Best Truth: Intelligence in the Information Age [Hardcover]

Mr. Bruce D. Berkowitz (Author), Professor Allan E. Goodman (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: February 9, 2000

Confronted by the new challenges of the information age and the post-Soviet world, the U.S. intelligence community must adapt and change. And marginal change is not enough, the authors of this provocative book insist. Bruce Berkowitz and Allan Goodman call for fundamental, radical reforms in the organization and approach of America's intelligence agencies. They show why traditional approaches to intelligence fall short today, and they propose thoughtful alternatives that take into account recent changes in information technology and intelligence requirements. An information-age intelligence service would move away from a rigid, hierarchical structure toward a more fluid, networked organization, the authors explain. They recommend a system that would utilise the private sector, with its access to more capital and its ability to move more quickly than a government organization. At the same time, this system would encourage government intelligence operations to concentrate on the specialised, high-risk activities they are uniquely able to perform. Berkowitz and Goodman examine recent failures of the intelligence community, discuss why traditional principles of intelligence are no longer adequate, and consider the implications for such broad policy issues as secrecy, covert action, and the culture of the intelligence community.

Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal

One would expect the best-funded intelligence service in the world to produce good results, but, unfortunately, the U.S. intelligence community continues to commit avoidable blunders (witness the bombing of the Chinese Embassy in Belgrade). Intended as a provocative manifesto, this book calls for fundamental changes in the way that intelligence is collected, processed, and distributed by the U.S. government. Selected case studies are presented to illustrate problems and possible improvements. The authors call for more openness, a less hierarchical structure, and better cooperation with the private sector (which has lots of money and can respond faster). Continually evolving technological challenges will probably be overcome since this is what Americans do best, but it is hard to change a large bureaucracy with an entrenched worship of secrecy, unless it receives a giant, costly shock (e.g., the bombing of Pearl Harbor). The authors, who both started their careers at the CIA, previously collaborated on Strategic Intelligence for American National Security. Recommended for academic and large public libraries.
-Daniel K. Blewett, Loyola Univ. Lib., Chicago
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Review

"An excellent study of America's intelligence agencies and the challenges they face in the post-Cold War world, by two of the top scholars in the field." Loch K. Johnson, author of Secret Agencies

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 224 pages
• Publisher: Yale University Press (February 9, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0300080115
• ISBN-13: 978-0300080117
• Product Dimensions: 8.6 x 5.9 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 14.2 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,359,697 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

19 of 23 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Next President, and Next DCI, Need to Read This Book, April 8, 2000

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Robert D. Steele (Oakton, VA United States) - See all my reviews
(TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)   

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This review is from: Best Truth: Intelligence in the Information Age (Hardcover)

This book dedicates itself entirely to fixing the underlying process of intelligence. The authors place intelligence in the larger context of information, and draw a plethora of useful comparisons with emerging private sector capabilities and standards. They place strong emphasis on the emerging issues (not necessarily threats) related to ethnic, religious, and geopolitical confrontation, and are acutely sensitive to the new power of non-governmental organizations and non-state actors. The heart of their book is captured in three guidelines for the new process: focus on understanding the consumer's priorities; minimize the investment in fixed hardware and personnel; and create a system that can draw freely on commercial capabilities where applicable (as they often will be). Their chapter on the failure of the bureaucratic model for intelligence, and the need to adopt the virtual model-one that permits analysts to draw at will on diverse open sources-is well presented and compelling. Their concluding three chapters on analysis, covert action, and secrecy are solid professional-level discussions of where we must go in the future.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Voices in the Wilderness, January 23, 2004

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Retired Reader (New Mexico) - See all my reviews

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This review is from: Best Truth: Intelligence in the Information Age (Paperback)

The U.S. Intelligence Community (IC) continues to be mired in the past despite the so-called reforms implemented internally since the end of the Cold War or imposed from without by Congress in the wake of the 9/11 catastrophe. Here is a book that offers a path to real reform based not so much on structural changes as changes in the intelligence production process. It makes a strong case for decentralization of intelligence production and the use by the IC of outside experts to assist in the analysis of specific intelligence subjects. The type of reforms that Berkowitz and Goodman advocate would give the members of the IC that elusive, but vitally important, attribute of flexibility to meet the challenges of the 21st Century. Unfortunately, the kind of reformation these authors argue for would require a major change in the internal culture of the primary agencies of the IC.

For example, members of the IC now make extensive use of private, commercial contractors even for core missions such as intelligence analysis, but only within an elaborate bureaucratic framework designed to fill vacancies, not improve the analytic processes. The use of outside subject matter experts from academia and the business world hired for specific analytic projects on an ad hoc basis as advocated in this book really goes against the basic culture of the intelligence bureaucracy. It is true that the National Intelligence Council (NIC) and some National Intelligence Officers (NIO) within the NIC have resorted to outside experts, but this is scarcely representative of the IC as a whole. Indeed in this reviewer's experience, outside experts of any sort are about as welcome in the IC as women are in the monasteries of Mount Athos. So clearly this and the other elements of the reformation program offered in this book would require profound cultural changes within the IC.

Robert D. Steele in a series of books such as "The New Craft of Intelligence" has attempted to develop some of the ideas presented in this book into specific practical changes affecting the way the U.S. produces intelligence. Steele's work would be a good follow on to this book.

24 of 32 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Godd overview, poor suggestions, July 19, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: Best Truth: Intelligence in the Information Age (Hardcover)

I enjoyed the broad overview of the generation and use of intelligence information. I found the suggestions of how to change the intelligence system too vague, driven by the management technique of the hour and unworkable. The authors suggestion that agencies drop specialized groups and pulls special teams together when needed. This may be workable in the short run, but in the long run there will be no deep experts as there are today. It takes time and money to develop these experts and only the government can plan to develop these experts, that may or may not ever be fully utilized. The authors site NASA's faster, better, cheaper management, a style that in my opinion is none of these, as something the intelligence community should adopt. It would be alright for someone to site this, but you must also site the numerous failures of the method. I got the feeling that if the book had been written ten years ago, Japanese management methods would have been sited as useful, they have of course fallen from favor. Cold fusion and the work that was done by innumerable physics to at the time of the first announcement as the way the intelligence community should attach important new questions that are time sensitive. Have hundreds of experts across the intelligence community bear upon a question as a way to get a quick, high quality answer. What the authors don't understand is all those physicists were working for free or on someone else's dime. All those hundreds of people will need to charge against this new effort, enough to break any budget, not to mention the poor chance of getting a high quality answer. So, the book is a good airing of the issues, but not much at solving the problems.