Kessler, Ronald. Inside the CIA. New York: Pocket Books, 1994. 358 pages.

While Ronald Kessler is not a critic of U.S. intelligence agencies, neither is he an unqualified booster. The strength of this book is that he's the first outsider to be allowed inside for a tour of CIA headquarters, and granted interviews with present and former CIA officials, for the specific purpose of writing it. After William Casey died, William Webster's mandate was to restore an image of integrity to the CIA. One result of his efforts was a new openness in the CIA's public affairs office, which traditionally had offered only a "no comment" to any and all journalists.

Kessler deals with each of the CIA's four directorates (operations, science and technology, intelligence, administration), as well as the Office of the Director, in five separate sections of the book. He blends a bit of historical context (including some dirty laundry) with a description of day-to-day operations, and the result is worthwhile even for those of us who have read dozens of books about the CIA. But after noting on page 125 that "at least 80 percent" of the information used by the analysts in the Directorate of Intelligence is from open sources, we'd like to see another chapter on how the Directorate of Operations can be justified in the first place -- particularly since it was never part of the CIA's original charter (page 301), and it means we cannot complain about KGB moles without invoking a double standard. But that's a chapter Kessler isn't ready to write.
ISBN 0-671-73458-X

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