"On Being a Spy" By Richard Sale, author of Clinton's Secret Wars

 

I have never worked in intelligence. The closest thing I got to it was having the CIA ask me to go to Iraq and report on what I saw there.  I didn't go, because I was uneasy about it because I am a journalist.  I am a very patriotic American, and I had good contacts with the Iraqis in Washington, just as I had once had good contacts with the Libyan before President Reagan booted them out. But yesterday, a columnist, Rachel Marsden, did a good review of the movie, "Zero Dark Thirty," and I wanted to post her analysis because it is very close to one I did for a character in a novel I am working on.   Richard Sale

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"Chastain's CIA officer says to the agency director that she's "done nothing else" over her 12 years with the agency besides work on the bin Laden case. Unlike with James Bond films, information doesn't just fall into someone's lap, or come as the result of a one-night stand with a source after a few well-shaken martinis. Chastain's character spends years vetting little bits and pieces of information as they trickle in. At one point she's devastated to learn that a lead in which she had invested enormous time and resources pursuing might ultimately be a dead end. "Confirmation bias" -- assessing a theory or a piece of information as valid because you desperately want or think it to be, and excluding other information for the same reason -- is mentioned several times throughout the film as an impediment to good intelligence work."    Marsden

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It is true that the movies distort intelligence work but it is not quite so pedestrian as Marsden portrays it to be.  pl

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/columnists/sns-201301221200--tms--amvoicesctnav-a20130122-20130122,0,6789624.column 

Comments

[Jim Ticehurst]

Col. Lang....I was wondering how you compare your experiences with U.S. Government and Intelligence Operations Policys ,Proceedures and People back in your DNI Days to the Transistions of the Government and Intelligence Operations through Bush The Second and Obama The First Regimes now..????
.Its seems to me that the United States has experienced a Rapid and Alarming Deterioration at the Domestic and Political Level...with Blatant Abuses of Power with few Checks, Balances or Accountability...

[Basilisk]

"This is why, for example, Russian models and businessmen in major world cities such as London, Paris and New York are encouraged to cozy up to wealthy or connected businessmen or politicians...."

I'd say Ms. Marsden is au courant as of about two hundred years ago.

Mr. Sale, I greatly enjoy your writing, I hope your novel is a historical one. If this description is close to your imagined one, it should be.

[turcopolier]

Jim Ticehurst

Basilisk could better answer that than I. pl

[Fitzhugh]

I remember a young fellow being cut down to size at a drinks party after telling a former CIA station chief that espionage work wasn't nearly as exciting as it was portrayed in films. He was told that it was much more exciting. The Telegraph often proves this in its obituaries. Frank Bessac, and Fitzroy Maclean being two such examples.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obituaries/military-obituaries/special-forces-obituaries/

[Jim Ticehurst]

OK Sir....It would be interesting to get some Comparison and Evaluation from a Professional Experienced,Qualified Person such as yourself..or anyone else Qualified to answer my Question...I would really like to know the status...Thanks..

[The beaver]

Mr Basilisk

May be being in Paris, Marsden has heard too much about the following story and is drawing parallels with Russian "model" like Anna Chapman :-)

http://www.nytimes.com/1996/03/13/world/cia-confirms-blunders-during-economic-spying-on-france.html

[turcopolier]

jim Ticehurst

OK. When I was doing this kind of work everything was much smaller and subject to a great deal of oversight. DIA was particularly eager to comply with the intelligence laws and to make itself purer than the driven snow. CIA, maybe not so much. DIA had about 6,000 people when I left. There are several tmes that now. I have avoided doing consultant work for DIA because I don't want to be accused of anything based on old ties. pl

[Jim Ticehurst]

Col...I know you are a Proud and honorable man...with High Standards for yourself, but with your Background, and the High Level of Complex problemsdeveloping all over the Middle East..I would feel more confident about the future if you did any Consultation work the DIA Asked you to do
if you considered it Legal and worthwhile....

Also...My Impressions/Opinions of the End Game Transistions I asked you about...begsn for me as a LEO in the 60's...ending as CSI in the 90s...In that Time I saw Many Liberal Causes suceed and undermine Society and Influenced Government Operations/Policys so much that It Lead to the Intelligence Failures of 9/11 and Political Sham that Posed as a "Reactive POLICY" by the Bush Administration, actually turned to a Neo Conservation New World Order self Serving ProActive Agenda....which Began the downfall of American Domestic and Foreign Affairs...that included The Corruption of Wall Street Greed and Economic Failure...It Easily could have been the End of the American Economy...

That Lead to a Over Reaction by the American people who Elected Barack Obama with out Proper Vetting or Considertion of His Lack of Qualifications...or Probable Policy Directives..We Now have a Reactionary Government in my Opinion that has gone back to Furthering "Far Left"Socialist/Marxist type Policys and the Neo Liberal Democrates own Version of a New World Order...Leveraged by all the Radical Reactions ..Patriot Act, Homeland Security ..and Intelligence Agency Changes..Few Checks and Balances, little over sight ..and a nation divided down the middle with only the Choice of the "Less of Two Evils" on either end of the Board..

I want to know..Where the Hell is all this leading..Foreign and Domestic...and what Kind of America will we have by 2016..? Is anyone even doing any Honest Estimates, Analysis..or Reasonable Projections...?I Don't like Failure of Leadership..or Trust...

[The Twisted Genius]

Jim Ticehurst,

One of the most profound changes I noticed was the apparent comfort some in NSA now have with collecting information on U.S. persons. Many years ago, every NSA type I met would run screaming from the room if anyone mentioned collecting on U.S. persons. The thought of that was more abhorrent than child molestation. After 9/11 it was openly discussed more and more often. I have no knowledge of what they actually do about these discussions.

[Jim Ticehurst]

TG...Thanks.....Those Many Years ago... U.S. Agencys played by Traditional Rules and Standards I Trust..even at the Peak of the Cold War...Far Below the Rules the Russians played by...Now...we have the Distractions of the Middle East..are being told Russia no longer matters..hardly hear a peep about whats cooking at Ivan's Smoke House...and seem to be doing a goood job of doing to Ourselfs every thing that the Russians hoped to do to us .. then..through Social..Political and Constitutional Erosion..I would suggest DIA Keep its Eye on Mother Russia..and Thier Assets in America,around Europe and the Middle East..At Some Point They will put The Blitz Back in the Krieg..

[The Twisted Genius]

Intelligence work is only pedestrian if you choose it to be so. I spent over twenty years in HUMINT and I had a ball. Of course there was also the paperwork that you never see in the movies and the vicious, conniving bureaucratic battles that you do see in the movies. As a GS-12 I had the opportunity to lead an isolated collection team in Europe. I had tremendous latitude in running operations. At times it was like being the captain of a wooden frigate in a far off sea. Years later I created and ran another collection team that seemed like something out of a William Gibson novel. No, intelligence work does not have to pedestrian.

[Charles I]

Sir, let me get this straight

Liberals, or "Liberal Causes "Lead . . . to 9/11"

I see.

[Charles I]

Too cool, a bit of the arc of Cloud Atlas. Anyway, its an educational privilege and pleasure to hear these little nuggets from the primary sources that share here.

Dunno really enough to really comment on the article itself aside from saying the very idea of surreptitious or deceptive collection of information about one's interests from the field would never seem pedestrian to me.

[Jim Ticehurst]

Yes Charles..In My Opinion...Liberal policys...That began changing U.S.Intelligence Operations and Agency Proceedures through Senate Proceedures like the Frank Church Hearings and dismanteling of the CIA AND FBI..Many Files were Confiscated at Federal Agencys..This also lead to the FBI Being Isolated from the CIA and the FBI being Hindered from Proper Investigations of the Hijackers at flight schools when thier Sus[icious activitys weere reported and Investigated by Field Agents..and FBI HQ Refusing the Search warrants that could have PREVENTED the 9/11 Hijackings..WHY..? Everyone at FBI Was afraid of anything that looked like PROFILING....That included SAUDIS and MUSLIMS inside the United States..Thats a Fact..LIBERAL MANDATED POLITICALLY CORRECT POLICYS..

The Minute the First Plane hit the Towers...Both CIA and FBI Knew who these Hijackers were...and the Lies..Alibis and CYA Show Began..
I will never get over the disgust of knowing that 9/11 could and should have been Prevented..

[PeterHug]

May I just say for the record that I would welcome the opportunity to spill my guts to any model who wants to cozy up to me...unfortunately, I am neither wealthy, well connected, nor a politician - so I would probably end up talking to the moral equivalent of Baldric from BlackAdder.

:)