What the CIA doesn't see

"The problem with the [Central Intelligence Agency] lies within its structure and culture. It does not match the task because the analytic side of intelligence is unlike any other function of government."

IT IS OBVIOUS that something is wrong with the Central Intelligence Agency. The 9/11 attacks were, by definition, the worst intelligence failure in our country's history. Moreover, although Saddam Hussein has been captured, we have not been able to locate Iraq's weapons of mass destruction and there also was that flap over whether the CIA signed off on Pres. George W. Bush's accurate observation that British intelligence believes Saddam had tried to purchase uranium ore in Niger. In each of these cases, the CIA was asleep at the switch. In a war in which intelligence must play a central role, we need an agency that is razor sharp and playing offense, not one that blindsides the country or embarrasses the commander in chief.

So, what is the problem? Before answering this question, we need to acknowledge two points: First, intelligence is the riskiest, toughest business in the world. Compared with trying to project the future of global politics or discovering a country's most closely guarded secrets, day trading in the stock market is child's play and exploring for diamonds is a piece of cake. In the intelligence business, no one gets it right every time--or even most of the time--and it is easy to take potshots at honorable people who are doing their best under difficult circumstances.

The second point is that the CIA employs some of the hardest working and most decent men and women I have ever known. They are absolutely wonderful; we are lucky to have them and we owe them our gratitude.

The problem with the CIA lies within its structure and culture. It does not match the task because the analytic side of intelligence is unlike any other function of government. It is unlike budget-making, diplomacy, or the setting of policy for trade or agriculture. Intelligence is like science, which means that success depends on having the most brilliant people studying a situation. Only they will know how to go about finding the right answer--and how to communicate it clearly and early enough to make a difference.

As geniuses like physicist Albert Einstein and physician Jonas Salk remind us, in science, there is no substitute for sheer intellectual firepower--in other words, for brains. This is why scientific research institutes hire the smartest people they can find, and why they place the most brilliant scientists at the top to manage the team and, when necessary, to decide which of their proposed experiments to back and which to stop. That is why so many leading research institutes are headed by Nobel laureates and the big breakthroughs come from research institutes rather than government operated labs.

World War II roots

During World War II, we had the kind of intelligence service that matched this model. It was the Office of Strategic Services. Led by a brilliant and tough-minded lawyer named William J. Donovan, the OSS was a freewheeling collection of our country's best minds. Donovan recruited them from Wall Street, the corporate world, academia, research labs--wherever they were working. They were attorneys, administrators, financiers, economists, technicians, writers, and university professors. What they had in common--besides a burning sense of patriotism--was a special kind of brilliance that you find in scientists and must have in intelligence analysts: the ability to spot a pattern with the fewest possible facts. They did not wait until two and two were sitting on their desks to realize they had four. They could make intuitive and logical leaps quickly and figure out what the indicators meant before it was obvious to everyone. They articulated their conclusions clearly enough, and early enough, to get the policymakers moving before it was too late. To this day, intelligence experts consider the OSS to be among history's greatest and most effective intelligence services.

When the Cold War revved up in the late 1940s, Congress created the CIA to pick up where the OSS left off. Indeed, in its early years, the CIA was led and staffed by scores of OSS veterans. Over the years, though, the CIA became more like every other government agency. It began to hire young people who joined in hopes of making the CIA their careers. Their objective was to do well, move up through the ranks, and provide their families with a decent income, good health care coverage, and a government pension. To be sure, some truly brilliant analysts did join. Sometimes, they would become so frustrated by the CIA's culture that they would resign. Others stayed and did their heroic best in a culture that rarely appreciated their contributions and all too often blocked them from rising to positions their talents deserved.

By the time Pres. Ronald Reagan took office in 1981, the CIA had become bureaucratic, sclerotic, and woefully inadequate to its mission. The man Reagan chose as his Director of Central Intelligence, William J. Casey, understood this. Indeed, during World War II, Casey had been Bill Donovan's protege, based in London as head of secret operations for the OSS. Casey did two things to correct the situation, of which only the first has received much attention. He strived mightily to improve and reform the CIA itself, and his efforts generated more leaks, lies, smears, and congressional inquiries than any of us who worked with him care to remember.