Wise, David. Nightmover: How Aldrich Ames Sold the CIA to the KGB for $4.6
Million. New York: HarperCollins, 1995. 356 pages.
America's premier CIA-watching journalist has exceeded my expectations
with this book, which I consider his best since he started CIA-watching in
1964 with "The Invisible Government." I am flattered to be included in
Wise's acknowledgements, and hope that the use of NameBase saved him at
least a little bit of shoe leather. That still leaves a few pairs of worn-
out shoes. Wise digs out the names of CIA officials high and low, and except
for sources who were promised confidentiality, he prints these names. (Too
many journalists pretend to be intimidated by a 1982 law about naming names
that they've never bothered to read, and hide behind this as an excuse for
their reportorial laziness.)
Wise reports the story without moralizing and without obvious outrage;
he lets the reader draw his own conclusions. I conclude from this book that
secret agencies are destined to fail in the long run. Secrecy precludes
accountability; it's an ultimate form of power that eventually turns little
mistakes into disasters. Secret agencies commit major sins and do tremendous
damage without realizing it; their inbred culture encourages deniability and
above-the-law elitism. Hegel would say that history always generates its own
contradictions from within. But secret history, it would appear, is on a
fast track to self-destruction. -- D.Brandt
ISBN 0-06-017198-7
Extract the names from this source
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