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Spying Blind: The CIA, the FBI, and the Origins of 9/11 Hardcover – August 26, 2007

by Amy B. Zegart (Author)
4.5 4.5 out of 5 stars 41 ratings
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In this pathbreaking book, Amy Zegart provides the first scholarly examination of the intelligence failures that preceded September 11. Until now, those failures have been attributed largely to individual mistakes. But Zegart shows how and why the intelligence system itself left us vulnerable.


Zegart argues that after the Cold War ended, the CIA and FBI failed to adapt to the rise of terrorism. She makes the case by conducting painstaking analysis of more than three hundred intelligence reform recommendations and tracing the history of CIA and FBI counterterrorism efforts from 1991 to 2001, drawing extensively from declassified government documents and interviews with more than seventy high-ranking government officials. She finds that political leaders were well aware of the emerging terrorist danger and the urgent need for intelligence reform, but failed to achieve the changes they sought. The same forces that have stymied intelligence reform for decades are to blame: resistance inside U.S. intelligence agencies, the rational interests of politicians and career bureaucrats, and core aspects of our democracy such as the fragmented structure of the federal government. Ultimately failures of adaptation led to failures of performance. Zegart reveals how longstanding organizational weaknesses left unaddressed during the 1990s prevented the CIA and FBI from capitalizing on twenty-three opportunities to disrupt the September 11 plot.



Spying Blind is a sobering account of why two of America's most important intelligence agencies failed to adjust to new threats after the Cold War, and why they are unlikely to adapt in the future.

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  1. Print length
    336 pages
  2. Language
    English
  3. Publisher
    Princeton University Press
  4. Publication date
    August 26, 2007
  5. Dimensions
    6.5 x 1 x 9.5 inches
  6. ISBN-10
    0691120218
  7. ISBN-13
    978-0691120218
  8. See all details
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  2. Flawed by Design: The Evolution of the CIA, JCS, and NSC
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4.5 out of 5 stars
41 global ratings

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Customers say

Customers find the book well-researched and educational. They appreciate the author's careful documentation of her findings. The premise is described as remarkable and a decent read.

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6 customers mention "Pacing"6 positive0 negative

Customers appreciate the book's pacing and thorough research. They find it theoretical yet educational, with well-documented findings. The book is accurate and fair, describing obstacles created by bureaucracy. Readers appreciate the author's objectivity and adherence to scientific standards of proof in the course of analysis.

"...It is clear and concise and paints a tragic picture of our government’s inability to adapt in the face of such tragedy...." Read more

"...So is this an accurate and fair book? Well Zegart is a very careful scholar who has done an excellent job documenting her findings...." Read more

"It is a good book and easy to read and gives a good perspective between some of the issues dealing with the CIA and FBI that allowed the 9-11..." Read more

"...Zegart explains why, in a dry, but well-documented, history of the FBI and CIA after 9/11." Read more

5 customers mention "Readability"5 positive0 negative

Customers find the book readable and engaging. They describe it as a decent read with a well-researched central premise.

"...I have no background in policy or intelligence, but found this book riveting...." Read more

"The central premise of this remarkable book is that the intelligence failures that are associated with 9/11 and the failure of intelligence reform..." Read more

"It is a good book and easy to read and gives a good perspective between some of the issues dealing with the CIA and FBI that allowed the 9-11..." Read more

"...Decent read, I'd borrow this from a library instead." Read more

Top reviews from the United States

  • Amazon Customer
    5.0 out of 5 stars Incredible! and so palatable for a layperson.
    Reviewed in the United States on November 24, 2023
    Verified Purchase
    I started reading this book by the recommendation of a student at Stanford, who took the author’s class. I have no background in policy or intelligence, but found this book riveting. It is clear and concise and paints a tragic picture of our government’s inability to adapt in the face of such tragedy. I hope that professor Zegart updates this book from time to time, and that she has some good news to share with us about the future…
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  • Retired Reader
    5.0 out of 5 stars Whatever Happened to the Organization Man?
    Reviewed in the United States on August 26, 2007
    Verified Purchase
    The central premise of this remarkable book is that the intelligence failures that are associated with 9/11 and the failure of intelligence reform are both symptomatic of profound internal organizational flaws in CIA and the FBI (and by extension the other National Intelligence principals NSA, NGA, and DIA). The sub-premise is that both agencies were unable to adapt to the realities of a Post-Cold War world. This is a controversial premise because the U.S. Intelligence Community (IC) generally denies that 9/11 was an intelligence failure and claims to have implemented major reforms. Zegart makes a persuasive argument that her premise is correct.

    Social scientist that she is, Zegart constructs a model to guide her analysis of both institutions. This model is based on what she identifies as three organizational characteristics common to both CIA and the FBI: structural fragmentation; dysfunctional cultural norms; and perverse incentive systems. She applies this model to both the institutions failure to adapt to 21st Century challenges and their failure to provide warning of the dreadful attacks of 9/11. Indeed Zegart notes that based on this model the intelligence record of both agencies wasn't very good during the Cold War either.

    In the course of developing her case Zegart provides the reader with a number of really useful concepts such as "change is not adaptation" and "rational boundaries." Although somewhat outside of the parameters of her model, Zegart also makes clear that the Defense Department and its allies in the congress also has contributed a good deal to failure of intelligence reform. Like her earlier book "Flawed by Design" Zegart has provided another perceptive and discouraging analysis of the U.S. national Security system.

    So is this an accurate and fair book? Well Zegart is a very careful scholar who has done an excellent job documenting her findings. She also appears to have maintained her objectivity and adherence to scientific standards of proof in the course of her analysis.
    And, for what it is worth, to this reviewer she seems to have correctly diagnosed a good part of what ails the U.S. Intelligence System.
    27 people found this helpful
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  • Michael L. Brandon
    4.0 out of 5 stars Spying Blind
    Reviewed in the United States on June 3, 2013
    Verified Purchase
    It is a good book and easy to read and gives a good perspective between some of the issues dealing with the CIA and FBI that allowed the 9-11 attacks to take place.
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  • Kindle Customer
    5.0 out of 5 stars Well researched and compelling, shows why things never change
    Reviewed in the United States on December 31, 2017
    Verified Purchase
    Organizational change management is, at best, a quixotic struggle and, at worst, a hoax. Zegart explains why, in a dry, but well-documented, history of the FBI and CIA after 9/11.
    One person found this helpful
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  • J. Douglas Orton
    5.0 out of 5 stars A Helpful Nudge for National Security Management Reform
    Reviewed in the United States on September 22, 2007
    Hopefully Dr. Zegart will be at the National Book Festival in DC on Saturday, September 29, 2007, so we can start a career-long conversation on her work . . . but in case she isn't . . . Here's one complaint, from a mostly satisfied reader:

    It has proven very difficult for the political science community to understand the organization theory community. Graham Allison tried in 1971, by contrasting the rational actor hyper-rational "Model I" (this porridge is too cold, Papa Bear), with the counterrational complex organizational processes "Model II" (this porridge is too hot, Mama Bear), before retreating to the safety of "pulling-and-hauling" of the political scientists in the bureaucratic politics "Model III" (this porridge is just right, Baby Bear). Even with Philip Zelikow's help in the 1999 second edition, the complex organizational processes chapter didn't progress very far.

    Meanwhile, though, in business schools around the world, Model II has been off to the races: Herbert Simon, James March, and Karl Weick lead a revolution that has gone so far into the science fiction future that Dr. Zegart's colleague at UCLA, Bill McKelvey, has become the Yoda of complexity theory in complex organizations. (Amy, Bill; Bill, Amy -- geez, why didn't you guys talk before this?) Dr. Zegart recognizes that businesses are under pressure to be high-performing systems, or they die; she recognizes that political systems are not under the same pressures; but she does not then draw the obvious conclusion that organization theorists in business schools know more about organization theory than political scientists in schools of government will ever be able to capture.

    I remember spending a long afternoon at a UC-Riverside classroom in summer of 2004 transcribing Dr. Zegart's testimony to the 9/11 Commission -- it was elegant, simple, but 15 years behind U.S. business schools' understanding of organization theories.

    In Dr. Zegart's defense, though, she is pulling a very heavy load in trying to get her political science brothers and sisters to invest more energy in organization theory and organization research. She feels that she is -- as she titles Chapter 2 of her book -- in "No Man's Land." Note to Dr. Zegart -- you are alone in No Man's Land because you assume that all knowledge about the U.S. national security community resides in political science journals.

    Here's where the battle line might be drawn in the Project for National Security [Management] Reform: Do we call the Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs the "national security adviser" (e.g. Kissinger, Brzezinski, Rice) or the "national security manager" (e.g. Bundy, Scowcroft, Powell)? If we see the APNSA position as a mere stepping-stone to the way-cooler Thomas-Jefferson-like Secretary of State position, then the political scientists get to continue to "own" the topic of intelligence. If we see the APNSA position as the alter ego of the President who is able to knock the heads of SecDef and SecState together to force them to create complex solutions to complex problems, then the political scientists must yield the topic of intelligence to a larger group of academics and practitioners -- that might include business school professors in the Simon-March-Weick tradition.

    So, despite my wish that the book had been coauthored with a solid organization theorist (Bill Starbuck would have been perfect), I think Dr. Zegart's book will hold a solid position in my doctoral seminars on high reliability organizations for years to come: Cuban Missile Crisis, Three Mile Island Nuclear Incident, Tenerife Air Disaster, Mann Gulch Forest Fire, Bhopal Chemical Accident, Challenger Explosion, Black Hawk Shootdown over Iraq in 1994, Columbia Disintegration, West Nile Virus, and now -- in place of honor today -- "Spying Blind: The CIA, the FBI, and the Origins of 9/11."

    Hopefully Dr. Zegart has already started writing her third book -- with much more input from her organization theorist friends this time -- on the intelligence community's inability to influence the national security decision-making apparatus to make a better decision about what to do with Iraq in 2003.
    4 people found this helpful
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