Customer Reviews

Class 11: Inside the CIA's First Post-9/11 Spy Class

5 star:		(9)
4 star:		(8)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(9)
1 star:		(11)

 

 

The author is really impressed with himself, I mean really impressed. Intelligence work is grueling, frustrating, and tedious work, but Mr. Waters's and his band of young case officers think that just because they have been hired by the CIA they are suddenly James Bond. The description of the Directorate of Operations training program is interesting, but you get the feeling that the author's heart was never in it and that he had a plan to write a book all along. If he was as good and patriotic as he claimed to be, he would still be undercover in the CIA, and not trying to make a quick buck off writing a book exposing CIA sources and methods.

Despite the author's belief that he is really cool, most of his stories are not that interesting. The fact that he has a house in Florida and an attractive girlfriend distracts from the focus of the book. Most of the characters come off as annoying and full of themselves. It was amusing the see how bad the trainees did during their practice exercises in local malls and towns. Local sheriffs and townspeople kept picking them out. How are these "operatives" going to blend into Pakistan or Nigeria, if they can not blend into suburban Virginia?

While the intelligence community is full of dedicated professionals, the ones described in this book, especially the author, do not give me much hope for the future of the CIA. I would skip this one, and focus on the numerous more impressive books written on the CIA and human intelligence.

The first thing one should know when reading this book is that the author, T.J. Waters, did not pass the CIA training course which is the subject of his book, a fact he conveniently omits. This fact casts some doubt on whether he is really a good source of information on the Agency and its training course.

Another fact which he distorts is his constant claim that his class was the "first post 9/11 class." His was the first class to be hired after 9/11, however, as his class started in July 2002 according to his book, it would seem that the previous class, class 10, was the first post 9/11 class.

The dishonesty and distortions aside, it was difficult to get through the book for many reasons. The main one is that TJ comes off as a self-involved jerk, not nearly as witty, talented or funny as he thinks he is. He takes every opportunity to let you know that his wife is hot, that he lives in an expensive house, and he does cool things like scuba diving and karate. Perhaps he was overcompensating for feeling inadequate for not passing the course.

Although his attempts at humor fall flat, there are many parts of the book which are unintentionally laughable, such as the following passage from the Afterword:

"Bin Ladin. He is our singular obsession - the one man who shook Western society unlike any other before him. This is the reason we scour the Pakistani mountains, interview thousands of Afghan tribesmen, and elicit nefarious individuals in the dusty hinterlands of the Middle East. We cannot stop. We will not stop."

Please. So overdramatic. Not to mention the fact that TJ himself has done none of this. Its another example of his dishonesty.

The passage also illustrates the book's poor writing. At times it sounds like a third-rate romance novel, as in the below passage from page 11, describing his first trip home to visit his wife:

"I slip out from under the covers without waking Cathy and go to the kitchen to start the coffee...It's an absolutely spectacular Florida morning.

A voice startles me from the tranquil scene. 'So, do you miss me or the water?'

Cathy waits until I walk back to the house before applying a coy, come hither tactic.

'I'm glad you came home,' she whispers in my ear.
The coffee will have to wait."

OK TJ, I get it, you had sex with your wife. Good for you.

I also noticed that many of the women in the book "coo" (see page 80). Again, bad romance novel.

The main reason people would read this book would be to find out about the CIA training program. I did not feel like I got a good sense of the program. TJ was too busy talking about himself and his run-ins with the instructors. One thing that was clear was that TJ really bonded with his classmates. But his efforts to capture the spirit of camraderie fail, and some of his classmates come across as being just as self-involved and shallow as he does.

Overall, I regret putting money in TJ's pocket by buying this book. But, perhaps it was worth it for all the laughs I have gotten at his expense by reading passages aloud to my friends.

I am a former spy, with three clandestine tours and three Headquarters tours behind me, and I consider this book to be beneath contempt. Indeed, I believe that individuals such as this author do the Nation a grave dis-service, and should be shunned.

Being a spy is both challenging and enervating. It is not a game and it is not for diletantes who quit when the going gets tough. This is an immature book, an opportunistic book, and it is largely worthless...beneath contempt (as is the similar book by that silly little girl with a cartoon book cover).

The book has many inaccuracies. The one that stands out is the class size. The class size was NOT an increase over the norm, but rather a return to the norm from the period before a series of Directors of Central Intelligence including Woolsey, Deutch, and Tenet, destroyed the clandestine service, finishing the job started by Stanfield Turner.

For those who wish to consider applying for the clandestine service I continue to recommend Miles Copeland's "Without Cloak or Dagger," and Allen Dulles timeless "The Craft of Intelligence." See my two lists for serious books about intelligence as a global craft focused on decision support and the health and death of Nations.

Books like this dishonor the brave men and women who are actually good enough to make it to the field where they risk their lives as well as their marriages to serve the Nation. The author is not among them for very good reasons, and should be ignored on this topic about which he knows nothing. CIA "training" actually starts in the field, the "farm" is simply a means of weeding out the mis-fits.

You know when your talking to your friend and their new boy/girlfriend and they start telling you some cutesy story that they think is hilarious... but it's just stupid and cheesy to you? That's this book.

First off, let me say that the book is written by someone who is a horrendous writer. His writing style is one of massive cliche overuse and a near total lack of relevant or interesting detail.

Secondly, the details he gives on the training are wholly uninteresting, save few spots where he actually touches on the how things work or how people were feeling. He was either so incredibly specific (how long it took him to dig his car out of snow in a parking garage, for instance), or was skimming any amount of interesting detail. I get that this is a book about the CIA and that details are likely very limited. But there could have been MUCH more detail, there could have been ANY level of emotional discussion. This program can't be easy, yet the author makes it sound like the hardest part of the year long program was dealing with someone using cuss words. He'd start stories of interest (the guy sneaking off campus to meet his wife and getting busted) and then completely forget to mention the outcome.

Third, and with all due respect... the writing is a train wreck. He says the same thing over and over and over. There were literally three endings to the book (last chapter, afterword, author's notes) that say basically the same uber-patriotic ramblings about the greatness of his class. We get it, move on. Here's a couple of my favorite train wreck excerpts:

"... I gather with my office and enjoy a few adult beverages at Pizzeria Uno" (He always says "adult beverages", as though "beer" or "liquor" are classified words)

"...The [motorcycle] will remain on U.S. soil while he is out of the country. The unavoidable separation of man and machine is quite moving" (no, it's really not... it's a just cheesy)

"

The only reason this book rates a 2 star rather than 1 is that the author does give a few interesting new tidbits I didn't know before. But overall this is a DO NOT BUY.

Mr. Water's book is both ill-informed and near worthless. He failed in his training as a clandestine officer, was rated below satisfactory (the lowest rating possible) in a number of his exercises and was not certified as an operations officer. This is merely his way of making a few bucks.

Its not surprising the author never made it as a spy. Between patting himself on the back in regards to his and his class's many civilan-sector accomplishments (they had not, of course, actually done anything for the CIA) and complaining about petty disagreements with instructors, the author only manages a few 'cutesy' stories about he and those associated with him as opposed to anything interesting involving CIA training. My annoyance with this book is furthered by the reports that the author never actually finished the training in which he writes, and never actually used his training as a CIA agent (therefore wasting the government's time and resources). Please do your country a favor and stay away from this disgraceful book.

I thouth this book would tell me how espionage works--the real kind, not the 007 kind. How could a book about a class at the CIA NOT tell me about CIA's inner workings? Unfortunately (and perhaps for security reasons) there was little detail. It did share a bit about how covers are protected, how officers avoid surveillance, and a few other things, but always in overly general terms. Unfortunately for the reader, Mr. Waters is annoyingly patriotic, which got WAY too sappy at times. The book also spent too much time on his personal life. Okay, so being in the CIA is hard on your personal life--so what? There was NOTHING interesting about this guy's life outside of his work; his s attempts at "personalizing" the story amounted to little more than filler, and pretty dull filler at that.

I'm dumbfounded by all of the credit given this book, especially by former author's who have written about the Agency and the subject of intelligence. Shame!

There's an old saying in CIA that says, "There's nothing more useless than a well known secret," which leaves me to wonder of the purpose of this book, other than to make a fast buck. I get the feeling that what we have here is "payback" from a trainee that has been found "wanting" in a program that challenged him beyond his talents.

As a former intelligence officer with 38 years of service in the intelligence business from both a civilian and a military perspective, I am intimately familiar with the training program described in this book not only as former instructor but also (and later) as one of its managers.

While I could nit pick this thing do death, I'll raise only a few questions that challenge the veracity of its contents.

First, in my not so humble opinion the segment regarding remote delivery bugs (no pun intended), p. 17, such as the "dragon fly" is pure fiction given microphone technology (not to mention battery technology as well as laser technology) 40 years prior to Class 11. Back then, we would have needed a Stork and a diaper to deliver the dragonfly to its intended target. And what about the Agency, with all of its resources, needing the author to gratuitously get it a "real dragonfly" to put on its demo board. Give me a break!

Second, the segment, p.54, regarding car surveillance training is ludicrous. The author relates having been shown pictures of purported car crashes from previous class mishaps that calls to my mind a picture resembling a demolition derby. Consider the potential impact, if true, of the property damage, personal injury, and possible death to US citizens, not to mention court battles, as a result of a classified training program undertaken by a secret organization of the US Government having "deep pockets"--a veritable personal injury lawyer's paradise. Allen Dulles would be turning over in his grave were this a true case.

Third, the segment, p. 223, regarding disguises is almost as bad, if not worse, than the one above. From the author's description of events one would think the Agency has turned loose a group of trainees going to a Halloween party in a mall of all places. This whole segment discredits the fine work of the men and women in the "disguise department" who are nothing but professional. The bit about the police officer who immediately connects the trainees to the Farm as a result of their disguises is even too much for my imagination to accept.

I'd give this book half a star, were it possible, so as not to denigrate my fallen colleagues whose stars appear on a wall as the author describes on page four of his book. Upon completion of this book, which I found to be a challenge, I come away with a feeling that the author has mastered the art of "Bovine Excrement." I'm convinced it was an art that he had honed long before he joined the Agency in a career that was far too long in my "not so humble" opinion.

I absolutely hated this book. The writing style, voice, and opinions were so annoying I could barely get through it. A few pages in, I realized that Florida Tom has an ego the size of that state but the maturity and professionalism of a frat boy. All of his talk of type A personalities, the melodramatic writing about 9/11, and, most of all, the way he made getting through the Farm such a thing to brag about drove me up the wall. He was also very proud to consider himself a 'spy', which he should know is different than being either a case officer or a reports officers. I'm not being nitpicky, it is the arrogance that bothered me rather than the sloppy use of the label 'spy'. It also comes out later in the book that he is training to be a reports officer rather than being a case officer. No disrespect to that job. It's a demanding job and I have met just as many impressive reports officers as case officers. Florida Tom, however, keeps this a secret until fairly late in the book. He makes it sound as though he is going to be out on the frontline when he is actually being trained for a desk job.
At times, the book was just bizarre. Sending his fiance an article about the rape in Pakistan to make up for after a fight was odd, to say the least.
There are so many better books that cover the same territory. Skip this one.

This book is interesting for those who want to know what it is like to go through CIA field training. But like others, I was annoyed by the author's style. Many of the anecdotes were uninteresting. Fortunately, the book is a quick read, so for the truly curious, you can get through it before it becomes unbearable.