Book Review: The Human Factor

June 18th, 2010 by zen

Orrin Deforest and David Chanoff, Slow Burn: The Rise and Bitter Fall of American Intelligence in Vietnam, Simon & Schuster, 1990, 294 pp.

David Atlee Phillips, The Night Watch: 25 Years of Peculiar Service, Atheneum, 1977, 309 pp.

which covered clandestine case officer activities, first person, in Vietnam and Latin America.

Like these two aforementioned titles, Human Factor focuses on the day-to-day challenges of being a covert case officer … the “teeth” in any intelligence organization. It is noteworthy that the Director of Central Intelligence has rarely, if ever, been one of those covert (non-State Department) officers. It’s as if your dentist was being overseen by experts in small-engine mechanics.

Ishmael recounts the minutiae of what reports he needed to write, the porous e-mail systems he had to manipulate, and the permissions he needed to gain. The timing and delays of decisions from Langley … the phrasing and terminology that was necessary to get anyone back in the US to allow any activity whatsoever. As a former stock broker, Jones was entirely comfortable with the challenges of “cold-calling” and dealing with “No” over and over again. But this wasn’t the case for his fellow trainees or for any of his superiors. At every turn, he was able to contrast his experience in the Marines (and military culture), and with Wall Street’s “make the call” ethos, with what he was experiencing as one of the most at-risk members of the Agency

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Posted in 21st century, authors, book, CIA, DIME, dystopia, Failed State, government, IC, ideas, intelligence, national security, organizations, politics, reform, security, state failure | 4 comments

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  1. James Joyner:

    June 18th, 2010 at 11:21 am

    Michael Scheuer’s IMPERIAL HUBRIS had much of the same take.   And that from a then-serving member of the Senior Intelligence Service.

  2. zen:

    June 18th, 2010 at 2:56 pm

    Hi Dr. Joyner,
    .
    It’s not a good sign for an organization when its’ top performers regularly exit and write books that declare it to be useless. 😉
    .
    Probably time for a new civilian clandestine service entirely separate from the CIA and it’s culture to be formed. Something nimble and lean.

  3. James Joyner:

    June 18th, 2010 at 3:32 pm

    I’ve long thought that clandestine operations and analysis should be conducted by separate agencies.  And am not sure why kinetic ops, including drone strikes, should be conducted by intel types at all; that should be a military function.

  4. Joseph Fouche:

    June 18th, 2010 at 5:59 pm

    The CIA should be broken up.

    Analysis and operations should be broken up between State, Defense, Agriculture, Interior, etc. Centralization of analysis and operations leads to critical intelligence being revealed to foreign nations on the front page of the NYT and WaPo.

    Internal espionage should be separated from the FBI, which should focus on other crimes.

    The Foreign Service should be professionalized. No more sending Dubuque, Iowa housing baron Joe Podunk as ambassador to Slovenia.

    Crimes by "intelligence community" personnel should be handled by dedicated tribunals, if not put under military law.