You might think that most spy organisation’s biggest problems with keeping secrets was preventing double agents from selling or giving them to the another party. However the CIA seemed to have almost as much angst and trouble over former staff rushing to print because of ego, propaganda purposes , wishing to right perceived wirings, or a host of other reasons.
The book maps the CIA’s oscillations between attempts to suppress this activity and occasions were it almost encouraged it. Unsurprisingly the main driver towards openness wasn’t the fact the CIA operated within a democracy but instead concern over how the agency would be perceived by the public and policy makers if it kept silent did not respond to public attacks and accusations by others.
One particularly interesting slight diversion form the main topic of the book was the CIA’s irritation at not being able to exploit the entertainment world for propaganda purposes to the same extent as US armed forces were able to. While the military could lend equipment and access to movie and TV makers to show themselves in a good light the CIA had little opportunity to do this, and even if it could do so almost every script they seemed to get showed multiple members the agency staff acting either duplicity or foolishly or both. Moran also points out that the CIA would have loved to have had their own James Bond character and were grateful for the many positive mentions of the agency by Bond creator Ian Fleming which counterbalanced John le Carré’s often more negative comments.
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