Spy memoirs come in broad categories. In twilight, one may choose to reflect on the highly canted recollections of an agent's personal story, full of personality and pique; his rise, climbing on the backs of fate and friends, followed by his trip down the ladder, as fate guides him once again with a tap on the shoulder or a stab in the back. By night, the reader may choose to be riveted by daring tales of covert action and personal achievement, set against a background of glorification or disdain for "the company." In the cold light of day, one may try to be informed, by reading the stultifying work of Dulles, or a journalist's second-sourced compendium and analysis of what he has never been a part of.
This is a different book, the second I've read by a woman, and this may be key, for the lack of gender equality in the CIA may have preserved the author's independence of vision. Ms. Boyle-Mahle's keen analytic mind, and intense patriotism, which survived even being cashiered by the CIA, is unique of print. The CIA has many aspects of corporate structure. In private industry, corporations with dysfunctional structure eventually end in the dissolution of their assets, one of the triumphs of capitalism. But the CIA, as a governmental entity, is subject to the far less certain and decisive deliberations of congressional oversight, and executive pique and whimsy. Ms. Boyle-Mahle chronicles and dissects the twisted path of reform, of false moves, backtracks, and destruction of human assets, with insufficient discrimination between entrenched fiefs and centers of competence.
All this has two causes. One is the traitor Aldrich Ames, who revealed a terrible vulnerability, rooted in the unknowable nature of the human mind. The other is Iran-Contra, which reveals a paradox. The result is a kind of organizational autoimmune disease, in which the body attacks it's own tissues, in attempt to render immunity to human treachery. The history of the intelligence services suggests that, thus far, there is been no solution. Background checks, including polygraph, which Ms. Boyle-Mahle reveals two thirds of applicants cannot pass (and no Arab Americans!) apparently reveal our widespread anxiety about diverse topics, rather than the desire to suborn.
The paradox of Iran-Contra is the swing of the moral zeitgeist every decade or so, which renders actions taken in one period reprehensible in another. Those who work for the Company have every right to fear the moral equation, because it is not constant. They know they can act out of patriotism, and wind up hanged by history's noose. With the bad pay, one wonders why anyone would work for the CIA at all. Years ago, I met a young woman, a now famous ex CIA agent, in a social situation. It was clear this person wanted to serve us all, a secular form of religion. Thank you!
Ms. Boyle-Mahle presents in stark detail, and in a manner that appears to this author, free of bias, the missteps, but she omits a solution or alternative. This is to her credit, as there may be none. Nevertheless, as of this date, the "Company" may have already changed again, in such a way to better preserve and acquire human resources. Why has no one of intelligence and responsibility read the book and offered to rehire her?
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- Piet strickReviewed in the United Kingdom on January 20, 2013
cia a headless monster
