Government Agencies Books

This book is an excellent overview of warfare and what it takes to win.Warfare has changed much over the centuries. At one tine the biggest,toughest guy would win.Then it was one who could throw the biggest stone,the greatest distance with the most accuracy.Through the centuries massive armies and weaponry evolved till we saw the results of WWII. As weapons of agression evolved,so did systems of defence,from simple forts to the Great Wall of China,the Maginot Line,etc.
With the Atomic Bomb and Hiroshima ,all that changed.There have been things like poison gas,terrorists,guerrilla warfare,enslavement,and a host of other methods employed;but in the end it is the one with the best weapon and best ighters that wins.
History has shown that appeasement only prolongs the inevitable,and the sooner an enemy is dealt with the better.However ,the political approach and the military approach are always in conflict;and the longer that conflict extends,the more costly in both resources and loss of lives it becomes.
In this book we see where todays method of Shock and Awe is what the future approach will be.
The author also gives a pretty good idea of the types of weaponry that we will be seeing in the future. However;the weapon that has the biggest impact,is usually that which was least expected. When we saw Saddam tossing those Skud missils willy-nilly;we learned what Shock and Awe was all about when we saw that US missil get placed directly into the door of the structure.I would have liked to have been there when Saddam saw it on his TV;and heard his comment.He knew,then and there,it was the end.
The author very clearly defines the future of warfare with what he calls Rapid Dominance as the way of the future. The next step will be to deploy forces within a few days. I surmise we will become first aware of a conflict when we hear that it has already taken place.
This book is not just some academic musings. It is a clear outline of what we are going to see in the future.

Shock & Awe is a series of essays by various writers who discuss their takes on the multiple aspects of present and future war fighting doctrine.

The book was engaging in parts, but tedious in others depending on the author of the individual essay. While I would say most essays were decent, the first four were the best in my opinion.

Standouts included Eric Haney's chapter in the use of special forces, an essay on legitimacy of an occupying force, and one of the later essays "The Eye of God". The "Hearts and Minds in 2025" chapter was unnecessarily long and boring, as was the Appendix on the original "Shock and Awe" doctrine. The essay on "Weapons of the Next War" was uninformative, and not entirely well researched.

All in all, this was an OK read, but not a knock your socks off experience.

This book is a series of articles on the future of warfare as predicted by the editors. Some articles are better than others, as would be expected depending on one's point of view and background but all will make you think. Haney's preface is a very succinct presentation of the world we currently live in and will have to deal with in the coming decades. The articles naturally follow this lead. I would recommend this book to those who are interested in the concepts of force application when dealing with low intensity conflicts and terrorism.

This first class work is like getting three books in one! Throughout the book, it serves as a history lesson in military warfare techniques, a current day philosophical breakdown of motives of terrorism and recent war efforts to deal with the changing global political frictions, and perhaps most important, an essay of applying non-conventional warfare techniques against non-conventional militant persons, groups and terroristic nations dedicated in fighting and dying for their beliefs against freedom.
Emminantly trained and qualified in understanding what makes the emerging global enemies of free societies tick, that is, the terrorist state, Eric Haney with Brian Thomsen provide incredible insight in laymen's terms to what kind of enemy we're facing, why the war efforts of free nations against terrorists is currently incredibly swift but enduringly challenging after "victory".
Perhaps for the first time, this comprehensive work gives expert and layman alike the opportunity to understand why terrorists target us so severely (even when our countries are separated by thousands of miles of oceans), why the most powerful nations on earth are struggling to find and neutralize the threat, and best of all, how we can reach success in the future.

I might knock a star or two off of the Encyclopedia of Espionage, Intelligence, and Security if the books were intended for graduate students or intended as a substitute for professional level publications by security specialists, but there are few resources in this area that bring such clear writing and scientific expertise to younger students and the general public. The books are written from a global perspective (the editors are in the U.K. and the advisory board is diverse and internationally based), and touch on global issues and organizations. These books also offer excellent insight into the tumultuous reorganization of the United States security agencies and the complexities of problems brought about by the concept of homeland security. The typical Anti-American/pro-European world view is restrained, and criticism is directed at organizations, agencies, and politics on both sides of the Atlantic. It is refreshing to see a resource on this topic written by scientists and teachers rather than another insider "tell all." There are some errors and omissions (I would have liked to have seen greater coverage of Asian issues), but it is good to discover a resource in this area that is dedicated to fact rather than opinion. Perhaps most important for students is that the editors and publishers were unselfish in directing readers to excellent outside resources for more advanced study. The reference resources, especially the glossary, included at the end of each volume are outstanding and helpful to all students and researchers.

I found articles with which I agreed and disagreed, but I appreciated that the book attempted not to pander to special interests, and avoided straying too far right or left politically. The emphasis on the importance of the biosciences, especially biometrics and genetics, makes the books valuable and interesting. The publisher was brave on two counts, for attempting these books during turbulent times where the "facts" and names of agencies seem to change every day, and for tackling tough and intricate topics in way that they challenge but do not overwhelm the average reader.

I think the set overreaches in that it tries to cover too much material in three volumes. I think that compressive coverage of narrower focus would have been better than shorting really important political issues such as the potential for manipulation of the bacterial and viral genomes by governments to start pandemics in targeted racial or ethnic groups. There are some otherwise good science articles that fail to even hint at the still unknown the extent of the U.S. government's invasion into personal privacy. But I am most disappointed that the authors kept to the "official" historical line on the role of intelligence agencies in matters such as the Kennedy assassination. Other conspiracies, and the facts supporting them, are also ignored or glossed over in favor of science and technology articles that lose sight of the grander manipulation of intelligence by governments for political gain. While the book lists suspected terrorist organizations, the terrorist actions of the U.S. government and its sometimes allies are also ignored. Younger readers and the general public would be better served by a brighter light on the dirty corners into which secrets are sometimes swept.

Of the approximately 800 to 850 articles in this set, I have reviewed nearly forty entries across a range of subtopics. Although I find the A-Z format to be cumbersome when attempting to link information related to a particular topic, the overall organization is logical and friendly to the average reader. The photos and article content make the set as readable as many single topic books. It is hard to turn the page without finding interesting or valuable reading on a topic recently in the news.

The set is at its best when tackling science and technology related topics. Written and edited by scientists and teachers for the general public, the articles often take the space to explain fundamental science concepts and how they relate to emerging security related technologies. The science articles are first-rate and show consistent effort to make tough and complex topics understandable.

The books set a modest goal of portraying the impact of modern science and technology on security issues, but the editors and writers achieve more by including interesting short articles on historical topics that also emphasize the impact of the science and technology on the history of espionage and intelligence. The selection of articles shows a crafted regard not to tread the well-worn path of prior books on spycraft, and the omissions allow the authors to explore fresh angles to old stories. While the political and historical articles often seem condensed, and in places oversimplified, they add readability, usefulness, and context to the more technical articles.

The non-science writing is utilitarian, but having the wide range of topics related to countries and organizations in one set is handy. Although certain articles may subtly convey a particular author's bias, the overall tone of the book is decidedly balanced and fair. In fact, although apparently written before the conclusion of the recent war in Iraq, and the rise of issues related to the search for WMD stockpiles, the book exhibits an eerie insight into the complexities of the intelligence issues and failures related the current WMD controversy.

This is an excellent general resource for high school students and the general public. The books are a sound starter resource for undergraduate students. Libraries, newsrooms, and emergency planners would find this encyclopedia a worthwhile investment.

This is an excellent book handicapped by a rather silly title. The author of the book is Arthur Hulnick who after seven years with navel Intelligence had a successful career as an analyst with the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). He has written a very thoughtful and accurate description of the U.S. Intelligence System and the processes of intelligence production. Of course the book tends to be somewhat CIA centric since Hulnick was a CIA employee, but the book still covers the entire system quit well. Although published in 1999, his book has as much relevance today as it did when it was published.

Hulnick provides a very good, if general, account of the processes associated with intelligence analysis and clearly knows what he is talking about. He is also one of the few writers on intelligence to address the issue that the CIA and other intelligence agencies tend to have very poor management and lack management training programs. Although Hulnick devotes some discussion to intelligence reform, the most valuable contribution of his book is his candid discussions of how the U.S. Intelligence System actually works as seen from the viewpoint of someone who was immersed in that system. His careful discussions and observations make good reading for both intelligence professionals and for folks who just wish to know what intelligence is all about. This book would be a good companion to "Secret Agencies" by Loch K. Johnson and "Intelligence from Secrets to Policy" by Mark M. Lowenthal (both available at Amazon.com).

In reading this book this reviewer noted a certain ambiguity that is common to intelligence professionals of long service in the way Hulnick discussed the intelligence system. On the one hand he is clearly proud of the analytic work he and his colleagues performed and of the very real successes of U.S. Intelligence Community; on the other hand he is clearly dismayed by the numerous and egregious failures of a dysfunctional community with a long history of chronic mismanagement.

Excellent analysis of the problems that have plagued the US intelligence system with cogent policy recommendations. Its criticism of the undue reliance placed on technical collection over analysis and human resources was timely advice that was unfortunately not followed.

This book has two good features-the author really does understand the personnel issues, and hence one can read between the lines for added value; and the book is as good an "insider" tour of the waterfront as one could ask for. How the book treats the CIA-FBI relationship, for example, is probably representative of how most CIA insiders feel. The book does not reflect a deep understanding of open sources and tends to accept the common wisdom across the intelligence bureaucracy, that all is "generally okay" and just a bit of change on the margin is necessary. In this respect, it is a good benchmark against which the more daring reformist books may be measured.

Students of intelligence have been blessed this year with the publication of two outstanding books on American intelligence: Mark Lowenthal's "Intelligence" and Arthur Hulnick's "Fixing the Spy Machine."

Hulnick, a retired intelligence officer and former "CIA Officer in Residence" at Boston University and one of the Agency's first public spokesmen, provides a stimulating overview of the major problems facing the US intelligence community. It is a particularly useful book for those who seek a professional's critical view on issues ranging from the need for better recruitment to improved coordination between civilian and military clandestine activities.

Although Hulnick clearly has considerable sympathy for the needs of the intelligence community, this is by no means an uncritical whitewash. On the contrary, it is a thoughtful probing of present and future problems facing US intelligence and policy makers.

I would rate this book as one of a handful any serious student of US intelligence should read and own --- to come back to often as a reference volume.

Pages 300/301 of the Helms book:

One of the most disturbing incidents in the six days [war between Israel and
the surrounding Arab states] came on the morning of June 8[, 1967] when the
Pentagon flashed(urgent top-priority precedence) a message that the U.S.S.
Liberty, an unarmed U.S. Navy communications(spy) ship, was under attack in
the Mediterranean, and that American fighters had been scrambled to defend
the ship....

.... The following urgent reports showed that Israeli jet fighters and
torpedo boats had launched the attack. The seriously damaged Liberty
remained afloat, with thirty-four dead and more than a hundred wounded
members of the crew.

Israeli authorities subsequently apologized for the accident, but few in
Washington could believe that the ship had not been identified as an
American naval vessel. Later, an interim intelligence memorandum concluded
that the attack was a mistake and "not made in malice against the U.S."....

.... When additional evidence was available, more doubt was raised. This prompted my
[D]eputy [Director of Central Intelligence], Admiral Rufus Taylor, to write
me his view of the incident. "To me, the picture thus far presents the
distinct possibility that the Israelis knew that the Liberty might be their
target and attacked anyway, either through confusion in Command and Control
or through deliberate disregard of instructions on the part of
subordinates."

The day after the attack, President Johnson, bristling with irritation, said
to me, "The New York Times" put that attack on the Liberty on an inside
page. It should have been on the front page!"

I had no role in the board of inquiry that followed, or the board's finding
that there could be no doubt that the Israeli's knew exactly what they were
doing in attacking the Liberty. I have yet to understand why it was felt
necessary to attack this ship or who ordered the attack.

(299 words in a 452 page book)

Murder... they KNEW they were murdering defenseless American kids barely in their twenties so that they could complete WHAT two Israeli Prime Ministers(Menachim Begin and Moshe Dayan) have since admitted was a "land grab"....

...to get more land, ....more land than they had already grabbed by the fourth day of the Six-Day War-they left 34 American families without their sons, brothers, dads... and sent a good subset of the 171 injured home to THEIR families in the US maimed for life.

and the kids burned and maimed for life who are standing up for their 34 fallen comrades unable to rise from the dead to defend their own memories and blameless conduct... now the Israelis call them "liars" and "anti-Semites"...

...except a couple of the crew members of the USS Liberty were Jewish themselves... so they're not called "liars" and "anti-semites"... no, the Israeli attackers and Government of Israel call them "liars" and "self-hating jews"...

THE OFFICIAL POSITION OF THE CIA IS THAT THIS WAS A "TRAGIC MISTAKE".... BUT HERE IS WHAT THE OFFICIALS AT THE NSA HAD TO SAY TO UNITED STATES NAVAL INSTITUTE'S, DAVID C WALSH:Former NSA Officials Agree
David C. Walsh
The jamming of unique U.S. frequencies during the Liberty incident seems to establish deliberate intent. And in exclusive interviews with this author, several former high-level National Security Agency (NSA) officials agree.

On 14 February 2003, the "godfather" of the NSA's Auxiliary General Technical Research program, Oliver Kirby, noted that the Liberty was "my baby." Within weeks of the calamity, Kirby, deputy director for operations/production, read U.S. signals intelligence (SigInt)-generated transcripts and "staff reports" at NSA's Fort Meade, Maryland, headquarters. They were of Israeli pilots' conversations, recorded during the attack. The intercepts made it "absolutely certain" they knew it was a U.S. ship, he said. Kirby's is the first public disclosure by a top-level NSA senior of deliberate intent based on personal analyses of SigInt material.

In an interview on 24 February 2003, retired Air Force Major General John Morrison, the agency's then-second-in-command (and Kirby's successor), said he had been informed at the time of Kirby's findings and endorsed them. Former NSA Director retired Army Lieutenant General William Odom said on 3 March 2003 said that, on the strength of such data, the attack's deliberateness "just wasn't a disputed issue" within the agency. On 5 March 2003, retired Navy Admiral Bobby Ray Inman, NSA director from 1977-1981, said he "flatly rejected" the Cristol/Israeli thesis. "It is just exceedingly difficult to believe that [the Liberty] was not correctly identified." He said this was based on his talks with NSA seniors at the time having direct knowledge. All four were unaware of any agency official at that time or later who dissented from the "deliberate" conclusion.

This book is not afraid to look at fundamental problems in the area of intelligence, which America today is finding amazingly similar to the problems that Richard Helms observed in Germany immediately after World War Two. Helms was uniquely qualified to see the big picture, having been a newspaper reporter who had lunch with Adolf Hitler (Chapter 2 is called `Lunch with Adolf') the day of a big rally in Nuremberg in 1936, a privilege that Americans willing to spend a thousand dollars a plate to attend a fundraiser with American presidents more recently might be jealous of, if being a millionaire is not enough to make them happy. Henry Kissinger was happy to report in the Foreword that Helms was even invited to lunch with President Nixon after an early NSC meeting. (p. xi). There is even a picture of the famous Tuesday lunch group with LBJ, Rusk, Clark Clifford, General Wheeler, Walt Rostow, George Cushman and Walt Johnson. There is even a picture of a lunch with Vice President George Herbert Walker Bush with the caption, "At lunch in the Vice President's office. Aside from George Washington, the elder George Bush is the only President who had firsthand knowledge of the intelligence world."

The Preface reports that February 2, 1973, was the day James Schlesinger was sworn in as head of CIA and Richard Helms lost the position which was his main claim to fame. Richard Nixon had something to do with it, and Chapter 1, `A Smoking Gun' reports enough about the Watergate break-in to give the CIA perspective from the top, and ends with "Five months later, and a few days after his reelection, President Nixon called me to Camp David. It was the last time we spoke while he was in office." (p. 13). The Preface even claims "President Nixon had ended my intelligence career with a handshake at Camp David." (p. vi). If Helms is right about that, there was no personal contact between the Director of the CIA and the President of the United States in December 1972 and January 1973, when the Vietnam ceasefire was being hammered into place and a record number of B-52 bombers were being shot down by North Vietnamese anti-aircraft guns and SAMs. That figures.

The German spies are most fascinating in the beginning of the book. Helms calls Martha Dodd an American, as she was the daughter of the American ambassador to Germany from 1933 to 1938, but she was also girlfriend of Boris Vinogradov, the press secretary at the Soviet embassy in Berlin. After being charged with spying in 1957, she fled to Czechoslovakia. "Martha was seventy when she died in Prague in 1990." (p. 20). Spies and Richard Nixon have an acute sense of which side someone is on, and Helms seems to be particularly sensitive to the issues that Nixon would be prone to notice. Other major personalities are easy to locate in the index: Allen Dulles, James Angleton, Dwight D. Eisenhower, John F. Kennedy, Henry Kissinger, Yuri Ivanovich Nosenko, and Frank Wisner.

Chapter 8, "The Gehlen Organization," deals with the group most responsible for allowing German intelligence after World War Two to maintain some continuity with the information that had been accumulating while Hitler was in power. As the only employer in West Germany that was not averse to employing the upper echelons of the previous regime, it had no trouble recruiting four thousand former Nazis, but Helms did not find them reliable. " . . . the American officers working with Gehlen in Washington neglected to insist upon being given the names of and biographical data on the RUSTY staff personnel. . . . Even in the confusion of the immediate post-war intelligence picture, this oversight violated one of the fundamental rules of secret intelligence, and helped to set the stage for the security disasters that in time all but destroyed the entire effort." (p. 86). A lot of people have been jumping to this conclusion without having the kind of in-depth knowledge of the situation which Helms observed.

On "fundamental rules of secret intelligence," (p. 86), Helms seems most upset that he received a felony conviction for denying something in testimony to Congress that he felt compelled to deny. Helms was bitter that in his confirmation hearings to be appointed ambassador to Iran, he was asked questions by people who knew that the answer was officially secret, so he was being forced to lie to maintain a cover story that was maintaining dubious deniability. This is the area of books on intelligence that I find most interesting. Nosenko was not allowed to participate in a free debate in America over the nature of KGB activities regarding Lee Harvey Oswald because the entire nature of the KGB was a matter of exclusive CIA jurisdiction within the American system, and holding Nosenko a prisoner for years was the perfect symbol of the amount of control that the CIA believed it was entitled to maintain over such information. Convicting Helms of a felony for lying to Congress was a matter of attempting to establish the principle that laws have a higher function than rules, and any individual within the American system is subject to the possibility of being hauled into court to be a patsy for whatever law the administration of justice intends to glorify in its present incarnation.

Helms doesn't exactly vilify Richard M. Nixon in this book, but just honestly stating "It has long been clear to me that President Nixon himself called the shots in the Watergate cover-up," (p. 13) is damn close. On our most recent impeachment, I think the movie "Candy" (1969, DVD 2001) with Enrico Maria Salerno as Jonathan J. John provides a better joke, when the police ask, "Did you see what happened to the girl in the blue dress?" Film buff J.J.J. responded, "I don't know. Who directed it?" That is the way most Presidents feel about the CIA.

This is a biography we have been waiting for a long time. In fact, few even thought Richard Helms would even write his memoirs when one considers he spent his life working within the world of secrets, assassinations, political underdealings. Indeed, this can be a fascinating book for a realistic view of the world stuff like the Bond movies paint in more cartoonish terms. Helms takes us on a historical journey through World War 2 and his meeting with Hitler (where he describes the power of the Hitler aura upon the German people), he goes on into the years of Kennedy, Johnson and Nixon during which he was director of the CIA. But...should we take Helms' version of history as official? Probably not. Consider he makes an attempt to bash any theory that tries to show uptight men like him as anything other than squeaky clean. He especially tries to brush off the idea that the CIA might have been involved in the JFK assassination. He goes out of his way to especially criticise New Orleans District Attorney Jim Garrison who first brought the assassination conspiracy theories to the public and the Oliver Stone film based on the investigation and evidence of conspiracy, "JFK." He calls the idea of a conspiracy hogwash and tries to support the idea of Oswald acting alone with evidence that has already been shredded apart by investigators. Helms even tries to defend the image of FBI head J.Edgar Hoover, he confirms that Hoover kept certain files on people, but he attempts to deny the idea brought about by overwhelming evidence and testimony that Hoover lived a homosexual lifestyle. Helms presents a good story but also tries too hard to clean-up the image of a government that runs wild in some areas, something that has been long ago proven. It is a good read, well-written and detailed, but like any open-minded reader, read but carefully tread the waters because are we to believe Helms would honestly reveal secrets that even today would awaken rage from the general populace? Helms tells a good story, how much of it is true we will never know.

Richard Helms is, after Allen Dulles, arguably the most significant US spymaster and intelligence manager in history. It is a fortunate circumstance that he overcame his reluctance to publish anything at all, and worked with the trusted William Hood, whose own books are remarkable, to put before the public a most useful memoire.

Below are a few of the gems that I find worth noting, and for which I recommend the book as a unique record:

1) Puts forward elegant argument for permissive & necessary secrecy in the best interests of the public
2) Defends the CIA culture as highly disciplined--he is persuasive in stating that only Presidents can order covert actions, and that CIA does only the President's direct bidding.
3) Makes it clear in passing, not intentionally, that his experience as both a journalist and businessman were essential to his ultimate success as a spymaster and manager of complex intelligence endeavors--this suggests that one reason there is "no bench" at CIA today is because all the senior managers have been raised as cattle destined to be veal: as young entry on duty people, brought up within the bureaucracy, not knowing how to scrounge sources or meet payroll...
4) Compellingly discusses the fact that intelligence without counterintelligence is almost irrelevant if not counterproductive, but then glosses over some of the most glaring counterintelligence failures in the history of the CIA--interestingly, he defends James Angleton and places the blame for mistreating Nosenko squarterly on the Soviet Division leadership in the Directorate of Operations.
5) Points out that it was Human Intelligence (HUMINT), not Imagery Intelligence (IMINT), that first found the Soviet missiles in Cuba.
6) He confirms the Directorate of Intelligence and the analysis it does, as the "essence" of intelligence, relegating clandestine and technical intelligence to support functions rather than driving functions. This is most important, in that neither clandestine nor technical collectors are truly responsive to the needs of all-source analysts, in part because systems are designed, and agents are recruited, without regard to what is actually needed.
7) He tells a great story on Laos, essentially noting that 200 CIA paramilitary officers, and money, and the indigenous population, where able to keep 5 North Vietnamese divisions bogged down, and kept Laos more or less free for a decade
8) In the same story on Laos, he explains U.S. Department of Defense incapacity in unconventional or behind the lines war by noting that their officers kept arriving "with knapsacks full of doctrine".
9) In recounting some of CIA's technical successes, he notes casually that persistence is a virtue--there were *thirteen* satellite failures before the 14th CORONA effort finally achieved its objectives.
10) He gives Lyndon Baines Johnson (LBJ) much higher marks at a user and leader of intelligence, such that we wondered why Christopher Andrew, the noted author on US Presidents and intelligence, did not include LBJ is his "four who got it" (Washington, Eisenhower, Kennedy, and Bush Senior).
11) He confirms, carefully and directly, that the Israeli attacks on the USS Liberty were deliberate and with fore-knowledge that the USS Liberty was a US vessel flying the US flag on US official business.
12) He expresses concern, in recounting the mistakes in Chile, over the lack of understanding by President Nixon and Henry Kissinger (who writes the Foreword to this book) of the time lags involved in clandestine operations and covert actions.
13) In summary, he ends with pride, noting that all that CIA did not only reduced fear, it saved tens of billions of dollars in defense expenditures that would have been either defeated by the Soviets, or were unnecessary. There can be no question, in light of this account, but that CIA has more than "paid the rent", and for all its trials and tribulations, provides the US taxpayer with a better return on investment than they get from any other part of the US Government, and certainly vastly more bang for the buck that they get from the US Department of Defense.

Richard Helms is a one-of-a-kind, and this memoire should be read by every intellience professional, and anyone who wishes to understand how honorable men can thrive in the black world of clandestine and covert operations. RIP.

If you're studying the CIA's operations and routines you can't be without Safe for Democracy: The Secret Wars of the CIA. It covers all the CIA's covert and political operations and also considers these actions in relation to America's quest for global democracy, using three decades of research to detail techniques, events, major personalities and more. While general-interest public library holdings may consider this, it's a special pick for college-level or military collections also strong in democratic politics.

Diane C. Donovan
California Bookwatch

The CIA has been a symbol for the mysterious and given almost omnipotent power in the imaginations of those predisposed to paranoia. This very good book should set a number of these notions to rest. John Prados gives us a very detailed of the CIA from its founding out of the WWII OSS.

He shows us its role in engaging in alternative warfare and in undermining regimes that were hostile to America, its allies, and their mutual interests. Prados is not pro-CIA. Nor is he nakedly anti-CIA. It is pretty good reporting. I can't imagine how much digging he had to do to provide the information that is here. I enjoyed one footnote that after he got some information from some declassified files in a Presidential library that planes and agents were sent to collect those documents and others after he published his findings.

Prados points up the embarrassing failures that have become public knowledge. And when there are successes, he points up the transitory nature of such clandestine efforts. He is plainly unconvinced that the long term problems created by those efforts are worth the various kinds of costs incurred in pulling them off. In his concluding chapter he points out that the CIA and intelligence gathering should not be viewed only by the ends they claim to support, but evaluated as to whether their means are compatible with our Democracy and its professed ideals. I will leave this for each reader to judge.

I will say that Prados does not go out of his way, this is already a long book, to set the chessboard up and discuss what the Soviets were doing. In doing so, he makes the United States to out to be the aggressor, instigator, and fumbler of so many global events. In my view, this is a distortion. It isn't that Prados is wrong (he may well be, but I am not competent to say so), it is that he is only showing us one part of the stage. The actors that he show us look quite silly at times, however, if we saw what they were reacting to, with, or against on the unlit art of the stage, our perception of the story might well be different.

Still, this is a very valuable and comprehensive telling of this history and until we get something even more complete or authoritative or more information is declassified, this is a must have text for those interested in the history of the CIA.

These days I find myself taking the side of the CIA more and more in their wars with the Bush Administration, such the Valerie Plame affair, and the administrations manipulation of intelligence leading to the Iraq war. Amongst those scandals I was starting to forget about past misdeeds of the CIA. Thankfully, John Prados has written a history of the CIA's secret wars, some familiar, such as Cuba, Iran, and Laos, and others more obscure and in danger of being almost forgotten, such as Guyana and Tibet. It is a history of the CIA told from the perspective of its covert operations. And from this perspective we get a further glimpse of the familiar spooks and their deeds, like Allen Dulles, Frank Wisner, Ted Shackley, Richard Helms, Desmond Fitzgerald, William Harvey, and Bill Casey.

Multiple conclusions can be drawn from each of the operations. A recurring theme in of these operations is that the CIA is not the "rogue" agency that does whatever it wishes without the knowledge of the president. In each of these secret wars the president often provided the initiative for the operation, was aware what was occurring, and had the full capability of stopping it at least some point in the operation. A prime example given is Kissinger and Nixon pursuing a more aggressive meddling in Chilean politics against Allende.

Another recurring theme in the operations is often the targeted administrations plotted against were often moderate, independent regimes, who neither wanted to be in the Soviet camp or in the U.S. camp. But, dare they nationalize industries, and suddenly, with our obsessive paranoia of communism, the president and CIA would plot their overthrow, support the shadiest paramilitary insurgents and turn a blind eye to their misdeeds, including drug dealing. Often this led left leaning politicians of the targeted countries straight into the arms of the Soviets.

In Cuba, the rebels created a "disposal" problem. What do you do with armed and trained rebels eager to dispose of Castro, and knowledge of assassination plots? Apparently some believed the answer was to keep the pot boiling. The plots against Castro continued well after Bay of Pigs. In Tibet, Hungary, and Indonesia, the CIA stirred things up and promised support, but for various reasons, such as the need for secrecy or fear of full confrontation, full support to finish the job never arrived. That left rebels dangling, and caused bitterness towards the U.S. Often these operations were fueled by bad, incomplete or ignored intelligence.

Safe for Democracy is an important addition to any CIA history bookshelf. It is a well documented, objective and balanced history of CIA clandestine operations. Our foreign policy hubris is not new, something recently invented by Bush Jr. Though covert operations weren't as brazen as invading and toppling a regime by brute force, the results were destructive for the targeted nations, and did not make the world safe for democracy. The CIA, though it may not be the sole impetus for these operations, was the cat's paw for bad policy, and often a careless one too.

This is not a history book. This work drips with political taint; by that I mean that the author has a view in mind and sets out to persuade you the reader of that view, ignoring or minimizing events and information that might lead you to a different conclusion. As an intelligence professional, I couldn't stomach it past the first hundred pages.

If you read only this book about the CIA, you will believe it to be a corrupt and ineffective apparatus of clumsy power. While a popular view, it's not correct. But if you already believe that the CIA is a bastion of evil stupidity, prepare to have your belief system validated.

It gets two stars because it does actually include correct facts; it's missing three because they are only select facts, separated by manipulation.

For an education on the Watergate scandal, I recommend you read (in order): 1) Will by Liddy; 2) Silent Coup by Colodny & Gettlin; and then 3) this book. Forget Woodward and Bernstein entirely. These first two books are OUTSTANDING. This last one will fill in a few details, though I would not regard it as the final word. I suspect you're here because of Silent Coup, anyway. Hougan makes a few egregious left-wing points in his book that are real howlers, but they are off to the side of the story, and he is primarily concerned with establishing the facts.

Who knows what the 4th book should be? Or the 5th? Maybe it has yet to be written. I suppose in continuing the education, it might be fair to turn next to a conventional account of the history, perhaps to Stanley Kutler; or to the perspectives of Dean or Magruder or Haldeman.

SECRET AGENDA was the first thorough argument, and perhaps remains the best, for the thesis that the Watergate break-in team was guided chiefly by the CIA.

All the men on the team -- aside from its supposed leader, goofy (pawn?) G. Gordon Liddy -- were CIA officers (Hunt and McCord) or contract agents (Sturgis, Barker and the three other anti-Castro Cubans, all Hunt's people going back to Bay of Pigs).

Hunt and McCord each "retired" (early) from CIA, within months of each other, in 1970. Hunt was soon hired by Chuck Colson in the Nixon White House, where he was first tasked with forging State Department cables to indicate that JFK had ordered the assasination (rather than removal) of President Diem of Vietnam in 1963. Hunt then hired McCord to help the Plumbers plant bugs.

But one of Hougan's accomplishments is to document the fact that McCord was not (as typically stated in the press even today) a lowly CIA electrician. He was high in the Office of Security -- the "internal affairs" unit of the CIA, rising to head of OS for Europe in 1961, during the height of the Cold War. As such he reported directly to the Director.

Hougan's book remains a must read on the subject. It argues well the case that Nixon was helped in a big way out of office by DCI Richard Helms employing officers Hunt and McCord.

(One might argue that Helms & co. did the country a favor. That would be another book.)

(OR: Read John Ehrlichman's novel THE COMPANY, a roman a clef that paints the Nixon-Helms relationship with care.)

As for SILENT COUP, which came out in 1991, seven years after SECRET AGENDA, and which several reviewers here are recommending rather than Hougan's book ...

Be clear: SILENT COUP is NOT an elaboration of Hougan's thesis, but rather an attempt to eviscerate it (and I imagine the CIA had something to do with its publication). The attempt largely fails.

Which is not to say there's nothing of value in SC. Just that the overall package is a truth-bender clearly designed to accord with CIA public relations.

SILENT COUP details something Hougan had touched on: the late-Vietnam Beltway struggle between the National Security apparat, on the one hand, and Nixon and Kissinger, on other.

The latter were trying, in their way, to bring the Vietnam war to an end with "back channel" diplomacy that cut the Pentagon and CIA out of the loop. But the generals and spymasters were by then accustomed to controlling foreign policy. Nixon and Kissinger (like JFK a decade before) were getting in the way.

SILENT COUP nails this: Nixon's "paranoia" and Ehrlichman's Plumbers were first provoked to active life not by "Leftist" spies/leaks, but by a Pentagon intelligence operation active inside the White House, intent on finding out what the hell Nixon and Kissinger were saying to the Chinese and Hanoi about shutting down the war.

Ehrlichman & co finally stumbled across the spy, a Navy ensign (if memory serves) named Radford, revoked his White House pass -- and acquired signed confessions from the brass running the op in the Pentagon. Shades of SEVEN DAYS IN MAY.

Nixon then decided not to publicize the matter. Nor to even cashier the guilty brass.

Then the Pentagon Papers hit ... And "paranoia" blossomed.

Thus, this chapter of SILENT COUP makes the book worth the coin. But its overarching aim is to clear CIA of Hougan's charge that it was running an anti-Nixon op thru Hunt and McCord -- to some extent by blaming the Pentagon instead (an old pattern, an old Beltway rivalry -- see Fletcher Prouty's THE SECRET TEAM). Hougan seems much closer to the truth.

But wasn't all that stuff already mere history? Why would Langley bother to publish SILENT COUP in 1991?

Answer maybe: Former CIA director (late 70s) and contract agent (early 60s) George HW Bush was still president when SC was published, and hoping for re-election the following year.

Bush pere's ne'er do well oil company, Zapata, had been involved to some degree in the Bay of Pigs affair, rubbing elbows then and there with shady people who later popped up in JFK's murder, Watergate and Iran-Contra (of which Bush as Reagan's VP was a principal manager).

People used to joke in 1988 that if you attend a Bush campaign meeting you should wear a trenchcoat (like everybody else in the room).

That is: a lot of CIA officers/goons were fired during the house-cleaning of the 70s (Rockefeller Commission, Church Committe, House Select Committe on Assassinations). They wanted Bush to win in 1988, to get back some of their own, and they staffed his campaign -- and, lo, the first major failure of exit polls to forecast election results occurred in the 1988 presidential race. Then the polls worked fine. Until 2000. And 2004 ...)

SILENT COUP, then, seems motivated in 1991 by Langley desire to not only defuse Hougan's thesis on its own behalf, but to "clear brush" for longtime Company man Bush's re-election.

The same desire helps explain why the astounding Kennedy books of 1992 -- JFK AND VIETNAM, by John Newman, PLAUSIBLE DENIAL by Mark Lane, and JFK by Fletcher Prouty -- all must reads -- were trashed or (worse) ignored by the press. (Search Operation Mockingbird). And why, the same year, Oliver Stone's film JFK, which drew on Prouty, Lane et al. for support, was attacked with such vigor. The Company was both defending itself and doing its best to keep certain skeletons from tumbling from the closet during Bush's re-election campaign.

The national press was co-opted by its mass participation in the JFK cover up, and has not yet recovered its "freedom." The First Amendment can't protect something that died. Hougan's SECRET AGENDA was a blow for that freedom. SILENT COUP was mostly The Company Strikes Back.

Finally: One of the best conversations about American politics since the end of the war (1945) is a book that tries to make sense of the domestic terrorism the US experienced from the murder of JFK thru Watergate: THE YANKEE AND COWBOY WARS by Carl Oglesby. It also happens to be wonderfully written -- a rare grace in the genre.

This was an interesting book. There are a lot of details in here that you did not get from All The Presidents Men. I would recommend reading the book for the extra information. The book was adequately written but did not drag. I think the better book is Silent Coup, but this book is still worth reading.

This is an important book, but mainly because it inspired the book SILENT COUP: THE REMOVAL OF A PRESIDENT. SILENT COUP expands to a great degree what this book establishes.

This book appears more to be an alarmist than pointing out a real solution to what the author considers as a growing problem. Since 2001 PATRIOT Act, the main problem civil liberities activists have is monitoring international calls from suspected terrorists. If this is all the problems these people have including the author, other than speculating what might happen, then there is no real problem with the 2001 PATRIOT Act that's going to take the average American's liberities away.

Government response to 'terrorism' is not new; we have previously understood that in 'times of war' civil liberties were suspended (supposedly for the national good). We also know that times of panic (Joe McCarthy) had also prompted otherwise reasonable people to abandon their civil liberties for the now-familiar promise of 'national security'.

Yet, what is new about the post 9/11 climate is the depth of these anti-terrorism policies and the general public's apparent willingness to sacrifice their freedom inexplicably to receive 'security'.

Whether it is the terror alert 'color' of the day, or the list of people who can/cannot fly on planes, national security could instead be used as a tool to generate even more fear...or a weapon to attack political dissenters.

A government effectively stifling criticism of its policies as `being for the terrorists' is allowed to do whatever it wants to citizens whenever it wants. Reminiscent of Nazi Germany, people who still attempt to critique government policy (including the Patriot Act) quickly find themselves labeled as an enemy of the state.

It is significant that the first edition of this book was published after the Oklahoma City bombing. Everybody had agreed this event was a national tragedy, yet the government did not use it as a battering ram to dismantle citizen civil liberties and/or eliminate people whom they have disagreed with. By focusing on case specifics, the Clinton administration found the people who were responsible for that incident (two disgruntled veterans from America's heartland!).

Sharply contrasting, the measures taken in response to 9/11 demonstrate excess and paranoia. "Homeland security" permits the Bush White House to target ANYBODY it does not like.

How else to explain why Senator Edward M. Kennedy (D MA)'s name has repeatedly turned up on the nation's no fly-list, despite a public service career whose length easily exceeds that of many "Homeland Security" officials themselves?

And then there is the issue of increased FBI surveillance to 'combat' terrorist threats. Again, because the FBI had spied on dissenting groups until Hoover's death, there is a strong case that this same government agency will not ethically be able to conduct impartial investigations today.

It is indeed a sad day when we want the rest of the world to be democratic but cannot bring ourselves to have similar conditions inside this same country. The greatest causality of the war on terror is the American Bill of Rights.

This edition is an updated version of the authors earlier book written in the wake of the 1996 Anti-Terrorism Act. Remember that Act? That was the one passed in response to Oklanhoma City and gave "sweeping new powers" to federal authorities, so that such a horrible act of terrorism, would never, ever, never, never happen ever again!

Now with 9/11 and the "Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism" (U.S.A.P.A.T.R.I.O.T) Act (how much time, do you suppose, does it take to come with these acronyms?), the authors are back with a critical look at a drive towards what has very little to do with counterterrorism and quite a bit to do with increasing and centralizing power.

In the past 12 months we've had proposals for a national ID card, a missle defense system, legalized torture, suspension of writ of habeas corpus, a "homeland security" infrastructure that is heavily reliant on security technologies of dubious value. Basically the only thing that has changed that would have prevented the 9/11 are locked Cabin doors and the newfound general awareness that "cooperating with the hijacker" might not be the best policy for passeners.

Also along the way, a steady trickle of stories of missed opportunities, ignored warning and frustrated investingations have come out regarding the FBI and others to use the powers they already do have.

The bulk of the book deals with FBI misdeed during the Cold War and proposes an unfashionable counterrorism strategy that emphasizes the responsibility of actors, not ideology. Basically, trying to treat terrrorism as a crime not as war.

The proposals are a little narrow. Terrorism of the sort represented by al Quaeda is international, not just national. The fight against it will share more with racketeering and global criminal networks. And a world court is needed. I'm not sure if dealing on a purely "case-by-case" basis will do the trick.

Nevertheless, the authors have offered a well reasoned case and in the current climate when we are asked to give up so much with only the assurance of "trust us" we would do to heed their call.

This book gives a frightening look at how post-9/11 paranoia and the aftermath of that horrific event have lead to the diminution of civil liberties in the U.S.. The passage of the so-called "Patriot Act(s)" will not only make ethnic groups (particularly Arab/Muslims, given that 9/11 was perpetrated by members of that ethnic group) [a] cause to worry, even Americans may be, if their views don't match the current Administration's views, subject to loss of constitutional rights. [The ACLU would have a field day about this, if the premise of the book is true.] It is an important book to read and should be read by everyone who thinks that their civil liberties are unable to be violated by the government. (Conservatives will call this book nonsense, but most of us [moderates and liberals] will find the book an eye-opening study of overreaction and paranoia, by the government, as a result of 9/11.

One of the striking arguments in Richard Posner's study of US Intelligence Reform is that the US's intelligence post 9/11 is probably less effective then it was pre 9/11. The 9/11 commission report's recommendations hurt the US by making its intelligent forces more centralized and bureaucratic.

"Uncertain Shield" is one of three books about US Intelligence and counter terrorist activities written by Judge Richard A. Posner. Posner, a Judge on the Federal Court of Appeals for the 7th circuit, has the work pace of a machine: aside from being a judge, he's a lecturer in Chicago Law School, a leading scholar of Law and Economics, who regularly produces tombs on subjects from Aging and Anti Trust to Sex and Utilitarianism, a frequent contributor to periodicals, both popular and scholarly, and a blogger.

Whatever topic Posner tackles, he always brings his great analytic powers and wordcrafting gifts to it. In previous books of his I have read, Posner took on fascinating topics and made unputtdownable books of them; Here his topic is not obviously intriguing, but the result is compelling and insightful.

Posner asserts that US Intelligence should not be faulted for the failures of 9/11 and the Iraqi WMD affair. Intelligence is an inherently difficult field, and that a high rate of failure should be expected. Preventing Terrorist attack is particularly difficult because of the plurality of possible targets - with limited resources, strengthening the defense of one target means weakening that of another.

Posner's case about the unpreventability of 9/11 seems sound, but I think he's on looser footing when arguing the same regarding the WMD debacle. Posner argues, reasonably enough, that given all we knew about Saddam, expecting him to develop a program of WMD was rational, and that while every piece of evidence for the hypothesis of the existence of WMD was weak, they had a cumulative effect.

I can't follow Posner that far; Posner himself acknowledges that the most important source, an Iraqi exile code named "Curveball", was extremely unreliable. He fails to consider the evidence from absence - a nuclear program is hard to hide. That all the evidence was weak should have been suggestive. Crucially, US Intelligence's actions should be assessed given the high costs of the planned operations - the CIA knew that the intelligence it was supplying was to be used in support of a major military adventure, but it failed to present to Congress and the public its unreliability. Posner makes no mention of George Tenet's "Slam Dunk".

After discussing the inherent difficulties of Intelligence gathering, Posner addresses the 9/11 and WMD commissions suggestions, the role of the FBI in Intelligence gathering, and the need to improve the data sharing between agencies.

Unlike the commissions, Posner thinks that the problem with US Intelligence is too much centralizing, not too little. He does support separating the jobs of the Director of Central Intelligence and the director of the CIA, but he opposes creating an "Intelligence Czar". Rather, the head of intelligence should be coordinating the various Intelligence agencies, not controlling them.

At a first glance, the number of US Intelligence agencies - 16 - seems excessive. But as Posner points out, Intelligence is a catch all phrase that covers wide apart fields: financial experts tracking terrorist's financial transactions; computer technicians patrolling the world wide web; Spy satellites and the decoders who are trained to read their outputs; Spies and spy handlers - all of these are completely separate functions requiring separate organizations, skills, and organizational culture; The attempt to centralize and unify them is misbegotten.

A price example is the FBI's role in domestic intelligence. The FBI is a crime fighting organization, but through the accident of bureaucracy, it is also, uniquely in the Western world, responsible for internal intelligence. As a law enforcement agency, the FBI is unsuitable for spy work - "Cops are not spies". The FBI is focused on retribution, not prevention. It is focused on convicting criminal and closing cases, not on building up information databases and seeking emerging patterns. Specifically, FBI agents are not specialists in intelligence - most of them come from the criminal field, with short stints at best in Intelligence. And yet neither the WMD nor the 9/11 commission suggested the obvious solution - creating an Internal Intelligence agency, the American equivalent of MI5.

One of the best chapters in Posner's book deals with the problems in the information processing of the US Intelligence services; Essentially, Posner argues, government organizations are ineffective in the introduction and use of information technology. This is due to the lack of expertise - most qualified computer people find work in the private sector - and lack of interest: Government policy towards automations seems to be "if it ain't broke, why fix it"; consequently, government organizations keep using technology that ain't broke, but -is- outdated. Similarly, the automation questions are frequently outsourced to private contractors, who have an interest in selling the government specially tailored solutions instead of commercial, off-the-shelf merchandise. Add to this the focus on secrecy in the Intelligence field, which discourages information sharing, and the problematics of High-Tech Intelligence is clear.

The final chapters deal with Congress's role in the operation of Intelligence. Posner argues that Congress meddles too much, and that its input is counter productive, and probably unconstitutional. Posner makes good points, but I admit that I find the executive branch of the US government more worrisome then the US Congress. Even setting aside the extreme incompetence of the Bush II administration, US Presidents, who are typically former governors, have very little experience in either Intelligence or Foreign affairs when they take the job. Congressional oversight is surely problematic: but it seems to me that the US better have too much of it than too little.

Overall, Posner's book offers a valuable discussion of the difficulties in Intelligence gathering, and of the various organizational and structural challenges of reforming it.

This is the second of two books critical of the 9-11 Commission, both double-spaced, both approaching the issue of intelligence reform from a legalistic-organizational-economic point of view, right down to including arcane formulas incomprehensible to most people.

My reaction as I went through the foot-notes was that this was a bunch of old guys, many associated with the Hoover Institute or themselves failed insiders, talking to one another. There are however, sufficient side notes in the book to have been worthwhile, even though much of what the author discusses is "old hat" for those of us that have spent the last eighteen years being critical of the U.S. Intelligence Community.

The following points made it to my fly-leaf review:

1) Provides very strong critique of the WMD Commission as "critical overkill." I would add to that that the WMD Commission displayed a conflict of interest in suggesting that CIA could handle open source collection and analysis after decades of abusive irrational prejudice against open sources.

2) The author is completely off track when he says early on that Congress is not to be blamed for intelligence failures. Perhaps he is unaware of the fact that the Boren-McCurdy National Security Act of 1992 was undermined by then Secretary of Defense Cheney, but totally derailed by Senator John Warner of Virginia, who first sidelined reform to the Aspin-Brown Commission, then opposed all the recommendations, encouraged several DCI's in succession to do the same, and continues to this day to demand that the Pentagon control 85% of the NATIONAL intelligence budget because both the Pentagon and the bulk of those agencies are in VIRGINIA.

3) He provides a short discussion of how the IC elements use secrecy as a way of asserting "intellectual property" and this is useful. It would be even more useful if he were familiar with past public statement of Rodney McDaniel and with the full report of the Secrecy Commission under Senator Moynihan.

4) On Iraq and WMD he blames CIA without knowing what he is talking about. Charlie Allen got 30+ line crossers and at the professional level (which is to say, not including George "Slam Dunk" Tenet) it was clearly understood between Ambassador Wilson's foray to Niger, the British confessing on the side that they were plagiarizing school papers, and Charlie Allen's work (see my review of James Risen, State of War: The Secret History of the CIA and the Bush Administration) that there were no WMD in Iraq--this was a fabrication by Dick Cheney, and perhaps understandable since he and Rumsfeld provided bio-chem to Sadaam Hussein and--as the joke goes--kept the receipts.

5) He returns to his earlier (first book) focus on the need for a domestic intelligence agency, but does not appear to grasp that 50% of the dots that prevent the next 9-11 are "bottom up" dots that have no place to go and would still not have a place to go with a DC-based domestic intelligence agency. We need fifty state intelligence centers with county-level collection networks including 119 and 114 numbers for citizen reporting to a sense-making LOCAL center that is tied in to a NATIONAL picture.

6) The chapter on "Automated Woes" is quite interesting, and like Chapter 4 in his earlier book, is one of the best parts of this one. He demonstrates a superior understanding of the many reasons why government is happy to continue with 1970's technology. He focuses on the value of Commercial Off the Shelf (COTS) technology but does not appear, at least to where I could see it, to appreciate the value of open source software as a means of making a national intelligence network, with commercial levels of security, available to all 20,000 police forces, none of which can afford the brand of "secure" nonsense that the federal agencies are telling the states they need in order to receive the precious jewels of useless intelligence from "on high."

7) Although he absolves Congress of blame in intelligence failure, he provides a truly excellent discussion of the limitations of Congressional oversight, as well as the pathologies of Congressional oversight, and offers some suggestions for remediation.

8) The book concludes with a discussion of the "intelligence dilemma" to wit that success demands sharing but sharing threatens secrecy. Like most insiders, he completely misses the point of the OSINT revolution: sharing is optimized by focusing on open source intelligence that can be shared with both state and local governments, and with foreign coalition and non-governmental partners.

9) Finally, he ends with comments on the need for metrics, concluding that this is in the too hard box, but that is simply because he is unfamiliar with the path-finding work of Marty Hurwitz in the 19990's, or the work of Thomas J. Berholtz (see my review of his Information Proficiency: Your Key to the Information Age (Industrial Engineering) The fact is that intelligence can be evaluated based on its outcomes in relation to investments of time, money, risk, and credibility.

See my lists on intelligence (short and long) for a wider range of readings more likely to result in long-term intelligence reform. Judge Posner certainly merits our respect and attention, but his views are rather narrowly formed.

Why can't there be more books like this one? This slim volume contains more insight than many books three times its size. "Uncertain Shield" is a follow-up to Posner's previous book "Surprise Attacks", and while either book can stand on its own, I recommend reading both. Surprise Attacks addressed the deficiencies in the 9/11 Commission's recommendation, and the resulting flaws in the Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act. In "Uncertain Shield," Posner extends his critique to include the recommendations of the WMD Commission.

One of Posner's major arguments in "Uncertain Shield" is that that WMD Commission's recommendations actually contradicted its own observations. The intelligence community's inability to accurately determine Saddam Hussein's WMD capabilities was a problem of "groupthink" - always a potential problem in any intelligence system, but one exacerbated with greater centralization. Oddly, the WMD Commission, nevertheless, recommended even greater centralization.

Posner argues that the approach for both the 9/11 and the WMD Commission was to assumed that intelligence was broken without determining the limitations inherit in the business of intelligence. He criticizes both commissions for rushing to recommend reorganization of the intelligence community without examining the unintended consequences of that reorganization. Drawing on established organizational theory, Posner shows us some of those consequences. For example, both commissions failed to distinguish coordination from command, advocating a top heavy organization, far removed from the subtle indicators that intelligence depends on for accurate prediction.

Posner is critical of the WMD Commission for making recommendations base only on shallow analysis. For example, the commission recommended that advancement within the intelligence community should be based on merit. While in theory it's difficult to argue with that recommendation, in practice determining merit in the context of an intelligence organization (and government in general) is difficult. As both history and theory have shown, without having a clear measurement for merit, this can lead to waste and inefficiency. Should we reward the quantity of intelligence sources, or the quality of intelligence sources? Quantity is objective and easily measured, but with regards to intelligence, quantity and quality often have an inverse relationship. On the other hand, if we're going to insist on rewarding quality, then we need to know how to measure it objectively, otherwise, we risk replacing effectiveness with intra-office politicking. These are the types of issues the WMD Commission simply glossed over.

Posner argues in favor of the creation of a domestic intelligence service- an American MI-5. He addresses both the security needs for, and the civil liberty concerns about such an organization. Applying organizational theory, Posner, shows that creation of an intelligence unit inside the FBI will fail, because of the incompatibility of a law enforcement culture and intelligence culture in the same organization. While the FBI measures success on the number of arrests leading to successful prosecution, intelligence work is less specific towards that goal, looking at trends and recruiting sources. Addressing the concerns of civil libertarians, Posner dispels the myth that the requirement of a "criminal hook" will somehow protect us from government abuses. History shows no evidence of this assertion. On the contrary, more likely, it will lead to the greater government coercion. An intelligence organization, with no law enforcement capability, would seek cooperation and be less inclined to alienate Muslim members of the population. As Posner points out, it was a historical abuse of coercive law enforcement in the name of security that led the Allies to insist that the German government after World War II divide its domestic intelligence (information) functions from its law enforcement (coercive) functions. Previously, these two functions had been united in the SS.

Posner's does an excellent job throughout the book of pointing out the distorted incentives found in dysfunctional organization within intelligence. For example, no one in security was ever disciplined for not giving a risky candidate a security clearance. A candidate may have all the language and culture knowledge in the world, and he may be an indispensable asset to department seeking his employment, but security won't take the risk. Why should they? They will not benefit from his skills, and they will be blamed if he turns out to be a security breach. Posner suggests that it would be better to let security make an official recommendation, and let the department managers be responsible for determining the level of risk they are willing to accept - measuring the proper balance between mission accomplishment and security concerns. The managers would also be in a better the position to restrict the candidate from certain types of access within their department.

I highly recommend this book for anyone interested in understanding the current upheavals in the intelligence community, and who wants to understand real issues apart from the partisan rhetoric. I would also recommend this book for anyone looking for good case studies in organizational theory. This book shows how theory can be applied in a useful, coherent, and common sense argument.

This book has a good deal to recommend it. Perhaps its highest virtue is that its author Judge Richard A. Posner is not an intelligence professional or even a groupie of the U.S. Intelligence Community (IC). As a result, Posner is unusually objective in his analysis of the IC and the two reports which have precipitated its so called reformation. Another commendable virtue of the book is that Posner writes in clear jargon free prose and expresses himself with great accuracy.

He does a great service by providing the reader with a careful analysis of both the 9/11 Commission Report and the WMD Report which were the catalysts for the congressionally mandated reforms in the IC, particularly the creation of the Directorate of National Intelligence (DNI). Posner applies impressive logic to the task and reveals a host of short comings and failings in both reports. The center piece of this book, however, is his reiteration of an argument he made in a previous book, "Remaking Domestic Intelligence"