Government Agencies Books

In dealing with terrorists, it's a slippery slope to avoid to not become as bad as the terrorists themselves. Compiled and edited by Steve Tsang, "Intelligence and Human Rights in the Era of Global Terrorism" is an informative body of work focusing upon the 'War on Terror' and how to go about waging it while still respecting basic human rights. Stating that the best weapon is peace to turn potential terrorists away from becoming terrorists in the first place is just one among many other useful ideas and tactics to be employed if we are to succeed in overcoming global terrorism in the 21st Century. A very strongly recommended addition for community and academic library reference collections, as well as the non-specialist general reader with an interest in the subject, "Intelligence and Human Rights in the Era of Global Terrorism" is a must for those who want a realistic plan for winning the war on terrorism.

This is a fantastic book, balanced, well written and insightful. The editor argues that we need to strike the right balance between the need to maintain security and protecting human rights. We not only need to stop terrorist attacks but also pre-empt terrorist organizations from recruiting more suicide bombers. This requires more than the effective use of force and intelligence. We need to prove our culture is genuinely superior, and this can only be achieved by respecting the rights of individuals. One of the chapters by a former senior Israeli intelligence officer is also amazingly insightful in explaining why Western Intelligence agencies all failed over the Iraq WMD issue prior to the invasion of Iraq. Most highly recommended.

As many of us are realizing, democracy itself is under attack. The example of China is touted to undermine our commitment to democracy as a guarantor of both prosperity and a rising quality of life. It is a short leap from there to accepting the notion that authoritarian regimes might be even better at creating prosperity for certain (presumably, backward) populations. On another front, in his recent book Supercapitalism, Robert Reich makes the case that democracy is under attack at the individual level, in that we have traded in our roles as citizens in for roles as mere consumers and investors, obsessed with hunting for bargains on every front, without ever noticing that we are disempowering ourselves to the point of helplessness. Thomas Zweifel's book expands our sights in yet another direction, and puts to us the notion of democracy as the framework for the planet. He makes this unwieldy issue accessible by examining those places where the "rubber meets the road" -- in the international and transnational arena populated by the institutions we created to help us survive and prosper together in a resources-contrained world. How can we live, if the sturdiest threads that bind us across our boundaries are those of global profit-making enterprises, beholden only to their investors? Through Thomas Zweifel's eyes, this becomes unthinkable.

A clear and insightful view into today's globalization, international relations and Democracy in this new, small world. Read this book to understand where we are but more importantly, where we need to go concerning global accountability, power, communication, corporate governance and international relations.

It's a shame this book is out of print, since its subject is very much alive and well, despite a change of scenery.

Conspiracies are one thing; political sentiment and bias is one thing; but ultimately there are knowable facts, and the facts thereby suggest conclusions, but they also exclude other ideas definitively, and it may be that where a subject of secrecy is concerned, the latter is the most valuable contribution one can make. This book does the job admirably.

I occasionally teach Soviet KGB History. I tell my students that I am pretty much a poor substitute for this book, and I make them read it.

There is no better book on KGB history.

Lawlor has produced a complex, brilliant, broad-sweeping book. I'm amazed it isn't better known. He doesn't publish much in the major places for Medicare policy (NEJM, Health Affairs, etc). But this book is a gold mine. It's a very broad, innovative view of what's right and what's wrong with the Medicare system as a whole. It's also - I want to say this carefully - it's something of a slow read, NOT because of the writing style, but because he has so many ideas and plays them out so well, it really invites thoughtful reading and would defy skimming.

With all of the debate over Medicare reform working its way through Congress and the country, this book is a must read. While very detailed and insightful, it is still quite accessible to the layperson. In fact, I would recommend it specifically to those who know little about Medicare. You will learn so much and gain a deeper understanding of a very important issue. Those who are already well read on the topic will still find plenty of fresh ideas within the book. Everything is explained thoroughly without the explanations ever becoming anything less than engaging. Edward Lawlor is an intelligent and thoughtful first time writer and I eagerly await his next book.

Reisman and Baker bring much needed clarity to an legal area which is controversial and a moving target. Superb exposition. Useful "take aways" for a national security practitioner. Have always enjoyed Reisman's clarity of thought particularly in his analysis of Law of the Sea issues - - he does it again in the area of covert operations.

I hope a second edition is written which analyzes the law of covert operations as it applies to current U.S. Government policies and practices. An analysis of how information operations fits into this overall scheme would also be interesting.

Well done!

This book is the best analysis of covert action policy-making I have read. Surprisingly, it is written by two legal scholars, and not by political scientists. It's primary purpose is to analyze the international legal status of covert actions. However, it contains a detailed and thoughtful analysis of the goals and objectives of covert action. In addition, it has a good list of covert actions carried out by a number of countries.

Just like Sheehan's book on Viet Nam, this is just another example of our amazing self-defeating government in action! Everything the CIA does overseas seems to backfire on itself-Like Bin Laden and 9/11!
This book gives the whole thing away with terms just like "Caseworker" and "Spy Station" and Compartmentaliziton and "predictive science"! We hear that are old profs in college might be spies or even the pastor of our local church or the evangelist on TV or radio! I had read this very good book in the summer of 1985-just after the year where paranoia began about government intrusion on our lives-George Orwell's 1984!BIG BROTHER IS WATCHING! Turner had also stated that the college professors who tend to work with alot of foreign students may be recruiting them for the CIA to be spies when they return home!
He introduces the book discussing the legitimacy of intelligance gathering comparing it to Joshua and the 12 spies scouting out Canaan for Israel. Yet to me, it looks like it is God himself that causes so many things to backfire for the sinister evil CIA! I guess the Hostage Crisis in Teheran in 1979 was just another fine example. "Egg on their face" was the expression Turner had used to describe iot when things backfired on them and humiliated the CIA! I would also say that these confused self-righteous people think they are the embodiment of moral righteousness of Christianity!
But I think that from the Bible, Ezekiel the Prophet condemns America and its foreign imperialism when he condemned historical great empires like the Assyrian Empire for spreading terror around the world with the sword-and how God condemned them to the Pit forever!
I deduced that many foreign immiagrants may work for the CIA because they are exiles who want to overthrow the government of their homelands! So many bad people come to America hoping to hide behind Washington's skirts!
This is a real eye-opening book!
I had read in this book and on the CIA's website that the CIA has no actual legal authority or jurisdiction in the US. Maybe this is why I get so many helpless threats, insults and attempts at persuasion from enemies. Because they really can't do a damn thing to me in America!
But the CIA has kinks in its armor as the 1993 massacre of MaCleans, Virginia CIA headquarters pointed out to me. They had to enlist the aid of Maryland State Troopers to protect them from further terrorist attasks!

Stansfield Turner was a Rhodes scholar and naval officer who rose to command of a carrier task group, a fleet, NATO's southern flank, and the Navy's most prestigious intellectual institution, the Naval War College. He served from 1977-1981 as Director of Central Intelligence under President Jimmy Carter, and his book in my mind was the first serious contribution-perhaps even a catalyst-to the growing debate over whether and how much reform is required if the U.S. Intelligence Community is to be effective in the 21st Century. His eleven-point agenda for reform is of lasting value, as are his ideas for intelligence support to those responsible for natural disaster relief and other non-military challenges.

This is the best and most complete description of the life cycle of a mole I have ever read. It also gives supplementary information on other moles and incompetents in the CIA as it goes along. There is one problem in the book. It assumes that the CIA has a monopoly on people with common human nature imperfections. I have seen similar problems in the military, academia, and industry. The reader is probably familiar with the recent Catholic child molesting scandal which is another example. As a result of this, the author advocates corrective action which involves the either-or logical fallacy and "throwing out the infant with th bath water" type actions.

Well written, and stunning in its detail of the incompetence, unbelievable bungling, and the persistent failure to follow up on what was obvious about Ames to all but the blind--this,within the bowels of the CIA at the highest levels. I cannot recommend this book enough.

Not even Ames's rampant drinking, lavish lifestyle, and poor performance could for years unmask or launch a thorough investigation, something in any other organization would certainly take place. And then, to have the same person assigned to the CIA's Counter Intelligence Center with access to highly classified material and at the same time was "considered a dumping ground for CIA underachievers" has to be the apex of irony on a scale incapable of measurement.

"The directorate of [CIA] operations regarded the Counter Intelligence Center as a place that poor performers could be sent because they could not do much harm," said panel chairman Jeffrey H. Smith, a former Senate Intelligence Committee staff member. "It was like a bank concluding that because one of its officers had performed poorly, he should be put in charge of the vault." (pp. 248-49) Indeed.

For the many who did their jobs, this must have been a crushing revelation, none more so than for Jeannie Brookner, a successful case officer who was forced to bring a sexual discrimination lawsuit against the Agency, in which the court papers revealed "a male-chauvinist nightmare of drunkeness, drug-taking, and wife-beating, in which the mentally unsound [Ames might well qualify, in certain respects] serve alongside the corrupt to produce a parody of the intelligence community that is far more bizarre than anything a novelist might imagine. It is difficult to believe that in this apparently lunatic world the CIA could ever spy successfully against anybody." (p. 250)

A companion book would to have to be "The Year of the Rat: How Bill Clinton Compromised American Security for Chinese Money."

While Rick Ames smugly and gloatingly languishes in jail, he must wonder at times why he hasn't Bill as a cellmate because, as both books reveal, "Ah shucks, we did it for the money."

The first word that came to my mind after reading this piece of literature, that best describes my reading experience of this well researched and well told account of the Stasi is, "Chilling." This book scared me out of my wits. It amazed me to read about how the East Germans were basically kept walled up in a type of concentration camp, sort of like the Jews and how they were terrorized by the brutal, ruthless Stasi organization up until just little over a decade ago. I would have been to weak to survive the Stasi and probably would have made a haste attempt to escape the Berlin Wall, as so many others did. I can now see why so many died trying to escape past the wall, even though they knew that they stood a very poor chance of making it. Death was more comforting to them from what I gather, than being stuck for just one more day under the Stazi and its microscope. I now know why the East Germans had so much fun smashing the wall to pieces. They were being released to freedom and for many of them, freedom had become nothing more then a dream, a miracle, under the Stasi. I believe after reading about how the Stasi got things done that the Stasi was as ruthless as the Gestapo and the NKVD, expecially when reading about accounts of their interrogations. The Stasi kept total order among the East German people and it was fascinating to read and find out how the Stasi crushed any and all attempts that could challenge its authority, any attempts of political uprisings and how the Stasi simply controlled the East German people with fear and intimidation. It amazed me to read about the fellow who informed on his wife, even though they had been married for such a long time. The Stazi was very powerful, even more powerful than love. This wonderful work of literature gives some terrific information that helps to better understand the Cold War and it paints a wonderful picture of how communist nations and dictatorships work behind the scenes. The one thing that I found to be most interesting about this book was that the Stasi did not limit itself just to controlling the East German people, but rather it extended its feelers and spied on the West, sabotaged NATO, etc. The Stasi and it's international agents really got around. This book should definitely be read by any and all interested in the Cold War, espionage, secret police agencies and last but not least, Germany and its recent past. This book does not exhaust various issues related to the Stasi, as many other novels written about secret security organizations based on interviews, files, etc., do, such as the 700 page, plus Mitrokhin Archieve which is about the KGB, but simply discusses different Stasi issues in lengths appropriate to their importance, that keep the reader interested. This book gave me a message I will not soon forget and that is, "trust no one if you know what's good for your survival."

Mr Koehler get's rare interviews from the "horses mouth" & has done some tremendous work in this book. His attention to detail is fantastic with times, dates, etc. Mr. Koehler should also be applauded for bringing the truth to light about Marcus Wolf's Man without a face book where he takes almost no responsibility to the destruction of many East Germans lives & knowing about the terrorist movement in the DDR. This is an outstanding book of facts & follows closely the life of the notorious henceman Erich Meilke. It is also amazing to watch the birth of a country like East Germany after just witnessing the 3rd reich, which they became so much like. Sadly, as people we haven't learned much!

Based on exhaustive research and interviews, this detailed and extensively footnoted history of the Federal Bureau of Narcotics is both a fine reference work for scholars, and an eye-opening, exciting narrative for the general reader. The book itself is the highest quality, made to last for generations, and includes a section of rare photographs, and an appendix consisting of a rogue's gallery from the FBN's files. The FBN, headed by Harry J. Anslinger, was the precursor agency to today's DEA. The War on Drugs that has been waged for years now, with a price is no object mentality, is now being reconsidered by more and more people as either an ill-considered mistake, or perhaps even as a Big Government/Big Brother monkey on the public's fiscal back. The War has surely not stopped the supply of drugs, and if you have ever thought that it was never intended to, but wondered why that was so, The Strength of The Wolf, will provide some answers. There are many books about drug enforcement (or lack thereof) in the recent past, but this work is unique in that it looks at what might be called the dawn of drug enforcement.

Given how much money this country spends to fight drug dealers and to lock up drug dealers & users both, I am amazed how little I hear people question the War on Drugs.

This book provides the historical framework critical to understand this, with the War on Drugs beginning as an attempt to provide what equates to trade protection to the pharmaceutical companies (who competed with the real thing of the day, opium/heroin), and how later racism led to marijuana users being targeted as well (Black Americans in Harlem and Latinos in the SW and California), and of course the violence fueled by the cocaine/crack trade made it a national buzzword.

It is a crime that this assault on our own citizens continues today - one would think that after the dismal failure of Prohibition that we would have learned our lesson.

Hopefully this book can start raising a consciousness to question it, at the very least more public debate (without the hysteria) is long overdue.

Try reading this book. It incites the desire in me to shrink it down to something else, like any psychiatrist would approach a case of psychotic multiplicity. There are a number of individuals with credible positions presented in this book, and the summaries of those positions express matters that are highly important. The problem with the story is that, instead of hinging on the things that are important, the whole picture is in danger of becoming unhinged whenever a decision approaches the bottom line. This is like great art which has no conception that the whole world might see this picture and consider it absolutely nukers. As crazy as all the other nukers in the world might seem to us, it takes a lot of effort to keep from applying the same judgment to the system which inflicts the costs mainly on ourselves. There are things in this book, like William Greider's comment about "payoffs for layoffs" on page 200, which make it too obvious which bottom line matters. His personal suggestion to "turn out the lights rather than waste all this money waiting for world war three" (p. 201) is coupled with his knowledge of officers who "question this choice of toys over boys" (p. 202) because of what's happening: "they're being rolled by the industry." (p. 202) Even Wilson has to report that "There are too many fiefdoms." (p. 202) That might be the main conclusion here, except that it is followed by some comment about a president who would rather "chat by the side of the road until a compromise route is agreed upon." (p. 203) The index doesn't have an entry for "depleted uranium" weapons, but we are still planning for some part of the world to become a dumping ground for our bombs, and it is highly unlikely that there will be much of a chat by the side of the road before the choice of mistakes on where we can hurt our enemies the most is made. The story of how "the American military's fighting edge was being lost for lack of money" (p. 90) hardly makes sense in a world that keeps complaining when we do destroy things.

George C. Wilson is simply the best reporter alive writing about the American military. THIS WAR REALLY MATTERS brings into the cold light of day the federal budgetary process and its effect on national defense issues. The book is relatively short--just twelve chapters--and is written in the clear, easy-to-understand style of the professional reporter Wilson certainly is. He tackles the tough questions: Why is the military orgainzed the way it is? Does it have the weapons it needs to fight now and in the future? Why and how are new weapons systems procured? As you might suspect, Wilson confirms, It's the money, Stupid! THIS WAR REALLY MATTERS is a literate, lucid masterpiece that should be read by every military officer and candidate for federal office. It should also be read and re-read by every student interested in the way decisions are made in a major democracy.