April 17 discussion questions

1. Please read Paul Pillar's review of Tim Weiner's Legacy of Ashes in the March/April 2008 issue of Foreign Affairs http://www.foreignaffairs.org/20080301fareviewessay87211/paul-r-pillar/intelligent-design.html

Please comment on Dr. Pillar's summary of the book in light of your own reading of the Pulitzer Prize winning book

a) Do you agree that "calling for intelligence reform serves psychological and political purposes that have nothing to do with the intelligence agencies' successes or failures. Such calls remain a fixture of public debates because they satisfy Americans' deeply felt need to attribute bad things to a specific , fixable problem..."

b) Pillar also argues that " damning quotations are cherry picked, episodes are chosen to highlight failures and exclude successes, conversations are distorted, presidential desires are misrepresented and sweeping judgments and naked assertions are made with no apparent reference to any ...documents."

2. Weiner spends a great deal of time delving into the psyche of the Dulles brothers, both pious Catholics and virulent anti-Communists. To what extent was the CIA founded on the Johannine verse "and ye shall know the truth , and the truth will make you free" that graces the lobby at Langley?

3. In light of your reading of Legacy of Ashes, how do you assess the political fallout of the latest National Intelligence Estimate http://www.dni.gov/press_releases/20071203_release.pdf

4. Robert Kennedy is portrayed as a hands-on overseer of the agency under his brother's administration, hell-bent on covert operations. How does this portrait mesh with the "Family Jewels" report shared by current CIA director General Michael Hayden last June http://www.salon.com/books/authors/talbot/2007/06/24/family_jewels/ ?

5. Weiner asserts that the CIA played a role in misrepresenting Oswald's background to the Warren Commission. Do you see evidence of this in chapter 7 of the report http://www.archives.gov/research/jfk/warren-commission-report/chapter-7.html ?

6. Weiner intends for the reader to draw parallels between the Vietnam "quagmire" and current U.S. foreign policy. Chapter 25 (" We Knew Then that We could Not Win the War") shines a light on then second lieutenant Bob Gates, future director of central intelligence and current Secretary of Defense . The chapter concludes with the statement " never had so much intelligence meant so little." What in your opinion is the value of intelligence (electronic intercepts, overhead reconnaissance, fielld reports, analyses and statistical studies) with regard to the conduct of war? How could General Westmoreland fail "to know the enemy" (p.288) with such intelligence?

7. Weiner describes CIA administration under director Helms as a "house of cards" built on dangerous ground" as the agency sought to "police the world by arming America's third world allies--771,217 foreign military and police officers in 25 nations." Is counterinsurgency practical in your opinion?

8. Secret government surveillance reached its peak under the Nixon presidency. Watergate damaged the agency irreparably. Bill Colby inherited this damaged agency upon Nixon's resignation. Director Colby is described by Weiner as "a deeply devoted Roman Catholic...who believed in the consequences of moratl sin." (p.328) What connection between religious belief and moral action is Weiner trying to make?

9. Weiner intends for Polgar's Saigon Office farewell (p.343) to give the reader pause and force him/her to reflect on the lessons of history. Internecine rivalries sappped the agency of its energy and potential. The Church Committee http://www.senate.gov/artandhistory/history/minute/Church_Committee_Created.htm uncovered a number of agendas and competing interests that unmoored the agency. President Carter's human rights agenda one administration later proved just as disastrous. The Desert One debacle in April 1980 is a case in point.

10. Bill Casey's CIA could have been scripted in Hollywood according to Weiner and successfully used disinformation , psychological warfare, sabotage, economic warfare, strategic deception, counterintelligence and cyberwarfare to "destroy a vigorous Soviet espionage team, damage the Soviet economy, and destabilize the Soviet state." (p.387) Weiner names this a form of terrorism. Do you agree?

11. Weiner also point to the Casey era Iran/Contra "neat idea" as the time when the CIA "was corrupted" This corruption undermined Operation Desert Storm (p.427) and set in motion a "tidal wave of history." Weiner indicts the entrepreurial spirit within the agency over the last two decades. Do you believe action or inaction has done the most harm?

12. The Aldrich Ames betrayal triggered an overhaul that shackled the clandestine service.
Bob Gates is quoted as saying the following (p.471) : The CIA [has] become less and less willing to hire"people that are different, people who are eccentric, people who don't look good in a suit and tie, people who don't play well in the sandbox with others. What type of person would you recruit (cf. William Sloane Coffin profile http://www.pbs.org/wnet/religionandethics/week752/profile.html )

13. Intelligence is a form of alchemy. Weiner paraphrases Jim Pavitt, chief of the clandestine service, on the WMD estimate when he writes (p.487) "the agaency produced a ton of analysis from an ounce of intelligence . That might have worked if the ounce had been solid gold and not pure dross."

14. Please comment on Weiner central questions (p.501) " How do you run a secret intelligence service in an open democracy? How do you serve thetruth by lying? How do you spread democracy democracy by deceit? "