Espionage is supposed to be the world's second oldest profession, which means it has been around for a few years. The basic functions haven't changed much but technology has. Electricity, the telephone, aviation and so forth have produced new targets--electronic transmissions and ways of intercepting them, for example. The lists are long and getting longer.
Mr. Stout writes about these, and I do not doubt the accuracy of his account, but were the roots of today's U.S. intelligence structure really founded in events from Word War I. It's a stretch because there was not only no continuity, there was no organization. When WWI ended, so did our intelligence activities. The same happened when subsequent crises required some form of intelligence response. And none of the entities formed to any other entities formed. The U.S, had no intelligence program worthy of the name when Pearl Harbor (comment continued above)
You and he, apparently, unfortunately miss the history in two crucial instances. Pearl Harbor may have been one of FDR's greatest successes, since he did everything he could to make it happen, which included an awareness of its precise timing. For that, see Day of Deceit by Robert Stinnett, researched to within an inch of its life. The second misunderstanding: 9/11. Roll your eyes all you want, but until you have an answer to the following question and an innocent explanation for that answer, you are...sadly misinformed: In the Context of 9/11, what do the following numbers represent:
(see below for start of comment) was attacked. The OSS then came into being. The value of the OSS's contribution to our ultimate victory is open to question. It engaged mostly in paramilitary and covert action operations. There is not much information on the quality of its intelligence reporting. My father, who was on Eisenhower's staff at SHAEF before and after the Normandy invasion in June 1944, told me he never read an OSS intel report that was worth anything (He produced a weekly book called Impact that printed aerial photos of German targets in Europe before, shortly after and then two or three weeks after they had been bombed. The rapidity with which the Nazis were able to put bombed targets back into working order amazed everyone at SHAEF). I am told that some OSS officers roamed Europe as parts it it were liberated looking for communists even though OSS had no security or counterintelligence mandate.
OSS was disbanded after the war, and it was two years later before the CIA came into existence. A lot of damage was done to our national security before the CIA got its act together. And the FBI wasn't much help. The FBI engaged mostly in counterespionage--finding, arresting and jailing or expelling our enemies' spies, mostly KGB. It wasn't until the 1970s that the FBI fully accepted the value of recruiting those KGB spies so they could help us identify Americans who were working for the KGB. But that's another story.
I entered the CIA late in 1961 and went through what was then the Junior Officer Training program. There was a lecture, possibly two, on the CIA's history, but none of the material went back past the OSS, let alone to WWI. Our class of 45 men and one woman was left largely ignorant of what went before. I suppose some of my classmates read up on espionage, but I doubt many useful books were available. My very limited library contains one: Central Intelligence and National Security by Harry Howe Ransom, 1959. My experience then and since has been that case officers in training don't have much interest in history--or in training in general. They want to get out in the field and start working. Commendable to be sure, and on-the-job training is mandatory, but training and related study should continue throughout all careers. I never found my fellow officers to have much taste for that, and I am told that that attitude hasn't changed. So thank you for your book, Mr. Stout. Perhaps you will help alter some bad habits. But where were you when I needed you?
Espionage is supposed to be the world's second oldest profession, which means it has been around for a few years. The basic functions haven't changed much but technology has. Electricity, the telephone, aviation and so forth have produced new targets--electronic transmissions and ways of intercepting them, for example. The lists are long and getting longer.
Mr. Stout writes about these, and I do not doubt the accuracy of his account, but were the roots of today's U.S. intelligence structure really founded in events from Word War I. It's a stretch because there was not only no continuity, there was no organization. When WWI ended, so did our intelligence activities. The same happened when subsequent crises required some form of intelligence response. And none of the entities formed to any other entities formed. The U.S, had no intelligence program worthy of the name when Pearl Harbor (comment continued above)
You and he, apparently, unfortunately miss the history in two crucial instances. Pearl Harbor may have been one of FDR's greatest successes, since he did everything he could to make it happen, which included an awareness of its precise timing. For that, see Day of Deceit by Robert Stinnett, researched to within an inch of its life. The second misunderstanding: 9/11. Roll your eyes all you want, but until you have an answer to the following question and an innocent explanation for that answer, you are...sadly misinformed: In the Context of 9/11, what do the following numbers represent:
2753. 21905? Glad to be of help at 292929@msn.com
(see below for start of comment) was attacked. The OSS then came into being. The value of the OSS's contribution to our ultimate victory is open to question. It engaged mostly in paramilitary and covert action operations. There is not much information on the quality of its intelligence reporting. My father, who was on Eisenhower's staff at SHAEF before and after the Normandy invasion in June 1944, told me he never read an OSS intel report that was worth anything (He produced a weekly book called Impact that printed aerial photos of German targets in Europe before, shortly after and then two or three weeks after they had been bombed. The rapidity with which the Nazis were able to put bombed targets back into working order amazed everyone at SHAEF). I am told that some OSS officers roamed Europe as parts it it were liberated looking for communists even though OSS had no security or counterintelligence mandate.
OSS was disbanded after the war, and it was two years later before the CIA came into existence. A lot of damage was done to our national security before the CIA got its act together. And the FBI wasn't much help. The FBI engaged mostly in counterespionage--finding, arresting and jailing or expelling our enemies' spies, mostly KGB. It wasn't until the 1970s that the FBI fully accepted the value of recruiting those KGB spies so they could help us identify Americans who were working for the KGB. But that's another story.
I entered the CIA late in 1961 and went through what was then the Junior Officer Training program. There was a lecture, possibly two, on the CIA's history, but none of the material went back past the OSS, let alone to WWI. Our class of 45 men and one woman was left largely ignorant of what went before. I suppose some of my classmates read up on espionage, but I doubt many useful books were available. My very limited library contains one: Central Intelligence and National Security by Harry Howe Ransom, 1959. My experience then and since has been that case officers in training don't have much interest in history--or in training in general. They want to get out in the field and start working. Commendable to be sure, and on-the-job training is mandatory, but training and related study should continue throughout all careers. I never found my fellow officers to have much taste for that, and I am told that that attitude hasn't changed. So thank you for your book, Mr. Stout. Perhaps you will help alter some bad habits. But where were you when I needed you?