14 of 15 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
One of those books you know no one will read, January 12, 2006
This review is from: Wedge: From Pearl Harbor to 9/11--How the Secret War between the FBI and CIA Has Endangered National Security (Paperback)
This is one of those books you know people in high places should read, but of course they never will. If they actually do, they of course will be thwarted in their efforts to implement any corrections that are pointed out by the book, because the institutional forces that are involved are way too powerful, and way to attached to their perks and spheres of power to shift any, even for reasons of National Security.
The Federal Bureau of Investigation was essentially the creature, or creation anyway, of J. Edgar Hoover, who was the director of the Bureau for a record 46 years (a record not likely to ever be broken). Hoover built up the organization from an obscure office in the Department of Justice into a behemoth that ran down the "moto-bandits" of the 20's and early 30's (Dillinger, Bonnie & Clyde, Pretty Boy Floyd, Machinegun Kelly) and then helped put the East Coast mob into retreat, at least temporarily, in the mid-30's. By then he'd become powerful enough that he felt his power and authority should be expanded.
One of the directions in which he wished to extend his power was toward political dissent and disloyalty in the U.S. Hoover himself was apparently pretty apolitical, at least as far as partisan Republican vs. Democrat issues were concerned, but he was very disturbed by Communist influence, and possible Nazi influence, in the U.S., and he apparently felt that he should be in charge of rooting out the elements of these philosophies that were in the U.S.
Tied up with this was the issue of espionage. For a while, Hoover had a clear field, but when the U.S. entered World War II, his FBI, clearly a law enforcement agency trained to catch criminals, wasn't very good at catching spies. Worse, their focus was on *catching* them, as opposed to feeding them bad information, for instance, or following them to see who they led authorities to. Hoover's own mindset, stubbornly provincial and conservative, ruled out the Bureau learning how to do these things: instead, he doggedly persisted in attempts to control how enemy agents were dealt with, who actually dealt with them, and most importantly, who got the credit.
By the time the Office of Strategic Services was formed in 1942, the lines were already pretty clearly drawn. Hoover would oppose any expansion of intelligence capability outside of the Bureau itself, and doggedly continue to try and expand his power vis a vis intelligence matters. When he died 30 years later, he was still trying.
The first half of this book lays out the problems this created when the U.S. first tried to deal with the threat of the Nazis, and later with the Communists. Hoover's death didn't end the bureaucratic rivalry that had sprung up: by then the institutional memory of the CIA and FBI was too strong to be killed off by the absence of one individual. The rest of the book deals with the post-Hoover era, with the last chapter and an epilogue added on later, which outline the current difficulties in the War on Terror.
The author lays all of this out in considerable detail, and frankly at times it makes for pretty horrifying reading. All the way back in the beginning, Hoover absent-mindedly filed away the message the Nazis sent double-agent Dusko Popov asking him for ship dispositions and locations, torpedo net positions, and other very suggestive things regarding Pearl Harbor. When the attack actually occurred, Popov was in South America. The first report of the attack that he heard only gave note of it, and he was elated, figuring that with the information he had given the U.S. we must have won a terrific victory. He was later outraged to discover we didn't use the information. Hoover, apparently, didn't trust or like traitors, even those who betrayed our enemies.
There is one proviso with a book like this. *All* intelligence books written about recent history are somewhat problematic, in that the author tends to discover information about the *failures* of intelligence. Successes, if properly conducted, remain out of sight of the public. This book is probably especially prone to that, given that the subject is implicitly a failure, or series of failures, in intelligence. That being said, the author certainly had a lot of material to report, and regardless of any successes, there's enough here to make your hair stand on end. The book is somewhat dated, too: the main narrative finishes just as the first President Bush leaves office to be replaced by Bill Clinton, and the epilogue/afterward are frankly inadequate to deal with the issues facing us today. I would have much preferred it if the author had added another hundred pages, instead of the 20 or so that are tacked onto the end of this edition. He does mention constraints of space, so perhaps the publisher is to blame.
I would recommend this book to anyone interested in current affairs or the current intelligence failures in the U.S.
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14 of 16 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
EYE-OPENING, October 18, 2002
By A Customer
This review is from: Wedge: From Pearl Harbor to 9/11--How the Secret War between the FBI and CIA Has Endangered National Security (Paperback)
I found the World War II and the Cold War parts of this book pretty fascinating, and maybe the most enjoyable to read. The portrayal of Hoover is very nuanced and fair. The Epilogue about 9/11 is sobering and hits on some themes that I haven't read anywhere else. America was left virtually defensless, Riebling argues, because of the Clinton administration's fateful decision to elevate the FBI over the CIA -- to pursue a law enforcement approach to what had traditionally been intelligence problems. He shows how the Aldrich Ames spy case left CIA bureaucratically paralyzed, and how the FBI, under Louis Freeh, exploited the chance to become America's premier national security power. He traces the numerous interagency foul-ups which led inexorably to our national unpreparedneness for 9/11. He shows how the FBI's suspicion of a mole in CIA -- who turned out to be the FBI's own Hanssen -- sowed distrust which discouarged the sharing of information. This linking of 9/11 failures to the damage wrought by Hanssen and Ames is one of the most important labyrinths explored by Riebling, and I have the feeling that a whole book could be written about this aspect alone.
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17 of 21 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A TIMELY SECRET HISTORY, October 15, 2002
By A Customer
This review is from: Wedge: From Pearl Harbor to 9/11--How the Secret War between the FBI and CIA Has Endangered National Security (Paperback)
I read WEDGE when it was first published in 1994 and I just re-read it with the new Epilogue. I am stunned by how prophetic Riebling was and by how he shows so indisputably that 9/11 was caused by the same interagency conflict that has caused so many other tragic intelligence failures over 60 years.
In places Riebling goes into a lot of detail, which can be a bit eye-glazing if you are not a spy buff; but if you are one, this is a gold mine of unearthed facts and totally original, highly persusaive, indeed compellingly logical interpretation.
The writing is generaly good but uneven; sometimes flat, but sometimes nearly as good as anything in the Engish language. Would be very interested to see what Riebling produces next as I marked him a talent, perhaps a major talent, and it has been eight years between books for him. From what he has been writing at National Review Online about 9/11 and intelligence I take it he is still working these issues and clearly he is working them as well as anyone.
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