In 1991, when I was Ambassador to Jordan, King Hussein became convinced that the deterioration in his relations with the United States was the fault of an unsympathetic Department of State. It was certainly true that the store of sympathy at Foggy Bottom for the PLK—“Plucky Little King”—as he was affectionately known, had run dry. This was a function of what was seen, with some accuracy, as his duplicity in the run up to the first Gulf War. The King had downplayed Saddam’s preparations for the invasion of Kuwait, and had tried to stay neutral in the aftermath to negotiate a settlement between Washington and Saddam. Although Jordan voted in the United Nations for sanctions on Iraq, Jordan’s borders remained disturbingly porous—to the point that only the intervention of Secretary of State Jim Baker himself blunted an effort by State and Pentagon officials to impose the Iraqi sanctions regime on the Hashemite Kingdom as well.

The King’s motivation was clear enough: He had deceived himself that this was his moment in history, his chance to broker peace. That meant balancing precariously on some imagined middle ground between the adversaries. It was a miscalculation; there was no middle ground. The King’s peace overtures were treated with hostility in Washington and contempt in Baghdad.

He then took to placating his pro-Saddam public with polemical speeches about the United States, the double standard in Washington’s treatment of the Arabs, and the supposed exploitation of Arab resources by the rapacious West. This did not endear him to the White House and still less to the State Department, whose officials were particularly sensitive to charges of clientism where Jordan was concerned. A sub-zero chill descended on relations between Washington and Amman.

I still had access to the King. But my role was to be a nag and a scold, delivering messages always full of complaint: about sanctions enforcement, the King’s anti-Western public statements, and his repeated and abortive efforts to craft some deal giving in to at least some of Saddam’s demands as cover for an Iraqi withdrawal from Kuwait.

There was, however, a more sympathetic ear in Washington. Hussein’s relationship to the CIA had always been close. The yearly subsidies Washington had once paid to the King’s private account had ceased some years before, but they were commemorated in yearly “birthday gifts” from the Agency. And the King preferred to deal with intelligence operatives, man to man. They didn’t bother him about human rights or sanctions enforcement. They wanted certain things from him, and were willing to provide certain things in return. By custom, my station chief had independent access to Nadwa Palace. Sometimes I was briefed on what was said, accurately or not; sometimes I was not briefed at all.

In one of their meetings, when relations were particularly frosty, the King asked my CIA Station Chief to facilitate an independent channel between him and White House, bypassing me, the State Department, the Pentagon, and the remainder of the national security apparatus. He thought that if he could only plead his case directly to his old friend, George H.W. Bush, all would be well. The Station Chief was willing.

The State Department bureaucracy could be ignored. But the message could not bypass CIA Director Bob Gates, and—king or no king—Gates knew better than to try an end run around Jim Baker at State.

So it came to pass that my secure phone rang with a call from Ed Djerijian, then Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs. He began by saying that if I tried to fire my Station Chief, the Department of State would not support me—this before he told me why I might want to fire my station chief. Ambassadors have this authority in principle; only the foolhardy test it in practice.

It had never occurred to me that State would support me in a showdown with the CIA, or in any other controversy for that matter. As every experienced Ambassador knows (and as our new President in now discovering), there is considerable institutional loyalty within the intelligence community. At State, by contrast, they keep the trap door well greased. So Ed could have saved himself the phone call.

In the aftermath I had a talk with my Station Chief; he looked suitably abashed. The King’s hope for a secret back channel to Bush came to nothing and the 1991 Gulf War eventually was launched and won.

What’s the moral of the story for Jared Kushner, Donald Trump, and the whole of the third-rate vaudeville show now playing at the White House? It is this: There are no secret back channels. It’s a myth.

Yes, it’s true, back channels have been set up and, from time to time, been used temporarily to some sound purpose. Henry Kissinger knows a good deal about such matters, and their use back in the day with respect to both China and the Soviet Union. But this is not tactic for the naive—the sort of people who don’t understand, for example, that sending a known message through the other side’s system of encryption is an excellent way to break their codes. Russian Ambassador Kisylak knows this, which is why he was reportedly bemused when the suggestion of using Russian communications was made.

The fact is that, however confidential a back channel is supposed to be, a number of people will always know what was said, what offers were made, what intelligence was passed, or what indiscretions were committed. That sort of knowledge is power.

In the case of a mooted Kushner back channel, those people “in the know” would have included not just Vladimir Putin but a good part of the Russian intelligence community. Perhaps they would have leaked it. Perhaps they would have turned it into disinformation and launched it publicly when it pleased them through one of their many surrogates. Perhaps they would have held it in reserve to use later if that served their interests, reminding Trump and company in the midst of some crisis that they possessed an embarrassing secret: that Kushner had lied, such that the President’s son-in-law was potentially compromised

One thing is certain: They would have used the information in that back channel in all ways feasible to damage the interests of our country, and promote the interests of their country. Were U.S. intelligence operatives approached by a well-connected simpleton from the inner circle of the Kremlin leadership, we would do the same. That’s how it works.

It’s really a fundamental principle: You don’t confide in your adversaries (assuming, of course, you’re not completely clueless as to who they are). If you do, you give away your power to those who do not mean us well. Professionals know this. It’s time for the amateurs to learn.