January 10, 2001
James Adams
By the then (UK) Sunday Times Bureau Chief in Washington, a former defense correspondent, I found this book somewhat disappointing but never-the-less worthy of consideration. Although the author concludes that the end of the Cold War should have produced a massive upheaval and did not, leaving “too many of the old practices intact with little evidence that the intelligence community is ready to face the fast changing, frightening world that lies ahead,” my impression was that the author was completely taken in by the party line and overlooked most of the really trenchant intelligence reform literature, including the open source revolution. It is, however, replete with useful references, especially to what then DCI Bob Gates was thinking and talking about, and for that reason I would tend to include it in any serious intelligence library.
