Customer Reviews

The Human Factor: Inside the CIA's Dysfunctional Intelligence Culture

5 star:		(16)
4 star:		(8)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

This is a clean-sheet final review. I considered dropping it to a four because of false notes. However, after adding up all the substantial "bombs" in this book, bombs I will itemize below, I believe the book not only merits five stars, but should--if Congress were honest, which it is not--warrant a full Congressional investigation, and a wholesale purging of the light-weight risk-averse clowns now managing CIA's directorates.

The author was a Non-Official Cover (NOC) Officer, something he is not allowed to say, but he no doubt has infuriated the pretentious at CIA by making it clear that virtually all of CIA's case officers are under Department of State cover.

I will list the false notes first. While I have not been active in clandestine operations since 1988, the following troubled me:

1) Ability to work on own funds with pay and expense gaps of up to $200,000 at a time.

2) Excessive travel to HQS and entry into HQS. In my day NOCs did not come inside at all.

3) Implied knowledge of inside operations and actual sighting of final cables--in my day, NOCs were handled as prize agents, and never saw any official traffic.

4) Agents (the ones committing treason) complaining to HQS to get their NOC fired? This is way over the edge.

5) Uninformed view on JAWBREAKER and First In with respect to public story--however, it is now it is coming out that Bin Laden was believed killed by multiple air bursts over Tora Bora, and the "flight" to Jalabad might have been a CIA deception ordered by the White House, and the only good explanation for why General Franks refused to drop a Ranger battalion, knowing it was merely in support of a CIA fabrication.

6) Inconsistency between one claim that Plame had four years of training followed by a short tour followed by five more years of training, and footnote 46, which is much more credible.

I hope other case officers, and NOCs, will read and review this book and contribute reviews that extend my own notes in the public interest. The time has come to shut CIA down and start over (the same is true of the rest of the secret world, but this book focuses on CIA).

Management crimes itemized in this book:

1) Waste of billions of dollars in post 9-11 money, to include paying rent for domestic assignments and creating hundreds of new CIA offices all over the USA, while failing to create new NOC capabilities overseas. [Note: open sources tell us that rather than fielding hundreds of NOCs, CIA created extremely expensive cover companies, all but one of which has since had to shut down--just as the Joint Fusion Centers across the USA are shutting down: CIA management is disconnected from reality in a big big way).

2) Risk aversion, multiple layers of inept and egotistical management, most of whom have made a career out of being in HQS rather than serving in the field (I myself did three back to back tours overseas and quit CIA when I was told to go down the hall and lie to another case officer--which was coincident with Ted Price deciding I was unfit for duty because I consider the DO a joke).

3) US academic access agents being sent to destroy NOC access and existing cases, management seeking to triple-up coverage on cases best handled by singleton NOCs. Combined with the risk aversion, with HQS officers being clueless on how easy a commercial approach can be, anywhere including in "rogue" or "threat" states, this book for all of its flaws, is a death blow to the Potemkin village called the National Clandestine Service.

4) HQS, and Agency personnel, have blown virtually every clandestine identity in history--very very few have been brought down by hostile counterintelligence. I was one of five case officers NOT blown by Phil Agee's Cuban-sponsored list as published in Mexico, this resonates with me. CIA lives "immunity from accountability," NOT "cover."

5) Many credible examples of CIA waste of new money on NOC "trainees" that are stationed in USA and "counted" in testimony to Congress. Riveting story on how CIA fabricated NOC overseas presence by sending NOCs on non-operational sight-seeing tours, called "Axis of Evil Tourism" by the NOCs.

6) Lends additional support to the long-known unwillingness and inability of CIA to operate in Syria or any other Middle Eastern country, in anything other than a declared liaison capability.

7) Destroys CIA claims on Europe, pointing out that more often than not CIA is "shut down" across Europe and refuses to do operational actions not being done jointly by liaison. Points out that Europe is important as a transit point, not as a target, but this nuance is evidently lost on risk-averse "managers."

8) Recurring theme is the micro-management, the multiple layers of approval and editing (including the morphing of Reports Officers into "Collection Management Officers" who no longer add value)

9) Exposes the ease with which an ally, perhaps Germany, has dangled double-agents and consistently embarrassed CIA case officers. This probably applies to Russia and France, and more subtly, to China and Cuba, but then CIA is not admitting any of this.

10) Page 118: in the Middle East, the author's primary area of operations, 15% of the NOCs working as they should; 70% quiet failures; 15% spectacular failures. The real question is: what number. My guess is 30, of whom only 4 are real, and half are light-weight contractors.

I am coming up on my 1000 word limit, so here are some teasers: NOC laptops used to fire one out of ten NOCs for access to pornography; polygraph given for "disgruntlement"; CIA stationary accidentally sent to all NOCs overseas; contract firms taking the money and destroying clandestine service....

The appendix, specific recommendations for reform, merits serious consideration. On balance, this book is now on my short list of essential references on the deception and death of our spy service.

See also:
On Intelligence: Spies and Secrecy in an Open World
Legacy of Ashes: The History of the CIA
Lost Promise
None So Blind: A Personal Account of the Intelligence Failure in Vietnam
Decent Interval: An Insider's Account of Saigon's Indecent End Told by the Cia's Chief Strategy Analyst in Vietnam
The Crimes of Patriots: A True Tale of Dope, Dirty Money, and the CIA
Dark Alliance: The CIA, the Contras, and the Crack Cocaine Explosion
See No Evil: The True Story of a Ground Soldier in the CIA's War on Terrorism
Still Broken: A Recruit's Inside Account of Intelligence Failures, from Baghdad to the Pentagon
Blond Ghost

First of all, I have purchased & read this book, and I recommend that everyone who is concerned about US security read it. Having been a former case officer myself doing exactly what Ishmael was doing, his story and analysis rings true with only a few insignificant exceptions. My time was twenty-five years before Ishmael's and the bureaucratic growth and risk-aversion trends were apparent then, but obviously they have become much worse.

Please allow me to make a few comments that might contribute to Robert Steele's excellent review.

Although the term "spy" is bandied about to sell books, for example, Valerie Plame's book, "Fair Game: My Life as a Spy...", case officers are not spies -- they handle, administer, and manage spies. As such Plame was not a spy, yet her career is typical: four years of training in the US, two years in an embassy overseas under diplomatic cover gathering tidbits at cocktail parties, four more years of training in the US, possibly a couple of months as a NOC (Non-Official Cover) case officer where she was not involved in any positive intelligence operations, (it takes years to become truly productive, if at all), and then ten more years in the US doing bureaucratic functions. I leave it to the reader to decide whether the taxpayer got his money's worth.

I do not mean to pick on Plame, but her story is typical. Very, very few case officers are effective, and when they are, it is in violation of policies and procedures from headquarters and only after taking extreme risks, both with regard to their physical safety and their career. Ishmael was willing to do this, and over time had to be eliminated in spite of his production because he; 1) made others look bad, 2) forced lazy bureaucrats to do even a modicum of work, and 3) was viewed as a loose cannon that someday would cause an intelligence flap. Another norm was "Suspenders", always looking good and making others feel good, but in reality contributing nothing.

The reader should be shaken to the core over the activities and bloated bureaucracy of the Agency within the US. The brief of the Agency is to provide intelligence ONLY on Foreign countries and agencies. The FBI is charged with providing domestic intelligence. So why are 90% of Agency personnel living it up in the US? Because it's comfortable, and that's what bureaucracies do.

The author's presentation of the approval process is not only accurate, but incomprehensible to a case officer. In my day operations could and were mounted within weeks (& that was without computers). If anyone watching a Hollywood movie where things happen with the velocity of light, please consider that approximately 80% of a case officer's time is taken up with paperwork (now computerized), 15% in support activities (travel, etc.) and maybe 5% in operations (if he is active, willing to by-pass procedures, and is willing to take risks.) Gathering human intelligence is not an easy job, and literally everyone above the case officer is against him, one way or the other.

In short we have "paralysis by analysis," and in the Agency this is furthered by bureaucratic "paralysis by approvals."

The author's accurate depiction of the problems in husband/wife teams in the bureaucracy should be taken to heart. They are essentially ALWAYS dysfunctional. The veteran reader should consider the situation where a husband and wife are officers together in the same infantry company and the problem is readily visible. But not to the Agency.

Another startling statistic is that the Agency is now 1/2 female. I wonder how many, if any, are successful case officers. I can't imagine any of my agents allowing themselves to report to a female. (Sorry, folks, but there is a lot of agent/case office bonding required.)

I was also startled to discover that case officers are paid $100,000 or more per year, plus all sorts of allowances and expenses. Ishmael's estimate that a case officer cost hundreds of thousands of dollars per year was incredible, particularly considering that most produce nothing. So what does run-of-the-mill human intelligence cost? $100,000 per page? And that doesn't count the bloated bureaucracy. This is truly a broken organization.

BUY AND READ THIS BOOK!

p.s. I can't believe Ishmael fronted the Agency up to $300,000 out of his own pocket. In my day such debts never went over a thousand dollars or two.

This is the ultimate adventure story of a deep-cover spy, operating throughout the Middle East, Asia, and Europe, tracking weapons scientists and terrorists. It is full of dry humor, and never slows down. But the real purpose appears to be to draw the reader's attention to the weakness in American national security caused by poor or false human intelligence. By not pontificating, the book is exciting and gets its point across. It's a book about intelligence reform disguised as a spy story.

Deep cover spy Ishmael recounts details about inept CIA training and torture courses, dodging co-workers trying to sabotage his work, falling prey to a dead-baby con scheme in Bombay, and the hilarious saga of his friend, the world's worst spy. I read an advance copy that should be the same as the final - and believe some of its revelations are explosive: the inability to place spies in foreign countries, the CIA's growth within the USA, disappearing money, work avoidance schemes, and great gaps in intelligence. A few paragraphs on the Plame incident are enlightening.

The Twins, a pair of CIA professors, pop up to intrude upon intelligence operations; a hunt for CIA pornography users decimates deep-cover spies overseas. CIA employees hire their spouses as managers in a confusion of nepotism. And bloody Iraq, a place of such absurd violence that ordinary CIA risk aversion is temporarily on hold.

The CIA's just a big couch potato, a failure at providing intelligence but an expert at feeding itself and growing ever larger. The consequences of this nonpartisan book could be far-reaching and CIA reform should be on the top of the Obama, (Hillary) or McCain agendas. CIA reform may well be the most important thing Americans can do as a nation to protect themselves. The author's decision to donate his book profits gives his case even greater strength.

What must be one of the most tightly held secrets of CIA is the identities and operations of what are called Non Official Cover (NOC) officers. These individuals operate far from the safety of U.S. Embassies as private U.S. citizens under deep cover. As this book makes clear these officers are unique and often courageous individuals.
The pseudonymous author of this book, Ishmael (Call me, Ishmael), has provided an excellent account of just how a NOC goes about the business of recruiting and exploiting foreign agents often under extremely difficult circumstances. To his great credit, Ishmael managed to produce an informative and fascinating memoir that still protects sensitive CIA names, locations and operations. Ishmael is a former Marine Infantry Officer who, despite his contempt for CIA as an institution, still is a patriot first who wants the U.S. intelligence system to really work.
This brings us to what for many is the most important revelation of this book: the fact that CIA is and apparently always has been a dysfunctional institution virtually incapable, as an institution, of either effectively collecting human intelligence (HUMINT) or doing its core mission of producing strategic intelligence. Ishmael suggests that CIA has been able to attract a host of dedicated, capable people who should have made CIA the premier intelligence agency of the world. Unfortunately, Ishmael also describes a culture of amateurism and bureaucratic gamesmanship that has more often than not hampered if not prevented the agency from doing it job of producing good intelligence. CIA managers as described in this book come off as risk adverse, ill-informed bureaucrats incapable of supervising even mundane administrative activities. Ishmael also implies that CIA managers are excellent at protecting themselves, their `turf' and, of course, hoodwinking their nominal overseers in congress.
All this is pretty harsh on CIA, but seems to square with what Robert Baer, another competent and patriotic CIA intelligence officer, has noted in his own `intelligence memoir', "See No Evil" about his adventures as a case officer. Reading both books is an interesting exercise. Although there is no evidence in either book that the men knew each other both have arrived at remarkably similar conclusions on the sad state of CIA.

Plenty of other reviews have commented about THE HUMAN FACTOR'S take on the CIA, but nobody has stopped to point out how fun and readable it is.

Jones takes his stylistic cue from Hemingway - now, I'm not saying the quality is anything close, but his writing is stripped down, simple, yet still eloquent and expressive. It's really a pleasure to read.

And best of all - it's funny. I laughed so much reading this book. Jones has a really dry, understated, but pretty viciously sharp wit. One of the reviews complains that he takes the time to talk about cab rides, airplanes, other petty annoyances - I thought that's what made this book great, the way he turns his eye to mundane details - it's like The Office, or Dilbert. A fantastic send-up.

All the better if he manages to make some trenchant points, as well.

I am a casual reader. This book is a great read for people who have high regards for agency and go to bed thinking that my tax money is well spend to secure my nation and life. It is mind boggling that how much dysfunctional they are. This book is as good or even better read than "The big breach" by Richard Tomlinson. Who uncovers the same dysfunctionality in MI6. I give it 5 stars because it kept me entertained and from internet till i finished it.

Well written book considering the redacted detail. Readers looking for detailed accounts of spy gadgetry and tradecraft will have to look elsewhere, this is a story of how the CIA has become bloated and ineffective.

Due to the anonymous nature of the references, the author will probably have the most impact with agency insiders who know the personalities and events he writes about.

If true, it is a damning indictment of an intelligence agency overtaken by bureaucracy.

I have always had a sort of amateur interest in the CIA. I served in the Peace Corps, in Tunisia, from 1968-70, and had my first brush with REAL spies trying to worm information from me. (I didn't have any!) Many years later, I realized that one of them had even gone so far as to create an extremely lavish fake identity before inviting a couple of us Peace Corps Volunteers for lunch, and then vanishing. I started to think that these Real Intelligence Guys were kind of Stupid.

Back home, much later, I decided to apply for a job with the CIA, more or less out of curiosity. The first two questions (THE FIRST TWO!) concerned drug use and homosexuality. Since I had smoked pot in college (and inhaled), and I was also attracted to other men, I simply threw the form away. As the years went by, though, it did occur to me that being gay and living in (say) Cairo would make an EXCELLENT cover story. Nobody would wonder why I was living in Egypt; they would all assume that I was chasing the same guys Cavafy was! But the brilliant bureaucrats at the CIA managed to make this excellent cover story disqualify me!

Later on, I had a "friend" who dropped broad hints that he had worked in intelligence-gathering. He lived in a foreign country for 12 years and never bothered to learn the language! He was also, to put it mildly, a bit of a nincompoop! Like everyone else in the CIA, he missed the Khomeini revolution in Iran. Hell, I was in Iran at the time and was a BIT more clued-in, since I had listened to Iranian friends playing Khomeini tapes during long car trips...

So that's the background I bring to this book, and I hadn't read more than a couple of chapters before I said to myself: Yes. Layer after layer of incompetent managers who manage to prevent our spies from actually going out and SPYING. Before you even CONTACT someone with information, you need 43 signatures from various managers in various bureaucracies. (I made up the number 43!)

So, in other words, if you're staying in a Paris hotel and a top informant on Al-Qaeda knocks on your door, you have to say, "Hold on, chum, I'll get back to you," and then go looking for MANAGEMENT APPROVAL to talk to this piece of scum.

This sort of nonsense is probably worse than GM. It cannot be reformed. It needs to be discarded, and replaced by (gasp) an organization of SPIES!

Further notes as I finish reading this book.

This book is more than a book about CIA intelligence reform, it is profound. It is a quest through life by an ordinary man who encounters adventure and difficult choices along the way. Put aside CIA issues and read it as an autobiography. This book is about life and one person's choices on how to lead it. I would have made some of the author's choices, and I wouldn't have made others, but it opened my eyes to new parts of the world and new ways of thinking.

I waited a while to review the book because I wanted to assess its impact. I've noticed that its credibility is inexorably building stronger and stronger, and I often see references to it in the media. I hope it will indeed lead to great changes in intelligence that will protect free people wherever they live. I've seen excellent reviews come out of Europe and Japan as well on the author's Ishmael Jones web site. Good fortune to Obama if he does something about the CIA, and very likely a single term and a wasted presidency if he doesn't.

When the book first came out, there were questions - can the clandestine service really be this bad? And now these questions have been answered - yes it is, and something needs to be done.

Excellent book. Interesting reading, thoroughly documented the book is hard to put down. Only regret is when it ends. A scary insight into the people (CIA) responsible for protecting us. Maybe a sad one, because of their dismal performance.