Beyond Repair: The Decline and Fall of the CIA

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Beyond Repair: The Decline and Fall of the CIA Pub. Date: 10/4/2011 Publisher: Lyons Press, The
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Beyond Repair: The Decline and Fall of the CIA Pub. Date: 10/8/2009 Publisher: Lyons Press, The

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Overview

Once upon a time, the CIA took the risks necessary to protect America. “If you fall,” went its mantra, “fall forward.” In Beyond Repair, one of the agency’s most respected former operatives mounts a scathing critique of the preparedness of today’s CIA—and, specifically, the Directorate of Operations at its core—to defend America against the dizzying dangers of the twenty-first century. In a compelling blend of analysis and fascinating true-life stories, Charles S. Faddis argues that the CIA has devolved into a low-risk or, often, no-risk bureaucracy of careerists whose mantra might be summed up thus: “Don’t fall.”

“Every senior officer I know in the CIA carries personal liability insurance,” writes Faddis, “because of the fear of being sued for actions taken in the line of duty.” And, he notes, no operatives who commanded CIA teams in Afghanistan have been promoted to key positions. Why? Because they operate within a system that is no longer built to encourage and reward the risk taking and creativity they excelled at.

Faddis discusses the birth of the CIA—then called the Office of Strategic Services—during World War II under “Wild Bill” Donovan, the twentieth-century American father of spy craft. Donovan’s daring would not get him far in today’s CIA, Faddis observes. Describing how the twenty-first-century CIA works from the inside out, he paints an unsettling picture of an agency that has truly gone awry—recalling, for example, his own experience in a Middle Eastern country as a chief of station without a qualified Arabic linguist on hand.

Faddis concludes by setting forth the main points of a plan for building a new entity. He proposes that this agency draw on the best qualities of the OSS (and readopt its name) while adapting to twenty-first-century needs, and that it be staffed by many of the CIA’s finest men and women. This new agency would maintain the midnight watch, so Americans can sleep well at night.

Editorial Reviews

Publishers Weekly

Faddis (Operation Hotel California), a career CIA operations officer, pulls no punches in this provocative critique of the iconic—and dysfunctional—spy agency. Noting that the CIA was created to protect the U.S. from another Pearl Harbor, the author points to 9/11 as proof that the agency can no longer perform that task and is so beyond reform that it must be replaced. In his portrayal of the CIA, “risk-taking, daring and creativity” are discouraged, bureaucratic concerns are given precedence, senior leadership is lacking and morale has been sapped by “crippling purges and witch hunts.” The author concludes that the agency “is dying a death of a thousand cuts” and offers “a blueprint for a new OSS,” modeled on the legendary Office of Strategic Services, FDR's WWII spy agency that spawned the CIA. Keep this new organization, like its wartime predecessor, small, flat and elite, he cautions, and use it sparingly. In a world where threats “are multiplying and becoming more complex,” Faddis's bleak assessment of the CIA should be required reading. (Nov.)

Library Journal

Faddis, an angry retired covert operations officer, has written a slim attack on what he sees as a dysfunctional, chaotic, and dangerously ineffective intelligence agency, especially when compared with its earlier history. He thinks that it has calcified into a paper-processing, risk-avoidance business that does not value the importance of capable individuals and human intelligence. Instead of strengthening the agency, the U.S. government has let more organizations try to play the Great Game of intelligence, which has led to a dispersal of resources, turf wars, less success, and global antagonism. Faddis recommends a smaller, more independent agency with fewer domestic competitors, but readers may doubt that this will ever happen, given our political structure. John Diamond's The CIA and the Culture of Failure: U.S. Intelligence from the End of the Cold War to the Invasion of Iraq covers much of the same ground. VERDICT This book is similarly critical of the White House's handling of strategy and resources as Faddis's previous Operation Hotel California: The Clandestine War Inside Iraq, which he coauthored with Mike Tucker. This new effort is suitable for all interested in current events.—Daniel K. Blewett, Coll. of DuPage Lib., Glen Ellyn, IL

Product Details

ISBN-13: 9780762761234
Publisher: Lyons Press, The
Publication date: 10/4/2011
Pages: 224
Sales rank: 696,267
Product dimensions: 5.50 (w) x 7.90 (h) x 0.60 (d)

Meet the Author

Charles S. Faddis served twenty years in the Central Intelligence Agency as an operations officer, holding positions as a department chief at the CIA’s Counterterrorism Center in Washington, D.C., and as a chief of station in the Middle East. He is the author of Willful Neglect and the coauthor of Operation Hotel California (both Lyons Press).

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Beyond Repair: The Decline and Fall of the CIA

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Overview

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