A Thin Line Between Love and Hate: A Black Man's Journey Through Life and the CIA

by Darryl A. Lansey

Overview

Author James Baldwin once said, "A journey is called that because you cannot know what you will discover on the journey, what you will do, what you will find, or what you find will do to you." In A Thin Line Between Love and Hate: A Black Man's Journey Through Life and the CIA, Darryl Lansey takes readers on a journey from his childhood growing up in a working class Black family in Baltimore, Maryland to the secretive halls of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). During his more than 30 years with CIA, Darryl traveled the world collecting and analyzing secret information in support of six presidents' administrations from Ronald Reagan to Donald Trump. Darryl describes his tenure with CIA as a "strange love affair." He loved the Agency and the work of trying to keep the United States safe from its enemies. Yet, he also describes the mental and physical pain he endured that stood in contrast to his loyalty to his country, as CIA's deeply rooted systemic racism and its white managers repeatedly thwarted his career aspirations. Despite the personal hurdles he faced, Darryl worked throughout his career to transform CIA's diversity and inclusion and leadership cultures for the better, so future generations of employees are able to thrive.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781098318888
Publisher:	BookBaby
Publication date:	09/01/2020
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	326
File size:	3 MB

About the Author

Darryl Lansey was CIA's Director of Leadership Learning prior to his retirement in March 2018. He was responsible for creating and executing CIA's vision, guiding philosophy, and strategy for providing enterprise-level training for new supervisors to senior executives. Previous to Leadership Learning, he was the National Reconnaissance Office's Chief and Deputy Chief Learning Officer. During Darryl's CIA career, he served in four of five Directorates, including more than 20 years in the Directorate of Intelligence where he authored and managed analyses on an array of topics including: chemical and biological weapons proliferation, counternarcotics, counterterrorism, and the Balkans. Upon Darryl's retirement, CIA awarded him with its Career Commendation Medal, which was the last of more than 30 exceptional performance awards and citations that he received during his career. In retirement, Darryl is seeking mastery of his photography skills, which has been a hobby for more than 45 years.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments i

Prologue v

Chapter 1 Black and White Roots Intertwined in Slavery 1

Chapter 2 1968: The Year I Became Woke 13

Chapter 3 Black and White Worlds Collide in West Baltimore 21

Chapter 4 In Thurgood's Shadow 29

Chapter 5 "Niggers Go Home" 39

Chapter 6 The Journey Begins 51

Chapter 7 Establishing My Creds as a CIA Analyst 65

Chapter 8 A Different World Inside the Fence Line 91

Chapter 9 Organizational Politics Outside of CIA 111

Chapter 10 Returning to the Prose and Politics of HQ 125

Chapter 11 The Road to Resurrection and Redemption 149

Chapter 12 Learning to Walk Again as a Supervisor 161

Chapter 13 Learning What It Means to Be a Leader 175

Chapter 14 Becoming a Manager 187

Chapter 15 Starting a New Career and a New Lease on Life 213

Chapter 16 Itching to Get Back into the Management Game 229

Chapter 17 Doing the Cha-Cha, While Juggling Plates of Spaghetti 245

Epilogue: The Last Word 259

Appendix A Leadership Isn't Rocket Science…But It Does Take Hard Work 265

Appendix B Leadership and Moral Courage 271

Appendix C Diversity and Inclusion: A Series of Lost Opportunities 275

Glossary 281

Bibliography 299

About the Author 303