Hands Down Best Reference on Topic
Review: The Secret Sentry–The Untold History of the National Security Agency
5 Star, Intelligence (Government/Secret)by Matthew M. Aid.
Bloomsbury, 423 pp., $30.00
REVIEW BY James Bamford
The New York Review of Books (5 November 2009)
Pre-released in The Huffington Post (Full Review Here)
Bamford's trilogy on NSA in reverse chronological order:
The Shadow Factory: The NSA from 9/11 to the Eavesdropping on America
Body of Secrets: Anatomy of the Ultra-Secret National Security Agency
The Puzzle Palace: Inside the National Security Agency, America's Most Secret Intelligence Organization
We know Matthew Aid, his book should be considered a follow-on to the work of James Bamford, but as Bamford himself observes, the book on NSA leadership's high crimes and misdemeanors has yet to be written–it will start with fraud, waste, and abuse, and end with warrantless wiretapping and gross dereliction of duty.
EXCERPTS From Bamford's Full Review:
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Review: Beyond Repair: The Decline and Fall of the CIA
5 Star, Intelligence (Government/Secret)Review: The Design of Business–Why Design Thinking is the Next Competitive Advantage
6 Star Top 10%, Best Practices in Management, Capitalism (Good & Bad), Change & Innovation, Complexity & Resilience, Culture, Research, Economics, Education (Universities), Environment (Solutions), Future, Intelligence (Commercial), Intelligence (Government/Secret), Intelligence (Public), Nature, Diet, Memetics, Design, Philosophy, Public Administration, Strategy, True Cost & Toxicity, Values, Ethics, Sustainable EvolutionReview: The War After Armagedoon
5 Star, Atrocities & Genocide, Culture, Research, Force Structure (Military), Impeachment & Treason, Intelligence (Government/Secret), Military & Pentagon Power, Misinformation & Propaganda, Politics, Power (Pathologies & Utilization), Religion & Politics of ReligionThe non-fiction foundations or complements to this book are American Fascists: The Christian Right and the War on America and Endgame: The Blueprint for Victory in the War on Terror.
In a nut-shell, this a marvelous depiction of what happens in the future when enemies of the USA plant two small nuclear devices in Los Angeles and Las Vegas, leading to a nation-wide call to arms with crusade overtones.
Review: The Sword of the Prophet
5 Star, America (Anti-America), Asymmetric, Cyber, Hacking, Odd War, Empire, Sorrows, Hubris, Blowback, Intelligence (Government/Secret)This book is so very good that I am making it one of THREE books I recommend to future spies and those who wish to understand the human side of the spy world today (or course there are many others but this one is special). The other two are still:
2. Without Cloak or Dagger : The truth about the new espionage–
I liked this book on multiple levels. It does for the clandestine service, where we were obscenely proud of having the highest alcoholism, adultery, divorce, and suicide rates in the US Government, what James Webb did for the abuse of military forces by craven politicians in Fields of Fire.
Review: JFK and the Unspeakable–Why He Died & Why It Matters
6 Star Top 10%, Corruption, Crime (Corporate), Crime (Government), Culture, Research, Empire, Sorrows, Hubris, Blowback, Executive (Partisan Failure, Reform), History, Intelligence (Government/Secret), Justice (Failure, Reform), Military & Pentagon Power, Misinformation & Propaganda, Peace, Poverty, & Middle Class, Philosophy, Politics, Power (Pathologies & Utilization), Security (Including Immigration), Truth & Reconciliation, Values, Ethics, Sustainable EvolutionStake in the Heart of National Security State
The premise is that JFK went against the national security establishment, notably the CIA, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and the military-industrial complex, and was assassinated by deliberate plan of the CIA, with Richard Helms, David Atlee Philips, David Sanchez Morales, and Desmond Fitzgerald specifically culpable for high crimes of treason.
As with 9/11 and the documented culpability of Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Larry Silverstein, and Rudy Gulliani, there is insufficient proof in this book for conviction, but it is more than ample to demand a very intrusive and comprehensive investigation of the CIA, the Secret Service, and the FBI. I *want* to believe Helms when he says CIA did nothing not ordered by a President.Ā However, if the premise of this book is proven, CIA should be abolished, its HQS demolished, and salt plowed into the earth at Langley.
The book's most positive account is of the back-channel dialog JFK developed with Khrushchev, Castro, and the Pope, dialog that not only defused the confrontations of the time, but also ended the Cold War. The theology of peace, the role of Monk Thomas Merton, the role of Norman Cousins (author of The Pathology of Power – A Challenge to Human Freedom and Safety), the role of the Pope and Pacem in Terris, and the strength JFK drew from a single meeting with Quakers are moving. This is in many ways a resurrection of JFK and both an epitaph worthy of his unsung accomplishments, and a call to arms for achieving closure–truth and reconciliation–with respect to his assassination by US Government personnel committing treason.
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