A spooky look at the CIA

A history of US intelligence makes for uncomfortable reading.

By Randy Dotinga

from the August 14, 2007 edition

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The Guatemalan military bugged the bedroom of the US ambassador in 1994 and caught her cooing to someone who was not her husband but did share her female secretary's name.

The CIA passed on this juicy tidbit to Washington DC, where it became the buzz of the capital during a period of difficult relations with Guatemala. And who did the recipient of these sweet-nothings turn out to be? The ambassador's 2-year-old poodle.

It was yet another blunder in a long line of CIA debacles. This time, however, no dictators were propped up, no wars were started, and no one was assassinated. Presidents and Congress were not misled, and predictions about world affairs were not utterly, completely, and dangerously wrong.

In other words, the mistake was hardly newsworthy as these things go. After all, the agency routinely destroys whatever it touches, according to the aptly named Legacy of Ashes: The History of the CIA.

The agency's past is filled with "fleeting successes and long-lasting failures abroad," writes author Tim Weiner, a national-security reporter at The New York Times. "The agency's triumphs have saved some blood and treasure. Its mistakes have squandered both."

Forget the latest James Patterson thriller. This is by far the scariest book of the year. By Mr. Weiner's account, the agency created after World War II to predict the next Pearl Harbor has spent six decades mishandling virtually every major world crisis. It's also managed to spy on American citizens while failing to anticipate everything from the Bay of Pigs fiasco to the disintegration of the Soviet Union and 9/11.

Forecasting the future, of course, is a difficult business. But predictions are most useful when they're based on information from good sources and solid analysts, and the CIA rarely had either.

Throughout the entire cold war, a grand total of three spies provided useful details about Soviet military efforts. Years later, the agency relied on fewer than a handful of agents to give it the inside story about Iraq's supposed weapons of mass destruction.

The roots of the CIA's debacles lie in its early days, writes Weiner. Instead of chasing secrets, leaders preferred the dashing world of covert operations.

Eliminate a left-leaning president here, support a right-wing anticommunist leader there: It was all good. Bad men ended up in power and thousands paid the ultimate price, from Chile and Vietnam to Cuba and Indonesia.

The 20 CIA directors have included some dedicated and accomplished men, such as Bob Gates, the current secretary of Defense, and two Christian Scientists, Adm. Stansfield Turner and William Webster. But, as Weiner puts it, most "have left the agency in worse shape than they found it."

There is plenty of blame to go around. Presidents and Congress both failed to keep the CIA under control and never answered a crucial question: How can a democracy and a secretive intelligence agency coexist?

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