Saturday, January 10, 2009

Credit, Culture, and Future at the CIA

Novelist Charles McCarry reviews the work of the Central Intelligence Agency:

As an old man who remembers the intellectual exhilaration and the pleasure of having done good work that characterized the CIA when it was young, I wonder if it might not be better to speak and think in terms of restoring its culture. Allen Dulles, the first director under whom I served, seemed to want to recruit every bright young person in America, and once he had hired them, to give them every opportunity to use their brains to the utmost. Freedom of speech was the rule regardless of differences in rank. Ingenuity in the field was valued and rewarded. A mentor lurked in nearly every office. Significantly, that CIA had no headquarters; its people were scattered all over town in ramshackle temporary buildings and rented quarters.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

"Freedom of speech was the rule"?? I only wish Allen Dulles had extended that privilege to the rest of America. I suppose he needed the citizenry as his guinea pigs for MK-ULTRA and Operation Mockingbird.

Tim Fleming
author,"Murder of an American Nazi"
www.eloquentbooks.com
http://leftlooking.blogspot.com