Customer Reviews

The Wizards Of Langley: Inside The Cia's Directorate Of Science And Technology

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(5)

 

 

David Letterman once described his TV show as 'info-tainment without the "info" ... or the "tainment."' I'm tempted to describe this book as a technothriller without the 'thriller.' It definitely has the 'techno,' though.

Let me say up front that I don't think this is entirely author Jeffrey Richelson's fault. He is one of America's top historians of the intelligence community, and this book is exhaustively researched and documented (the first chapter alone has 173 endnotes). I just found the subject of all this research much less exciting than I thought it would be. For all their sci-tech wizardry, the 'wizards of Langley' were, at the end of the day, still a bunch of bureaucrats. Their battlefields were as much institutional as geopolitical, and that makes Richelson's story bureaucratic and institutional too.

Maybe I was spoiled by Bamford's 'Body of Secrets,' about the NSA, which combines technological detail with exciting stories of front-line espionage, but it seemed to me Richelson sometimes took too light a touch on interesting operational stories in order to get back to chronicling the CIA's changing organization chart. The attempted recovery of a sunken Soviet submarine, or the infamous BLUEBIRD-ARTICHOKE-MKDELTA experiments with mind-altering drugs, for example, were zipped over in just a couple of pages. It is true, though, that these topics are covered extensively in other books.

In all, I can see how 'The Wizards of Langley' will be useful for people interested in the personalities and politics behind a key element of America's intelligence apparatus. Journalists or specialist historians, for example. But I'm afraid the general reader with an interest in intelligence operations may find this book rough, and even unrewarding, sledding. It's for that first group -- for whom this book could be an excellent resource -- that I'm giving it as high a rating as I am.

I must agree with previous reviewer comments. This book attempts to describe the Directorate of Science and Technology, yet it focuses on the bureaucracy of upper management and has little discussion regarding the programs and technologies created by the DS&T. This organization has played a cricial role in shaping modern history, yet the book is dull and uninteresting to read.

An informative history of the U.S. intelligence efforts over the years to use creative technology to gather information. A chronology of how the desire for intelligence spawned the U2, the SR-71 and spy satellites and also how the agency discovers cutting edge technology which it sometimes releases to the private sector to be applied. Unfortunately the writing is very dry with too much focus on the history of internecine rivalries and power struggles which will probably not interest the average reader. A good read in order to get a balanced view of the value of the CIA which is often maligned and under-appreciated.

This book might be a useful resource to scholars researching the history of the CIA's Science and Technology Directorate. For the general reader, however, it is a tedious story of bureaucratic infighting that quickly becomes a chore to read.

If you go into reading this book with the idea that you are going to be learning about amazing gadgets and strange experiments you might finish the book disappointed. If you go into reading this book hoping to learn about the bureaucracy of the CIA than you'll probably leave satisfied. While Richelson does spend a portion of the book talking about technical wizardry such as spy satellites, spy planes, and other James Bond fare, much of the book is spent talking about directorate organization and hierarchy, and the political infighting that comes along with it.

This wouldn't be a problem if the book were billed as such. However, the book's back cover and description lead you to believe otherwise. The crazy directorate experiments using hallucinogens and telepathy are mentioned in the description but they take up less than a chapter in the book.

The book is incredibly well researched and can at times be an enjoyable read. However, a disproportionate amount of book space is taken up talking about organizational structure and agency politics. Two subjects that I find little interest in. If this book had stressed wizardry over policy it would be a five star selection, as the technical talk is incredibly interesting, well done and enlightening. However, this book focuses is on bureaucracy and suffers because of it.

I agree with the other reviewer that this is an incredibly boring book. It should be a crime to take so many fascinating projects, problems, and people and turn them into endless, dry, droning lists. There IS no narrative to the book. It reads like a Google search on technology...without any of the interest added by being able to check out the links. I bought the book because I heard the author in an interview, and he was very interesting. Too bad none of that comes through in the book.

This book is more a history of the politics of the CIA leadership and the DOD than the technical wizards. Compared to Bamford's books on the NSA this book contains no actual technical information and very little actual history of the CIA's technology based programs. For those interested in how individual personality plays a major role in government this book would be great but for one seeking background on technology and its applications to intelligence the book is a waste.

The CIA's Directorate of Science and Technology far out distanced the traditional "spooks" during the cold war by inventing truly incredible machines -- a variety of reconnaissance satellites, to take one example -- for so-called technical collection. It's triumphs were often extraordinary, yet the pervasive requirement for secrecy kept most of them in the dark. Now Jeffrey T. Richelson -- unquestionably the best in the world at what he does -- has finally given public recognition to men and women who could not do so for themselves. Their crucial role in winning wars, both hot and cold, has finally been told. All citizens of this country should read this book.

Richelson has written a very complete, documented, book on the Directorate of Science and Technology. However, unless you are looking for how government organizations function, or don't function, there isn't much new information on the technological accomplisments of the CIA that hasn't been written about elsewhere. I found the detailed reporting on who hated who, and how the defense department fought with the CIA for control of programs only slightly interesting. The technological achievements of the CIA were really interesting but sometimes amounted to a half page of good stuff, then back to the petty infighting within the government. I don't recommend this book unless you are doing a research paper.

This book was written with the cooperation of the CIA which greatly influenced it. It contains correct information on a limited number of projects mostly very old in time and technology. Even then portions of these projects are not discussed. It also details the shortcomings of people in the military and White House without describing the shortcomings of many CIA project leaders and managers. I personally know of one person praised in numerous chapters who later went into industry. He was the head of a high technology company. By the time that higher authority in the company became aware of his poor performance and booted him out, enough damage had been done that the company never recovered. It declined in technology level and size until it got absorbed by another company.