Company Man: Thirty Years Of Controversy And Crisis In The CIA

Angelo M. Codevilla offers a review of John Rizzo's Company Man: Thirty Years of Controversy and Crisis in the CIA for the Washington Times.  

This book by John Rizzo, the CIA’s longtime top lawyer, advertises itself as “the most authoritative inside account of the CIA ever written.” The blurb from The Washington Post's David Ignatius concurs: “Think Of Tom Hagen, the Corleone family lawyer in ‘The Godfather,’ and you begin to get the flavor of what Rizzo had seen and heard if you’re interested in the inside life of the CIA, read this book.” The reader then reasonably expects an inside story on what U.S. intelligence does to collect information, how it analyzes it, what products it provides to help the president, State and Defense departments do their jobs, how it protects against foreign espionage and terrorism, etc. However, this book, just like the agency it describes, can stand as a definition of solecism. From beginning to end, it is about bureaucrats’ inward-looking concerns. Nothing more.

Although the book is not what the advertising promises, it really does provide an accurate picture of life inside CIA. Its exclusive focus on how bureaucrats jostle and feel about one another is entirely consistent with my eight years of experience dealing with CIA’s top levels on the U.S. Senate’s behalf.

You can read the rest of the review via the below link:

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2014/jan/20/a-self-licking-ice-cream-cone/