Original Analysis

The original version of my piece "Openness and the CIA," published in the unclass version of Studies in Intelligence (winter-spring 2001), contained a postscript which was deleted, quite properly, by the editor as irrelevant to the piece. But it is not, I think, irrelevant to the discussion about the intelligence failure regarding the WTC atrocities. That postscript follows:

A small postscript: With all that said and argued, let me offer a reform that, if implemented, could result in vastly improved intelligence collection and analysis by the CIA. As sexy, cure-all covert activities and operations devour more and more of the intelligence collection/analysis budget, we are threatened with the Hollywood approach to such activities. Supermen like Arnold Schwarteznegger and Stephen Segal seem to solve all the nation's foreign problems--all that's needed is to unleash the CIA's "supermen." As more documentation from the late 1940s and the 1950s appears, it is becoming clear that President Truman and particularly President Eisenhower came to view covert action as an inexpensive tool for implementing U.S. foreign policy. Whatever the wisdom and cost of that approach, covert action/operations fascinated the White House and, inevitably, stole the limelight and resources from careful collection and analysis.

The fix is easy. Separate the agencies, and the budgets of agencies that collect and analyze intelligence from those entrusted with covert action responsibilities. Construct a bureaucratic fire-wall as thick as that between the DO and the rest of the CIA. Give the exploding cigars to the Navy Seals or some such, and let the CIA get back to the tried and true fundamentals; back to collection and analysis. If whatever agency picks up the covert operations tasking can justify its budget on the basis of successes, fine. In the meantime, the CIA will do what really protects the nation--collecting and analyzing intelligence about potential enemies.

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