Ronald Kessler

This book is a readable, if dry, account of how the CIA worked circa the late 1980s, which is far more exciting when read between the lines. Kessler is (was?) one of the preeminent intelligence journalists in Washington D.C., with a string of books about the FBI, spies in Moscow, and the Reagan White House. In 1990, Kessler approached the CIA public relations office about writing a book, and got a favorable response: hours of interviews with key officers, including then Director William H. show more Webster, large amounts of access to the buildings, and relative freedom to write whatever he wanted within the constraints of national security.

The picture he paints is one of dedicated professionals, hard at work within a sometimes opaque bureaucratic structure. Where the CIA has erred, it has done so because the world is inherently uncertain, or because their worst excesses were ordered by the White House. The idea of rogue agents and operations is part of the bad old days before the Church Committee. The new CIA, as reorganized by Director Webster, is an efficient team player, supplying fair intelligence to the President, in line with American values. Sure, the CIA operates everywhere except for the "Five Eyes" nations, but it's mostly precautionary, and a way to get sources in place to prevent surprise. The four Directorates are somewhat insular, but all good in their own way. Operations talks to foreigners and recruits them to be agents. Intelligence analyzes everything coming in, and synthesizes it down to intelligence assessments for the White House. Science & Technology runs spy satellites and a real life "Q-branch." Administration makes sure that everybody gets paid on time, and secures the agency overall. Webster gets a glowing report: former judge, FBI director, bringing the CIA into the modern era by reversing the politicized decisions made under Casey, the previous CIA director who was a Reagan campaigner staffer, and providing much needed support to the public relations office and the office of general counsel.

Reading between the lines, I got the sense that Kessler was brought on to help rehabilitate the CIA after the Iran-Contra affair, and justify its relevance after the fall of the Soviet Union. He wound up getting a little seduced by the agency, so the epilogue, which was written after the Aldrich Ames case broke, runs directly counter to the rest of the book. CIA compartmentalization is a joke. The security people are entirely incompetent. Deep philosophical cracks in the mission of the CIA need to be filled before it can be the intelligence agency America deserves.

My final verdict is that this book is a picture of a kind of business as usual that no longer exists. The post-9/11 CIA, an agency of drone strikes and extraordinary renditions, is very different from the gentlemen analysts and Operations great gamers Kessler writes about. There are a few illuminating anecdotes here, but far too little about the contemporary crisis of Iran-Contra. Kessler knows his stuff, but this book has not aged well. show less

You may need to take a shower after reading this book before you feel clean again.

I wasn't prepared for the TMZ-like nature of this crummy book. I was interested in the history and operations of the Secret Service, and to my knowledge I hadn't read a Kessler work before. He only has about 5 points in the entire book, and two of them are Democrats are evil and Republicans are saints. To give you a clue where Kessler is coming from, he complains in a chapter on the Clintons (he has several) show more that the biggest problem with Kenneth Starr is that he wasn't aggressive enough.

I probably could have overlooked the blatant partisanship and low-brow tone - but the dishonesty with which Kessler approaches the work makes it hard to take anything he says at face value. The number of misleading "facts" were piling up before I got to Chapter One.

Kessler spends a lot of time rehashing some of the worst of "journalistic" sleaze from the Clinton years, and cherry-picking his way through many other years of tawdry dirty laundry and political mud. Even for what it is - a partisan right-wing hack job of a look at First Family Secret Service details - it is lousy, thin, and rather poorly written.

I'm heading for that shower. show less

This books has surprising depth. The first part of the book seems to be an exercise in genuflection to the agents and reveled in sordid gossip about presidents and their families. To get an idea of the first half of the book's flavor the phrase "well endowed" is used frequently to describe lovers of presidents and one president himself. It is interesting to know what people were like. At times the agents come across as small minded and petty.

But the last part of the book is he most show more interesting and revealing. Kessler outlines in undeniable detail the poor treatment of agents and mismanagement of the service. He shows how budget restraints and increased duties have stretched the secret service thin and left protected people at risk. He is especially critical of the decision to speed crowdsi nto venues without passing through metal detectors to please political staffers wanting big crowds.

There is a bit of Republican bias. to be sure. He tangentially shows that agents had no knowledge of Bill Clinton having affairs, but doesn't refute the rumors either. But. later he states it is impossible for people to hide their affairs from agents.

Excellent book. show less

The "Dysfunctional" First Family Detail truly should be the name of this book. From the moment I began reading this book, I was hooked and couldn't put it down until I finished all 270 pages. Due to the recent scandals of the United States Secret Service (USSS) in the news, I was, of course, curious to see what the agents had to say about the lives of the Presidents. What was causing all these problems within the USSS and how was it affecting the security of America. Page after page show more introduced me to details with the USSS that shocked me. No, I wasn't surprised that Uncle Joe comes off just as creepy in print as he does in the media or that, "The real Hillary Clinton hunger for power and bears little resemblance to the image she seeks to project", says one agents.
What I found interesting was the Presidents i.e. Johnson, Carter treatment of the USSS. The way the staff of the President, Vice President, and families will bypass suggestion for safety by agents simply by picking up a phone and complaining to USSS management. The lack of support the USSS agents receive in support, training and the hypocrisy of the administration of the USSS. And the biggest shocker is finding out that real changes are not made in the USSS until an assassination attempt is made, causing the incompetence of the USSS to be exposed, forcing them to address the issue. Kessler's brief section on the character & behavior of the a President stood out for me. He states, " In training new agents, the FBI Academy teaches that the best predictor of the future behavior comes from past actions. Over and over, voters have ignored warning signs of weak character and candidates' track records and focused instead on the promises, their celebrity, and their acting ability on television. It's a blindness that they would never extend to choosing a friend, a new employee, an electrician, or a plumber. In entrusting the country and their security to a president, they are making a far more important decision. Each time, voters have regretted disregarding those clues to character." For that reason I highly recommend all Americans reading this book, to truly open their eyes to the real nature of the Presidents past and present, looking beyond the over zealous view pushed precisely onto society to hide the truth. show less