Intelligence: From Secrets to Policy (Paperback)

~ (Author)
Key Phrases: intelligence legislation, intelligence agenda, estimative process, United States, Soviet Union, New York (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description

Spies, bugs, moles, double-agents, drop-offs, covert action. The world of intelligence is filled with intrigue, but at its core, the information-secret or otherwise-is valuable to governments for the power it affords policy makers. With the constant need for background, context, and warning as well as an assessment of risks, benefits, and likely outcomes, the intelligence community plays a crucial role in policy formation. Lowenthal adeptly describes the development of this community while showing students how the various stages of the intelligence process serve an intelligence agenda that has changed dramatically in this post-Cold War, post-9/11 world.

In this thoroughly revised second edition, Lowenthal updates each and every chapter, including new material on the infamous Robert Hanssen and Wen Ho Lee cases. Two new chapters significantly round out coverage: one on intelligence reform and another that takes a comparative look at intelligence in Britain, France, Russia, Israel, and China. This new edition also takes into account the impact and effects the war on terrorism now has on collection, analysis, and counterintelligence, as well as the ethical and moral issues surrounding these tasks.

About the Author

Mark M. Lowenthal has twenty-seven years of experience as an intelligence official in the executive and legislative branches of government and in the private sector. He returned to government service in 2002, concurrently performing the duties of the assistant director on central intelligence for analysis and production, and serving as vice chairman of the National Intelligence Council for Evaluation. Dr. Lowenthal is also an adjunct professor at Columbia University.

Product Details

• Paperback: 274 pages
• Publisher: CQ Press; 2nd edition (July 1, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1568027591
• ISBN-13: 978-1568027593
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6.4 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 13.9 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (17 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #478,175 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

26 of 28 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A significant contribution to intelligence literature, March 1, 2000

By	David Jimenez (El Paso,Texas) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Intelligence: From Secrets to Policy (Paperback)

This valuable and recent contribution to the intelligence bookshelf promises to become a classic text for any practitioner and student of intelligence. Understanding how the intelligence process can work efficiently, how consumers of intelligence can best utilize the process, and how essential it is for producers of intelligence to receive feedback by consumers (a critical and often lacking element), are among some of the major themes discussed. Perhaps one of the most valuable sections of the book is the chapter on the analysis process itself, considered to be the most difficult process in the intelligence cycle. The author clearly provides the reader with exceptional comments regarding analyst training, politicized intelligence, and mirror imaging, and offers many unique insights into the process itself. Intelligence: From Secrets To Policy, contains well developed chapters on Counterintelligence, Covert Action, and Ethical and Moral Issues. Mr. Lowenthall also provides the reader with unique appendices that include excerpts from the National Security Act, Executive Order 12333, and a listing of intelligence related web sites. Comprehensive and yet easy to understand, this publication is highly recommended for those of us wishing to examine, or reexamine, the crucial roles of consumer, producer, and analyst, and the ever-increasing importance of feedback in the intelligence cycle.

17 of 19 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A readable, well balanced treatise on the subject, November 1, 2000

By	Robert Clark (Reston, VA USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This review is from: Intelligence: From Secrets to Policy (Paperback)

Mark's latest book is a well-written, accurate depiction of the US intelligence business and various areas of intelligence tradecraft. His section on the US intelligence community will become outdated in time, but in it he develops an interesting functional view of the community. The book is very readable for newcomers while still being of interest to veterans of the business. It is intended to have broad coverage rather than depth. It would be admirably suited as a textbook for a short course on intelligence.

28 of 35 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Primer for Presidents, Congress, Media, and Public, May 1, 2003

By	Robert D. Steele (Oakton, VA United States) - See all my reviews (TOP 50 REVIEWER)

Mark Lowenthal, who today is the Associate Deputy Director of Central Intelligence for Analysis and Production (ADCI/A&P), was briefly (for a year) the President of OSS USA (I created OSS Inc., the global version). So much for disclosure and "conflicts of interest". The previous review, after a year of being irritatingly present, needs to be corrected. Dr. Lowenthal was for many years the Senior Executive Service reviewer of intelligence affairs for the Congressional Research Service, then he went on to be Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Intelligence & Research (Analysis), and then he became the Staff Director for the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, where he supervised one of the two really serious really excellent studies on all that is wrong with intelligence and what needs to be fixed. OSS was lucky to have him contribute to its development for a year before he moved on to another corporation and then to the #5 position in the US Intelligence Community. He needs no help from me in either articulating his ideas or doing good work.

What the previous reviewer fails to understand is that Dr. Lowenthal's book represents the *only* available "primer" on intelligence that can be understood by Presidents, Congressmen, the media, and the public. While my own book (The New Craft of Intelligence) strives to discuss the over-all threats around the world in terms meaningful to the local neighborhoods of America, Dr. Lowenthal's book focuses on the U.S. Intelligence Community itself--the good, the bad, and the ugly. He is strongest on analysis and the politics of intelligence, somewhat weaker on collection and counterintelligence covert action. There is no other book that meets the need for this particular primer, and so I recommend it with enthusiasm. It is on the OSS.NET list of the top 15 books on intelligence reform every written.