Beyond Repair: The Decline and Fall of the CIA

Occasionally a book comes along that opens doors to the inner workings of our secret agencies. It is rare that the inner workings are openly described by those who actually lived the life of a spy. In this critique of the current CIA by one of its own, we find that the dysfunction of the U.S.'s intelligence gathering agency is beyond repair. The CIA needs to be trashed and replaced. And the other government agencies that are creating their own intelligence functions need to be stopped. The world is not a nice place - unfortunately our own politicians have created the very situation that prevents the CIA from doing its job; supporting the promotion of paper pushers and yes men instead of capable operators and leaders. If you want to see what is leading to the decline and fall of the United States of America - this book tells it like it is in at least one component. Like a cancer, once it takes hold, it metastasizes throughout the body, in this case the government, leading to the ultimate death of the host. If we don't excise the problem now, and begin healing the other problems of our government (and its agencies), we will ultimately succumb to the insidious spread of mediocrity and irresponsibility.

This review will get quickly to the point, much like Charles Faddis' book, Beyond Repair: The Decline and Fall of the CIA. In the book, Faddis does an outstanding job of detailing why and how the Central Intelligence Agency is broken, as well as, the measures necessary to repair it. As a no-nonsense, in-the-trenches operator, Faddis understands that criticism without recommendations to solve problems is useless and a waste of time. With this in mind, Beyond Repair is not meant to be a disparaging diatribe, but a 'how-to' manual that provides pragmatic solutions to complex issues. As only an individual who has 'been there, done that' can do, Faddis provides insightful analysis and real world examples of CIA failures caused in large part by its increasingly bureaucratic and political nature. He also gives examples of the successes the agency is capable of when led by leaders who care more about the mission and their subordinates than themselves or progressing their careers. Simply put, Beyond Repair is a lesson in leadership, from which all leaders can learn. In addition to the leaders in the CIA, all those in the nation's Capitol should read and heed the author's lessons as well.

This book is extremely interesting for a number of reasons. It not only describes the effective destruction of the Central Intelligence Agency's clandestine service (Directorate of Operations (DO)), but offers a novel solution to restore the ability of the U.S. to collect human intelligence and to conduct covert actions. Perhaps more interestingly it offers a window into the thinking of a recently retired and undoubtedly successful CIA Operations Officer. Finally it provides a much needed and friendly view of some the accomplishments of the WWII Office of Strategic Services (OSS). The account that Faddis provides of the demise of DO mirrors the conclusions made by other former CIA officers such as Robert Bear and the pseudonymous Ishmael Jones. His solution to restoring DO however is unique. He proposes doing away with CIA as an institution and replacing it by a 21st Century version of OSS. His proposals actually make a good deal of sense including the concepts of keeping the reborn OSS small, diverse, and agile. He would introduce an actual "flat management" system that would push decision making and responsibility down to the lowest levels. And of course the new OSS operatives would operate far from the debilitating official cover offered by the U.S. embassies. All this seems worth considering. Yet Faddis is perhaps too DO centric. In his introductory pages he describes DO as "core of CIA" and generally ignores the role of the Directorate of Intelligence (DI). Yet when CIA was charted it was precisely to be a clearing house and analytic center, "to connect the dots" in the current intelligence cliché. Because of the culture established by the many OSS officers who moved into the newly created CIA and the desires of most presidential administrations to have their own operational arm, DO gradually subsumed the DI. In a like manner in the OSS although because of the daring do of their dangerous and often important overseas missions it is forgotten that OSS also had a very effective intelligence analysis arm that included such icon analysts as Sherman Kent.. (See "Creating the Secret State", 2000 University of Kansas). Faddis's criticism of the scandalous state of CIA and especially its DO certainly appears justified. Yet it is only one part of the story. The collection of HUMINT is just as dependent on analytic support as is SIGINT collection. Further no matter how good the collection service, somebody still has to transform raw information into something that can actually be used by decision makers. Analysis and collection are two sides of a single coin. Both need major reformation if they are to support U.S. National Security.