Failure of Intelligence: The Decline and Fall of the CIA [Hardcover]

Melvin A. Goodman (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 28, 2008

The time for serious soul-searching regarding the role of the Central Intelligence Agency and the intelligence community in general is long overdue. The recent intelligence failures regarding the unanticipated collapse of the Soviet Union, the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, and the run-up to the Iraq war demonstrate a CIA and a $50 billion intelligence enterprise that cannot provide strategic warning to policymakers and, even worse, is capable of falsifying intelligence to suit political purposes. It will not be possible to reform the enterprise until we understand and debate the nexus between intelligence and policy, the important role of intelligence, and the need for an intelligence agency that is not beholden to political interests. The recent appointment of three general officers to the three most important positions in the intelligence community points to the militarization of overall national security policy, which must be reversed. The military domination of the intelligence cycle makes it more difficult to rebuild strategic intelligence and to provide a check on the Pentagon's influence over foreign policy and the use of force. Failure of Intelligence is designed to inform such a debate and suggest a reform agenda.

In this timely and important book, the author offers a provocative mingling of historical description with contemporary political analysis and reform prescription that challenges the conventional wisdom on clandestine collection. The book ultimately and persuasively asserts that the failure to have diplomatic relations has led to the inability to collect intelligence.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Starred Review. A senior fellow at the Center for International Policy with 24 years of experience as an analyst at the CIA, author Goodman (Bush League Diplomacy) declares that without efforts to improve the country's intelligence community, particularly the CIA, "we can expect more terrorist attacks without warning." Goodman distinguishes early on the CIA's "proper" function-clandestine intelligence collection-from covert actions like the overthrow of popularly elected leaders that, though tactical successes, have led to false hubris and ruinous foreign policy decisions; in particular, he convincingly attributes the present debacle in Iran to 1953 policies in serious need of revision. Much of the book deals with "the perils of politicization" in the CIA, from the Vietnam war to the present, including the "extreme... kind of pressure placed on the intelligence community" by administrations like Nixon's and Reagan's, that latter of whom exaggerated the threat of a crumbling Soviet Union in order to keep military expenditures high. Concluding with the community's failure to predict 9/11 and the flawed intelligence on pre-invasion Iraq, he castigates the CIA's "seeming inability" to tell the truth to those in power, "which finds the Agency without a moral compass." This is an important and eye-opening account for policy makers and concerned citizens alike.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Review

In Failure of Intelligence: The Decline and Fall of the CIA, former intelligence official Melvin Goodman chronicles how politicization and lack of vision can undercut and ultimately destroy from within an institution as vital to our nation's security as the CIA. Importantly, however, Goodman's thoroughly researched and lucidly written book does far more than recount past problems at the Agency. The most important aspect of Failure of Intelligence is that it looks beyond the past and the present to the future; and in so doing, offers sound and practical advice on how problems such as we've witnessed in the past can be remedied and avoided in the years ahead. (Bob Barr 20080301)

This book is required reading for those who wish to understand how the C.I.A. failed to provide strategic warning of the 9-11 attacks and allowed itself to be used by the Bush administration to justify the invasion of Iraq, and what must be done to avoid such disasters in the future. (Lawrence Korb 20080401)

Melvin Goodman provides a disturbing portrait of the collapse of the Central Intelligence Agency. His insider's look at an organization in decline is a must read by anyone, whether government official or ordinary citizen, who has taken false comfort in the notion of an American intelligence service securing the realm through timely analysis and effective covert action. The reality, an overly politicized agency where ego runs amok, is enough to send shivers down the spine of those who remain cognizant of the fact that there remain serious threats to legitimate American national security interests that must be accurately identified in advance if sound policy remedies are to be had. The CIA portrayed by Mr. Goodman has not only failed to perform this mission in the past, but remains incapable of accomplishing this critical task today. If ever there was a case for fundamental reformation of America's intelligence services, Goodman's Failure of Intelligence: The Decline and Fall of the CIA is it. (Scott Ritter 20080901)

In this study, Mel Goodman tells us that of the misunderstandings, mistakes, and misapplications of American intelligence and force that we've seen since 9/11 are nothing new -- our CIA has been at it since the early days of the Cold War. But Goodman also tells us, with fresh information and insight, about the CIA's successes in those years and, most importantly, he names names again and again. His purpose is not payback, or 'Gotcha,' but to right a dangerous wrong. (Seymour M. Hersh )

Mel Goodman's career in intelligence has positioned him perfectly to document the Failure of Intelligence, as he has in this critical, timely book. Mel Goodman thoroughly details the Bush administration's lies and manipulations in the lead up to the invasion and occupation of Iraq, as only a CIA insider could. As the lame duck Bush Administration beats the drum for war with Iran, Mel Goodman's Failure of Intelligence is essential reading. (Goodman, Amy )

This is an important and eye-opening account for policy makers and concerned citizens alike. (Publishers Weekly, Starred Review )

Impressive detail. (Consortium News )

In Failure of Intelligence: The Decline of the CIA, one of the agency's prickliest and most highly regarded analysts, Melvin A. Goodman, has given us an insider autopsy....What is most valuable here is the amassing of insider details. (Bookforum )

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 400 pages
• Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers (January 28, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0742551105
• ISBN-13: 978-0742551107
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6.4 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.5 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (11 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #513,021 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Melvin A. Goodman: senior fellow at Center for International Policy in Washington, DC.....adjunct professor of government at Johns Hopkins University....former analyst with CIA; former professor at National War College; former analyst at State Department's Bureau of Intelligence and Research; former US Army.....author of six books on international security, including The Wars of Eduard Shevardnadze; the Failure of Intelligence: Decline and Fall of the CIA; Phantom Missile Defense: American's Pursuit of the Star Wars Fantasy; and Bush League Diplomacy.....as well as the forthcoming National Insecurity: The Costs of American Militarism (City Lights Publisher, 2012).

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

19 of 19 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Tough Love for CIA, March 6, 2008

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Retired Reader (New Mexico) - See all my reviews

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This review is from: Failure of Intelligence: The Decline and Fall of the CIA (Hardcover)

This is an astonishingly well balanced book that while deeply critical of CIA and its senior management also credits its strengths and successes. The author, Melvin Goodman, spent some 34 years as an analyst within the Directorate of Intelligence (DI) of CIA. His principal criticism is that CIA directors in collusion with the executive branch have routinely politicized not merely intelligence products, but the very processes of research and analysis basic to intelligence production. He further argues that most intelligence `failures' can be traced to the practice of far too many at CIA to distort the intelligence process to support policy decisions and even to suppress sound, contrary intelligence. He also sees the growing `militarization' of the U.S. Intelligence System as further evidence that the Intelligence Community (IC) is moving from producing objective and accurate intelligence to producing intelligence that supports the ideologies and prejudices of its masters.

Goodman supports his argument with a remarkably detailed chronicle of CIA intelligence production over the last 35 years. This chronology emphasizes those instances where political pressure and the need to support a particular point of view took precedence over the need to produce accurate intelligence. Also, although he doesn't say so directly, he demonstrates the truth that intelligence is only as good as the system it serves. Unlike so many books on intelligence, this book actually identifies both the good guys and the bad .guys of CIA over the years. In particular he has a fascinating analysis of CIA Directors from Bill Casey (1980-1986) onward that is quite devastating. Although his principal target is the deleterious effect of the politicization and militarization of intelligence, he also effectively criticizes CIA's analytic and clandestine tradecraft.

This is an absolutely important critique of the course of CIA and by extension the entire U.S. Intelligence Community. However, given the controversial claims made by Goodman and the fact he actually names his heroes and villains, the reader might ask does he really know what he is talking about? In this reviewer's opinion, the answer is yes he does. Having been personally involved in a number of specific intelligence events that he chronicles, this reviewer would argue that Goodman has accurately described them. This is a book that ought to guide any effort to reform the U.S. Intelligence System.

14 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars A Partial Account, June 18, 2008

By 

Carlos D. Luria "Sedan-3" (Salem, SC) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Failure of Intelligence: The Decline and Fall of the CIA (Hardcover)

As a 30 year veteran of CIA's clandestine service. I agree with much of what Mel Goodman has to say about the Agency: the intrusion of political bias into the analytical process, the substitution of tactical for the more insightful strategic intelligence, and the loss of objectivity, when the military - a major consumer of the product - also becomes. its principal collector. President Eisenhower warned us about the military-industrial complex, and his warning bears repeating: Crises make for good business and create high-paying jobs. When CIA's agents discovered that the missile gap was a myth, and later, that the Soviet Union was a knight dying in its armor, a great many defense contractors and their congressman became very nervous. Production lines were threatened; layoffs would surely follow, and pressure was applied to suppress or to ridicule such reporting. When the Director of Central Intelligence. "...serves at the pleasure of the president," his agency becomes particularly vulnerable to such pressures.

Like so many other critiques of CIA, however, Mel Goodman's book fails to identify a major contributor to CIA's erratic performance -- our Casanova-like approach to intelligence collection.. We turn it on when a crisis arises, but shut it down as soon as the crisis is over. With so many unmet societal requirements, why waste money on something no longer needed, particularly when it employs tactics that so blatantly offend core values of a Democratic society?

The antipathy is understandable, but its effects are devastating. Every time we close down coverage of a target, the best & brightest hands melt away. In the five to ten years it takes them to become professionals, they learn the language, get to know the territory, get to know the shakers & movers and learn how to get things done. Just the sort of people, the multinationals and the think tanks are dying for, and they are lured away by big salaries and sign-on bonuses. As James Risen observed in the New York Times, "In the mid-1990s, CIA became like an airline that had lost its senior pilots." But then, when the territory again becomes of interest, we have to start with a new batch of recruits and live with their mistakes as they learn their craft. Rank amateurism and inexperience were major contributors to the Abu Ghraib fiasco.

When Mr. Goodman dismisses CIA's operatives as risk averse, because they are protected by diplomatic immunity, it reveals that most of his experience was on the analytical and not be operational side. He ignores the large body of case officers that are under nonofficial cover, the operatives that were dropped into Afghanistan after 9/11 and well ahead of the military, as well as the technicians, often documented as tourists, that surreptitiously enter denied areas to install video and audio sensors. Three of those were caught in flagrante in Cuba and spent several years in Mr. Castro's prisons.

In summary, Mel Goodman's book very accurately captures the political winds that buffet America's intelligence efforts, and he is spot-on accurate in decrying the layers of unnecessary bureaucracy added by the creation of the Director of National Intelligence. But CIA is a vast and complex tapestry, and Mr. Goodman covers only a part of the territory.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars INTERESTED IN INTELLIGENCE & U.S. FOREIGN POLICY - A MUST READ., March 3, 2008

By 

ericinMontclair (Montclair, NJ) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Failure of Intelligence: The Decline and Fall of the CIA (Hardcover)

Those who follow U.S. intelligence and its effects on U.S. foreign policy will find Mel Goodman's Failure of Intelligence an important and prophetic read. As an intelligence insider with firsthand experience he has written an insightful and revealing account of the Central Intelligence Agency's failures and clearly explains why it must be reformed. Using the fall of the Soviet Union, 9/11, and the Iraq War, Goodman clearly makes a case for guarding against the politicization of intelligence. Goodman underlines a critical issue if the U.S. is to avoid the consequences of history repeating itself in Iran.