Inside the CIA by Ronald Kessler

Rather than title my posts "Most Recent Reading" anymore, I will just title them with the name and author of the book I just completed.

This book was a fascinating look inside one of the most secretive US agencies. Like "Running the World," this book starts from the inception of the CIA after World War II in the National Security Act. The purpose of the agency is to provide appropriate intelligence regarding enemy and even friendly nations to the National Security Council, which helps to advise the President. Additionally, the CIA director (DCI) is to be the common link between intelligence agencies (including from Defence, State, Commerce, etc.) to provide intelligence directly to the President.

Some interesting things I learned from the book include:

The CIA is composed of 5 directorates:
- Operations (recruits agents)
- Intelligence (analyze secret and open source data)
- Science & Technology (think Q from James Bond)
- Support/Administration (plants bugs, launders money, in the service of ops)
- Office of the Director

An Operations Officer is an employee of the CIA. S/he recruits agents to betray their countries, who may or may not get paid for their information. CIA agents are not American citizens and do not work for the CIA.

People who work for the CIA are some of the most patriotic and brightest public servants in all of the federal government. Many speak multiple languages, have PhDs, and spend most of their life avoiding taking credit for saving this nation.

Finally, most CIA employees are permitted to let people they know they work for the CIA. It is predominantly the operations officers who cannot divulge who they truly work for.

Many CIA officers have written memoirs or personal accounts since the agency's inception and I suggest you look into some of them. My next book review, "Jawbreaker" is one of them.