic byproduct of the end of the Soviet Union ensured 
America's Cold Warriors would enjoy little respite. While the USSR was 
a threat to peace and security for almost fifty years, it was a threat 
that we were able to identify and engage. After the Cold War, the world 
became, in many regards, a puzzling patchwork of active and potential 
adversaries of the United States and American citizens. Not only were 
foreign governments targeting our secrets and threatening our security, 
so were criminal and terrorist organizations. In recognition of this 
new dynamic, in 1994, the President of the United States directed a re-
examination of the U.S. Counterintelligence Program, including ways to 
improve coordination, integration and accountability of American 
counterintelligence efforts. As a result, Presidential Decision 
Directive 24 was issued in May 1994. The directive, in part, mandated 
the establishment of the National Counterintelligence Center, and 
Special Agent Deerr was tapped as the Deputy Director of the new 
National Counterintelligence Center, an impressive distinction and a 
testament to his reputation and success as one of America's premier spy 
catchers.
  In 1996, Special Agent Deerr returned to Air Force OSI as its 
Executive Director--the senior civilian Special Agent in the United 
States Air Force. During his five-year tenure in the top civilian 
position within OSI, Mr. Deerr earned a reputation for innovation and 
excellence in leadership. He took the helm at an interesting and 
challenging time in the history of OSI. As a result of the end of the 
Cold War, diminishing budgets, and retirements of personnel who entered 
government service at the height of the Cold War, he faced personnel 
upheaval and institutional reorganization. America and our Armed Forces 
were faced with new and daunting challenges that required institutional 
agility, professional creativity, and cutting-edge technical skills. 
Under Executive Director Deerr's steady stewardship, OSI ``re-
invented'' itself as a model for the 21st Century in the fields of 
counterintelligence, anti-terrorism, and crime fighting.
  OSI built DoD's Computer Forensics Laboratory--America's premier 
electronic media forensics lab dedicated to ferreting out evidence of 
computer crime, network intrusions, and felony tampering with DoD 
computer systems. OSI started and still manages the Defense Computer 
Investigations Training Program--DoD's ``graduate school'' for those 
tasked with investigating cyber-related crimes. Furthermore, Executive 
Director Deerr emerged as a visionary leader of the Defense Criminal 
Investigative Organizations, DCIO, Enterprise-Wide Working Group, the 
DEW Group. Mr. Deerr and the DEW Group devised innovative enterprise-
wide pilot programs to leverage scarce DoD resources, improve training 
and deployment of America's front line investigators, and save taxpayer 
dollars.
  Executive Director Deerr's influence and innovations extended far 
beyond DoD. Through his active membership in the International 
Association of Chiefs of Police and the IACP International Policy 
Committee, Tim Deerr was instrumental in proliferating enduring 
principles of policing professionalism, integrity, civil liberties, and 
selfless service to the international policing executive community 
across the globe.
  After 26 years of service, Executive Director Timothy Deerr left Air 
Force OSI an even better agency than the one he joined in 1975. His 
career ran the gamut from criminal investigations to catching spies, 
and from being a rookie agent to the top civilian on the payroll. 
During his almost three decades of service, the world changed 
dramatically from a bipolar one where there was a constant threat of 
nuclear war to one where the United States must be prepared to counter 
threats on a multitude of new fronts. Through his uncommon dedication 
and selfless devotion to duty he has left an indelible mark on the face 
of counterintelligence within the U.S. Government. I am certain that 
all my colleagues will want to join me in commending Mr. Deerr on a 
successful career and a job well done as well as wishing him, his wife 
Terri, and their daughter Alexandra, great health, happiness, and 
prosperity in the years to come.

                          ____________________