Bombs, Bugs, Drugs, and Thugs

Front matter

Bombs, Bugs, Drugs, and Thugs

Loch K. Johnson

BOMBS, BUGS, DRUGS, AND THUGS

Contents

A New Preface by the Author xi Preface xix List of Figures xxiiii List of Abbreviations xxv Introduction 1 PART I: An Intelligence Agenda for a New World 1. A Planet Bristling with Bombs and Missiles 11 2. Stocks and (James) Bonds: Spies in the Global Marketplace 32 3. The Greening of Intelligence 50 4. Spies versus Germs: A Worldwide Resurgence of Bugs 72 PART II: Strategic Intelligence: Fissures in the First Line of Defense

PART III: Smart Intelligence—and Accountable 8. More Intelligent Intelligence 175 9. Balancing Liberty and Security 199

Appendix: America’s Intelligence Leadership, 1941-2000 223

Preface

As with my earlier research on intelligence over the past twenty-five years, this book has benefited enormously from the help of others. The footnotes and bibliography in this volume attest to the valuable literature produced by those writing on intelligence: works by former government officials, media correspondents covering this elusive beat, and a growing number of academic scholars. I thank them one and all.

I am pleased to pay special tribute to a number of individuals who assisted me more directly with this volume. Mark S. R. Heathcote offered thoughtful insights into the question of economic security (the subject of chapter 2, based on a lecture I presented at St. Antony’s College, Oxford University, in 1999). Scott A. Hershovitz, my former undergraduate honors student and currently a Rhodes scholar at Balliol College, Oxford University, tackled some of the research problems in chapter 3 (environmental intelligence). Diane C. Sawyer, a former CIA officer and now a private-sector manager, brought a valuable perspective to chapter 4 (health intelligence) and conducted some of the research. Kevin J. Scheid, a budget expert, led me through the maze of national security procedures followed by the Office of Management and Budget and worked closely with me in drafting an earlier version of chapter 6 (intelligence funding). Thomas P. Lauth, a friend and colleague at the University of Georgia and a public finance expert, also read an early version of chapter 6 and made useful suggestions, for which I am grateful. Annette Freyburg, my former graduate student and freshly minted Ph.D., researched shoulder-to-shoulder with me on an earlier version of chapter 7 (foreign intelligence liaison) and was especially helpful with the German literature review. Mark M. Lowenthal and H. Bradford Westerfield, whose writing in this field has been exemplary, generously read the entire manuscript and offered enormously valuable guidance.

My understanding of contemporary intelligence issues has benefited, too, from an opportunity to serve as special assistant to Les Aspin, chair

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Preface of the Commission on the Roles and Missions of the U.S. Intelligence Community (the Aspin-Brown commission, Washington, D.C., 1995- 96). During and since the commission’s proceedings, I have been able to discuss a range of intelligence topics with its members and staff, as well as with several of the witnesses who testified before the panel; their insights are greatly appreciated. In addition, I served as an assistant to Senator Frank Church (D, Idaho) on the U.S. Senate Select Committee on Intelligence (1975-76); as the issues director in Church’s presidential campaign (1976); as the staff director of the Subcommittee on Oversight, U.S. House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence (1977— 79); and as a foreign policy consultant to the White House during the Carter administration.

My knowledge of intelligence issues has benefited as well from informal discussions with scholars and a variety of government officials, both here and abroad. I thank the following good people (who, along with the others I have mentioned in this acknowledgment, are in no way responsible for any errors of fact or interpretation that may appear in these pages): Christopher Andrew, John B. Bellinger III, Richard A. Best, Cliff Blaskowsky, Ann Z. Caracristi, David Charters, James R. Clapper Jr., Charles G. Cogan, Richard N. Cooper, Jack Davis, Linda England, Linda C. Flohr, Ambassador Wyche Fowler Jr., Richard H. Giza, Allan E. Goodman, Representative Porter Goss (R, Florida), David D. Gries, Sir David Hannay, Glenn P. Hastedt, Michael Herman, Sarah B. Holmes, Douglas M. Horner, Arthur S. Hulnick, William Hyland, Rhodri Jeffreys-Jones, James H. Johnston, Frederick M. Kaiser, Wolfgang Krieger, William T. Kvetkas Jr., Edward Levine, John Macartney, Ernest R. May, Brendan G. Malley, Phyllis Provost McNeil, John Millis, John H. Moseman, Joseph S. Nye Jr., Hayden B. Peake, Charles Peters, Walter Pforzheimer, John Prados, Harry Howe Ransom, Jeffrey T. Richelson, L. Britt Snider, Robert D. Steele, William P. Sullivan, Stafford T. Thomas, Gregory F. Treverton, Michael Turner, Richard R. Valcourt, Wesley K. Wark, David Wise, and Paul D. Wolfowitz.

Several intelligence officers also spent time explaining their work to me, and I thank them profusely while maintaining my assurance of their anonymity. At least I can publicly acknowledge the insightful guidance (through conversations, interviews, and correspondence) of all the directors of Central Intelligence (DCIs) since and including Richard

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Preface

Helms, as well as the admirable patience of the CIA public affairs officer David French. I am grateful to two of my student research assistants, Amy Elizabeth Early and William Gillespie, for their careful library and Internet searching, and to the University of Georgia for its ongoing support, especially the travel assistance from the Office of the Vice President for Research and a pleasant working environment provided by the political science department. Bertis and Catherine Downes offered me an opportunity to write in the tranquillity of their sylvan retreat, Wood House, nestled in the mountains of North Carolina. I thank them for these quiet times and for their friendship.

I would also like to thank the following journals and institutions for allowing me to draw on earlier research for this book: Espace Europe, Freedom Review, Intelligence and National Security, International Journal of Intelligence and Counterintelligence, the German Historical Institute, Journal of Conflict, Public Budget & Finance, Research Institute for European Studies, St. Antony’s College at Oxford University, and St. Ermin’s Press.

Finally, I wish to express my appreciation to Niko Pfund, the inspiring editor in chief of New York University Press for his encouragement, which sustained me during the inevitable frustrations of research and writing; to Despina Papazoglou Gimbel of the press for her guidance; and to my wife, Leena, for bringing sunshine and flowers into each day.

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FIGURES l. The U.S. Intelligence Community 3

2. The Office of the Director of Central Intelligence andthe CIA 99

3. The Dominance of Military Agencies over Total Intelligence Funding 124

4. Percentage Increase in Intelligence versus Defense Spending since 1980 127

5. The Relationship between Acceptable Risk and the Need for Intelligence Resources 136 xxiii

ABBREVIATIONS

ADCI/A: assistant director of Central Intelligence /Administration

ADCI/A&P: assistant director of Central Intelligence/Analysis and Production

ADCI/C: assistant director of Central Intelligence /Collection

AFIO: Association of Former Intelligence Officers

AFMIC: Armed Forces Medical Intelligence Corps

ANSIR: Awareness of National Security Issues and Response (FBI)

ARIO: Association of Retired Intelligence Officers

BfV: German equivalent of the FBI

BND: Bundesnachrichtendienst (German intelligence service)

BW: biological weapons

CA: covert action

CAS: Covert Action Staff

CBW: chemical-biological warfare

CDC: Centers for Disease Control

CDU: Christian Democratic Party (Germany)

CE: counterespionage

CFR: Council on Foreign Relations

CHAOS: cryptonym for a CIA domestic spying operation

CI: counterintelligence

CIA: Central Intelligence Agency

CIC: Counterintelligence Center (DCI)

CIRA: Central Intelligence Retirees Association

CMS: Community Management Staff

COINTELPRO: FBI Counterintelligence Program

COS: chief of station (CIA)

COSPO: Community Open Source Program Office

CNC: Crime and Narcotics Center (DCI)

CTC: Counterterrorist Center (DCI)

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List of Abbreviations

CW: chemical weapons

DCIA: director of the Central Intelligence Agency

DCI: director of Central Intelligence

DDA: deputy director for administration (CIA)

DDCI/CM: deputy director for Central Intelligence/Community Management

DDCIA: deputy director of the Central Intelligence Agency

DDI: deputy director for intelligence (CIA)

DDO: deputy director for operations (CIA)

DDS&T: deputy director for science and technology (CIA)

DEA: Drug Enforcement Administration

DEC: DCI’s Environmental Center

DECA: Developing Espionage and Counterintelligence Awareness (FBI)

DIA: Defense Intelligence Agency

DA: Directorate of Administration (CIA)

DI: Directorate of Intelligence (CIA)

DNI: director of National Intelligence

DO: Directorate of Operations (CIA)

DS&T: Directorate of Science and Technology (CIA)

DGSE: French Intelligence Service

ECP: Economic Counterintelligence Program (FBI)

EOP: Executive Office of the President

EOS: Earth Observing System (NASA)

EPA: Environmental Protection Agency

ETF: Environmental Task Force (MEDEA)

EWG: Environmental Working Group

FAS: Federation of American Scientists

FBIS: Foreign Broadcast Information Service

FIAS: Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act

FOIA: Freedom of Information Act

FPD: Free Democratic Party (Germany)

GAO: General Accounting Office (Congress)

GATT: General Agreement on Trade and Tariffs

GDIN: Global Disaster Information Network

GDP: Gross Domestic Product

GRU: Soviet military intelligence

GSG: German counterterrorism service

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List of Abbreviations

HPSCI: House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence

HUMINT: human intelligence (espionage)

IC: Intelligence Community

ICBM: intercontinental ballistic missile

ICS: Intelligence Community Staff

IDP: imagery-derived products

IG: inspector general

IMINT: imagery (photographic) intelligence

INF: intermediate-range nuclear forces

INR: Bureau of Intelligence and Research (Department of State)

IOB: Intelligence Oversight Board

ISCAP: Interagency Security Classification Appeals Panel

ISI: Inter-Services Intelligence (Pakistani intelligence agency)

I&W: indicators and warning

JCS: Joint Chiefs of Staff

Jstars: Joint Surveillance Target Attack Radar Systems

KGB: Soviet foreign intelligence and secret police

KLA: Kosovo Liberation Army

MASINT: measurement and signatures intelligence

MEDEA: Greek mythological nickname for the Environmental Task Force (CIA)

Mossad: Israeli intelligence service

MRBM: medium-range ballistic missiles

MRC: major regional conflict

NAC: National Assessment Center (proposed)

NASA: National Aeronautic and Space Administration

NAFTA: North American Free Trade Agreement

NBC: nuclear, biological, and chemical (weaponry)

NEOB: New Executive Office Building

NFIP: National Foreign Intelligence Program

NGO: Non-Governmental Organization

NIC: National Intelligence Council

NIE: National Intelligence Estimate

NIMA: National Imagery and Mapping Agency

NIO: National Intelligence Officer

NISD: National Intelligence Security Directive

NOAA: National Oceanic and Atmospheric Agency

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List of Abbreviations

NOC: nonofficial cover

NPC: Nonproliferation Center (DCI)

NPIC: National Photographic Interpretation Center NRO: National Reconnaissance Office

NSA: National Security Agency

NSC: National Security Council

NSCID: National Security Council Intelligence Directive NSDM: National Security Decision Memorandum NSTC: National Science and Technology Council

NTM: National Technical Means (mechanical spy platforms)

OMB: Office of Management and Budget

ONI: Office of Naval Intelligence

OPA: Office of Public Affairs (CIA)

OPEC: Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries

OSINT: open-source intelligence

OSIS: Open-Source Information System

OTI: Office of Transnational Issues (CIA)

PDB: President’s Daily Brief

PFIAB: President’s Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board

PLO: Palestine Liberation Organization

PM: paramilitary

PRC: People’s Republic of China

ROSE: Rich Open Source Environment (CIA computer system)

SAS: British intelligence service

SDO: support to diplomatic operations

SHAMROCK: cryptonym for NSA domestic spying operation

SIGINT: signals intelligence

SISDE: Italian intelligence service

SMO: support to military operations

SPD: Social Democratic Party (Germany)

SSCI: Senate Select Committee on Intelligence

Stasi: East German intelligence service

TECHINT: technical intelligence

UNSCOM: United Nations Special Commission

USAMRIID: U.S. Army Medical Research Institute for Infectious Diseases

USAMRMC: U.S. Army Medical Research and Material Command

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List of Abbreviations

USC: United States Code

USTR: United States trade representative

VA: Veterans Administration

VX: a deadly nerve agent used in chemical weapons WHO: World Health Organization (UN)

WMD: weapons of mass destruction

XXix

Certainly nothing is more rational and logical than the idea that national security policies be based upon the fullest and most accurate information available; but the cold war spawned an intelligence Frankenstein monster that now needs to be dissected, remodeled, rationalized and made fully accountable to responsible representatives of the people. —Harry Howe Ransom, “Reflections on Forty Years of Spy-Watching,” 1994

The Importance of Intelligence

“Every morning I start my day with an intelligence report,” President Bill Clinton once observed. “The intelligence I receive informs just about every foreign policy decision we make.”! Intelligence has influenced the decision making of most presidents, and during the cold war it played a key role (sometimes helpful, sometimes not) in many fateful choices. Among them were the provocative deployment of American troops near the Yalu River during the Korean War (1950-53), the Bay of Pigs fiasco in 1961, the Cuban missile crisis in 1962, and the attempted rescue of the Mayaguez in the South China Sea in 1975. Yet despite an increasing number of studies written on intelligence, the topic is often confused in the public mind with the fantasy world of Ian Fleming. To remedy this confusion, my book underscores the significant role played by real-world intelligence in the conduct of contemporary American foreign policy.

Guiding the secret agencies has been a daunting leadership challenge for American officials. In 1947, President Harry S Truman vowed to coordinate America’s espionage apparatus more tightly. No more surprise attacks like the one that nearly destroyed the Pacific fleet at Pearl Harbor. Yet his hope for more integrated information on global affairs remains substantially unfulfilled, stymied by fractious bureaucratic rivalries inside the intelligence “community.”

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The Secret Agencies

This nation’s intelligence community—a misnomer if there ever was one— is composed of the Central Intelligence Agency (the CIA or simply “the Agency”) and a dozen other entities that conduct mostly hidden activities on behalf of the federal government (see figure 1). These organizations are responsible for three primary missions: the collection and interpretation (“analysis”) of information gathered from every corner of the globe; the protection of U.S. government secrets against hostile intelligence services and other spies (“counterintelligence”); and the clandestine manipulation of events in foreign lands on behalf of America’s interests through the use of propaganda, political activities, economic disruption, and paramilitary operations (collectively known as “covert action” or “special activities”).

The collection of intelligence relies on technical means (satellites and reconnaissance airplanes, for example, or, in the professional acronym, technical intelligence or TECHINT); on human means (classic espionage or human intelligence, HUMINT); and on the sifting of information available in the open literature (newspapers, public speeches, and the like, sometimes referred to as open-source intelligence or OSINT).

Of the United States’ thirteen intelligence organizations, eight fall within the framework of the Defense Department. These agencies include those in the four military services (army, navy, air force, and marines), which are concerned chiefly with gathering tactical information for battlefield purposes, as well as the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA), which runs the Department’s Defense HUMINT Service (a network of military espionage agents overseas) and assesses intelligence for the military and civilian personnel up the Pentagon’s chain of command. Other military intelligence agencies are the National Security Agency (NSA), the nation’s code breaker and collector of worldwide electronic transmissions (notably signals intelligence or SIGINT)—potential tips about what is about to happen somewhere in the world; the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO), responsible for building and launching spy satellites and their in-space supervision; and the National Imagery and Mapping Agency (NIMA), in charge of interpreting satellite photography (“imagery” intelligence or IMINT, a look at what is happening in the world).

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Figure 1. The U.S. Intelligence Community

President

President’s Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board (PFIAB)

—

Board (IOB)

National Security Council (NSC)

Intelligence Oversight

Secretary of Defense

National Imagery & Mapping Agency (NIMA)

National Reconnaissance Office (NRO)

Intelligence (DCI)

National Security

Agency (NSA)

Defense Intelligence

Director of Central

National Intelligence Council

Agency (DIA)

Army, Navy, Air Force & Marines Intelligence

Central Intelligence Agency (CIA)

p as Military Intelligence Agencies p ~S

Independent Intelligence Agency

Justice Department Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI)

Treasury Department

State Department Bureau of Intelligence and Research (INR)

Energy Department p

Departmental Intelligence Agencies (Other than DOD)

In addition, NIMA, the newest intelligence agency, prepares world maps used by everyone from crisis managers in the White House Situation Room to fighter pilots and foot soldiers in combat (and also for targeting coordinates built into the electronic brains of cruise missiles and other “smart” weapons). Just how important accurate mapping

|3| can be was underscored in 1999 during the war precipitated in the Balkans by a Serbian takeover of Kosovo. Out-of-date mapping data on Belgrade went from the hands of intelligence analysts into the cockpit of a NATO B-2 bomber pilot headed for the Yugoslav city. Under the impression that an improperly identified building was an arms depot, the pilot dropped part of his payload on what proved to be the Chinese embassy.

Four cabinet departments have nondefense intelligence agencies: the Energy Department, with one intelligence unit that tracks the worldwide flow of nuclear materials and another brand-new agency created to improve security at the nation’s weapons laboratories; the State Department, whose Bureau of Intelligence and Research (INR) serves the secretary of state and the diplomatic corps and draws heavily on the highly touted political reporting of foreign service officers; the Treasury Department, which supervises intelligence units within the Secret Service and the Internal Revenue Service (IRS); and the Justice Department, home of the counterintelligence corps of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and the intelligence division of the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA).

Finally, the CIA is an institutionally independent entity, situated in neither the organizational framework of the Pentagon nor that of any of the other cabinet departments (although it does collect and analyze strategic military information from abroad, in addition to its responsibility for a wide range of nonmilitary subjects). The CIA enjoys a special stature in the intelligence community by virtue of its early creation in 1947, predating most of the other agencies. More important, the main office of the leader of the entire intelligence community—the director of Central Intelligence (DCI)—s located on the seventh floor of the CIA’s headquarters building in Langley, a neighborhood in the Virginia suburb of McLean, near Washington, D.C.

Surrounded by an electric barbwire fence and patrolled by stern-faced guards in dark blue fatigues with black pistols at their hips and German shepherds at their heels, the CIA is a 219-acre leafy, campuslike compound on the west bank of the Potomac River. The DCI also has an office in the Old Executive Office Building adjacent to the White House but spends little time there outside of attending the occasional meetings of the president’s Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board.

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The Ups and Downs of Intelligence

Despite the enormous expense of maintaining this information system—the largest ever devised to assist in the governance of a nation— these thirteen agencies are often blindsided by important world events. The following are some recent events that took American intelligence by surprise:

e North Korea’s 1999 testing of a three-stage missile.

e North Korea’s 1998 attempt to place a surveillance satellite in space.

e The 1998 bombing of the American embassies in Kenya and Tanzania.

e India’s and Pakistan’s nuclear tests in 1998—“a good kick in the ass for us,” ruefully conceded a senior intelligence official.”

e Gerhard Schroeder’s 1998 ascension to the German chancellorship (the CIA predicted that Helmut Kohl would win).

e The 1996 bombing of a U.S. military apartment complex in Dhahran, Saudi Arabia.

e The threat of Japan’s Aum Shinrikyo organization, which attacked the subway system in Tokyo with nerve gas in March 1995 and had plans to attack U.S. cities as well.

e Iraqi President Saddam Hussein’s extensive nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons programs, discovered in the aftermath of the Persian Gulf War.

One of the unfortunate facts of life is that no intelligence community, no matter how large or expensive, can know everything that is going on in the world. The planet is simply too vast. Moreover, nations and groups such as terrorist cells are clever at hiding their activities. Still, much can be done to reduce the number of intelligence failures and thereby better protect Americans against threats from abroad. This is the main interest of this book.

The intelligence agencies have had successes. As a senior intelligence official correctly claimed, “We’re in a different class, compared to any other nation in the world—thanks to our satellites and SIGINT.” Satellites provide photographs snapped from space, such as high-resolution images of enemy troops and weapons, and experts in signals intelligence

| 5 | can intercept revealing conversations held by those who intend harm to the United States. But even when they save lives (the main purpose of intelligence), these achievements usually go unheralded, since the secret agencies try to conceal successful methods that they might use again against future threats. Nonetheless, some victories have made their way into the public record, including the rounding up of more than fifty international terrorists in the past five years; effective support for U.S. military operations in the Persian Gulf, Bosnia, and Kosovo; the destruction of Colombia’s Cali drug cartel; the disruption of terrorist Osama bin Laden’s activities; and an important role in the effort to prevent the outbreak of war between Turkey and Greece.* Certainly America’s intelligence agencies have also made their share of mistakes. Their close watching of Soviet military activities, however, may well have helped (along with the nuclear deterrent) to prevent the cold war from mushrooming into a thermonuclear war--the most important contribution of these agencies since their establishment.

So, as with all human ventures, the intelligence ledger has its pluses and minuses. To reduce the debts in the twenty-first century will not be easy, as America’s current advantage in imagery is rapidly diminishing. In 1999 the civilian sector launched a surveillance satellite that is almost as good as the NRO’s best space “platforms” and whose photographs are for sale to anyone with cash or a credit card. During the Persian Gulf War, the United States enjoyed a nearly perfect view (“transparency”) of the Iraqi battlefield, allowing American commanders to pinpoint targets and call in “smart” weapons that demolished enemy positions with much greater success than in previous wars. In contrast, the Iraqi military remained in a fog about the American side of the battlefield. Within a few years, however, Iraq and other rogue nations will have access to their own satellites—or commercially available substitutes (the Rent-a-Satellite option)—to acquire battlefield transparency for themselves.

America’s SIGINT capacities are declining as well, approaching what one authority has referred to as a “crisis” situation.” The NSA’s listening satellites capture microwave telephone transmissions from the air. But the world is rapidly switching to underground (and undersea) fiber-optic modes of communications, which are much harder for this agency’s technicians to tap and so are leaving the NSA with an increasingly irrelevant constellation of SIGINT satellites. Furthermore, the NSA has tra-

| 6 | ditionally depended on its considerable skills at decoding foreign diplomatic communications to gain access to secret information. But nations and terrorist groups are growing more and more clever at encrypting their messages using complicated mathematical, computer-based technologies that can stymie even the most experienced NSA cryptologists. Moreover, under pressure from the profit-oriented U.S. software industry and the Department of Commerce, the Clinton administration decided in 1999 to allow the export of advanced American software that encrypts electronic communications, making it even harder for the NSA and the FBI to break into the communications of foreign entities that might intend harm to the United States.

There is an additional shortfall on the human side of the intelligence community. Currently, the agencies do not have enough spy handlers (“case officers”) abroad to recruit foreign agents (“assets”), especially in places where the United States has never had much of a presence (such as in China and various Arab nations). As a result, the human intelligence flowing back to the CIA is insufficient as well. Even if this HUMINT problem could be solved, the community would still have another, equally serious human deficiency: brain power. The secret agencies lack enough talented information interpreters (“analysts”) to make sense of all the data that stream into their offices each day. On the eve of the Persian Gulf War, for instance, the DIA had only two analysts assigned to study the intelligence on Iraq. Imagery analysis has also suffered from inadequate attention. An intelligence supervisor on Capitol Hill reported that “less than half of the pictures taken by our satellites ever get looked at by human eyes” or, for that matter, “by any sort of mechanized device or computerized device detecting change.”” The United States does not have enough imagery analysts, many of whom chose to retire rather than be uprooted from the CIA and sent to the new NIMA.

Across the board of the various “ints” (intelligences), America’s analytic depth is uncomfortably shallow. The first generation of U.S. intelligence officers hired in the 1950s began retiring in the past few years and has yet to be replaced with an adequate number of fresh recruits. The intelligence community is thus undertaking its largest recruitment effort since the early days of the cold war. But even after the newcomers are trained and sent overseas, it takes years—decades usually—for them to mature into effective officers with a productive network of assets in

| 7 | foreign capitals. “We need to recruit talent, grow it, and nurture it,” emphasized a ranking CIA official, “and this means paying and promoting area experts in a way that is competitive with the private sector.”®

Lacking, too, are adequate connections between the various collectors and analysts inside the intelligence community at home, on the one hand, and U.S. military and civilian personnel overseas, on the other hand. Also missing is an effective pooling of the findings and insights produced by all the agencies in the intelligence community (a desirable “all-source” intelligence capability). “We need a smoother electronic communication of intelligence everywhere,” stressed a recent director of State Department intelligence.’

In a nutshell, the secret agencies must recapitalize or become obsolete. They need better technology, more officers in the streets of foreign capitals, additional analysts at home (though with more frequent travel abroad than is presently the case for these desk-bound thinkers),!° and a greater integration of all phases of intelligence, from the gathering and analysis of information to its timely dissemination. These goals can be achieved while at the same time (with a thoughtful shifting of priorities) reducing the overall size and expense of the intelligence community. The preferred model is a smaller, more efficient intelligence service—not as limited as Britain’s secret service, since the United States has broader global responsibilities than Great Britain does, but similar in its leanness and agility.

Any ornery mule can kick down a barn; building one is harder. Similarly, the various shortcomings that plague the intelligence agencies are relatively easy to outline, whereas coming up with workable solutions is a more difficult assignment. Nonetheless, this book hopes to contribute toward that end. The starting point is a look at the array of threats that confront the United States in this new and uncertain world, for which intelligence is expected to provide the first line of defense.

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