Spotlight on CIA History

Tim Weiner writes a fascinating 60 year history of the CIA in "Legacy of Ashes" highlighting mistakes, missteps and bungled covert operations. Too bad he could not include the successes of those 60 years as well. He would then have had a well balanced book. It is also sad that he offers nothing really new in Ashes. The legacy of those first 60 years has been well documented in the public record, mainly by Congress, and through declassified documents. It is also disappointing that he got many of his disclosures completely wrong, facts he would have known had he done his research more thoroughly. I am certain Mr. Weiner is well-intentioned and in offering his book hopes to make an impact that will result in an improved operating culture in the Company. What we should focus on now is the future of the CIA, not the past.

It seems that at least once per decade, something negative happens in the CIA that causes the administration in power and Congress to reinvent the wheel, so to speak, to overhaul the CIA! I went through three of these "reinventions" in my nearly 30 year career in the intelligence business. Each reinvention had both good and bad results. Mr. Weiner in his book and his WHYY Radio Times interview makes an excellent point about the fact that the CIA has exhausted its pool of Case Officers qualified with hard-target languages like Chinese, Farci (sic) and others. After the reinvention of the CIA following the fallout from 911, agency morale hit a 30 year low. Many experienced, field hardened Case Officers retired at the same time that the President and Congress called for an increase in the agency's manpower and counter-terrorism capabilities. The agency was not up to the challenge and by some estimates would not be able to recruit, train and deploy the required field operatives for circa five to seven years.