This is probably the most important book to come out this year. The author synthesizes all of the books about the CIA and its problems into one little book that everyone can understand. Not only that, he PRESENTS A SOLUTION. Unfortunately, I doubt if Obama or anyone in Washington has the moxie to implement author Faddis's solution.
The author argues with a great deal of archane information that the CIA is a broken agency, needs to be closed and another Agency built from the ground up. If his litany of horror stories seem unbelievable, consider this -- there are probably a thousand ex-case officers (ones who really ran operations (including me)) that can each tell a minimum of ten horror stories like the author, each one more unbelievable than the last. The bloated, time-serving, risk-adverse bureaucracy that the CIA has become must be extirpated and replaced by a mission-oriented, flatly-organized, and relatively small and nimble organization devoted to obtaining human intelligence quickly and have the ability to interpret it even more rapidly for policy makers. The author's case is simply overwhelming to anyone other than the federal bureaucracy.
As a side point, the author's remarks concerning military intelligence agencies (and DIA) may be true now, but it was not always that way. Once (during the 40s, 50s, and until Kennedy gutted those units in favor of putting their personnel back into uniforms) military intelligence was streamlined and capable, producing thousands of intelligence reports without layers of staff bureaucracies and tons of paperwork. Even the Soviets found that the GRU and the KGB were both necessary, and in many cases the GRU (Army Intelligence) actually produced better intelligence. But I will concede the author his point at this time. Likewise, the FBI is simply too bound by bureaucratic procedures to be effective in gathering intelligence, so yes, an OSS-type agency is sorely needed if the U.S. is to survive the NEXT TWENTY YEARS. The author makes a superlative case for this, although it may already be too late and beyond our political capabilities to implement.
The author's assertion that good case officers do not necessarily make good managers is absolutely correct and there needs to be a career path for case officers "in the Cold" to remain there and still have a rewarding career. Case officers need to be imaginative, mission-oriented, aggressive, maybe a little crazy to take the necessary risks (of being tortured and killed), able to work extremely long hours, have excellent linguistic skills, and be flexible and able to make snap decisions. Those attributes do not describe a manager or bureaucrat (usually.)
The author makes the point that foreign language capability is necessary to make a good case officer. I would like to second that and go farther. If an individual does not fluently speak, read and passable write in the language of the host country and/or the target country, then he cannot be an effective case officer, and indeed, should never be considered as a case officer. For example, if Valarie Plame was not fluent in the language spoken in her host African country while she supposedly was a case officer in non-official cover, then simply put, she was a square peg in a round hole and should have been given the title of case officer.
Inter-agency coordination requirements need to be minimized in order to be effective. As in the art of computer programming; if one programmer can do the job in one day, two programmers will take a week, and three programmers will never be able to get the job done. So it is in intelligence. The case officer and his agents/sources generally get the job done by themselves, and as far as the rest is concerned, the CO only needs his back protected and support for his accomplishing the mission ALL THE WAY UP THE LINE TO CONGRESS AND THE PRESIDENT. After all, he's the one risking his life to safeguard the rest of us.
I simply cannot recommend this book too highly. Purchase it, read it, and write your Congressman and Senator to make them read it. Otherwise, we can easily disappear in a mushroom cloud in the coming decades, be unable to drink our poisoned water, or die from breathing the deadly spores in our air.
Other books you might read include (all with my reviews on Amazon):
Chief Of Station, by Larry Devlin. An excellent book by an operative under offical cover.
Why Spy? Espionage in an Age of Uncertainty, by Frederick Hitz. This book clearly shows the problem, unfortunately it is the author and others with his lawyer-first, maximum control approach.
The Great Game: The Myths and Reality of Espionage, by Frederick Hitz. Like above, this adds valuable insight to espionage from a bureaucrat's viewpoint of view -- clearly the bureaucrat can't do or manage espionage.
The Human Factor: Inside the CIA's dysfunctional Intelligence Culture, by Ishmael Jones. Read and believe -- probably the best book out there on the nitty-gritty.
The New Craft of Intelligence: Personal, Public, and Political, by Robert Steele. A very valuable book for all citizens covering more than just the CIA.
On Intelligence: Spies and Secrecy in an Open World, by Robert Steele. Extremely valuable work outlining American intelligence failures, how and why they occurred, and what is needed as reform.
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