Total Page : 284
Publisher : Crown
Publication Date : 2002
>> America s Favorite CIA Case Officer Goes Direct to the People
See No Evil is many books in one It s a biography telling a very interesting story about how life s twists and turns shaped a young man such that he was identified by the CIA as good agent material Baer s unusual upbringing had the advantage of giving him the ability to operate in any country independently and keep his wits about himself This is also a history book weaving a tale of many events with which Baer played a role as an intelligence gatherer The events have to do mainly with violence in the Middle East and the constant power struggle there Last See No Evil is a general book about intelligence and the CIA complete with information that should be helpful to reform the Agency
The most important aspect of this book is the picture it shows of the Central Intelligence Agency and its role in government We all know from the newspapers that human intelligence was underutilized and not trusted compared to high tech signal and satellite intelligence and the U S government now recognizes this and plans to correct the problem Beyond that however are the underlying problems that make human intelligence a chronic problem for government There will continue to be a lack of human intelligence which takes many years to build up and because the political system does not readily allow human intelligence to thrive
Baer shows how many of the important people at the CIA the remaining and flourishing old boy network enhance careers by avoiding risk Some create paperwork making it appear as if they re busy while cooperatively censoring intelligence politicians would find inconvenient Others are true professionals and risk their lives doing what they were hired to do The true professionals in doing their job jeopardize their careers by definition For example a case officer operating in a foreign and hostile environment would naturally have to associate with foreign nationals In doing so the case officer is exposed to investigations related to any number of charges such as providing secret information to a foreign intelligence agent The mere act of a case officer doing his or her job is professionally risky Human intelligence work when done properly is not necessarily good for one s career
Baer reaches out through his books to get public support for the stated mission of the CIA Politicians of either party probably will never voluntarily allow the Agency to do its job appropriately due to inherent conflicts of interests Namely top politicians need intelligence that suits their political purposes whether to award contracts to donor corporations or conduct a political career enhancing foreign policy But facts are supposed to be neutral and intelligence personnel are charged with getting to the truth whatever it is Therefore the CIA probably benefits by having advocates such as Baer to inform the public about the need for non politicized intelligence
After listening to the audio version of See No Evil twice ably read by the author I feel a bit pessimistic about quick reform of the intelligence community I don t know how the intelligence community can avoid being politicized Career rewards for shaping intelligence to fit policy are too great a temptation for the all the CIA s upper echelon to avoid I think However this may be a common problem for all governments The matter then becomes one of relativity How politicized is our intelligence community compared to others See No Evil does not address that question but hopefully Baer will produce another good book that does
>> Telling account of the Middle East
Baer is a skilled historian having actually been a part of the recent history of the CIA His account of the American politics with the Middle East is enlightening to say the least
Politics and intelligence is all too often politicized for unnecessary agendas but Baer seems to be able to disassociate from the potential for pointing fingers and accusing a political group for the failure of CIA operations Instead the failure is one of bureaucratic leaders afraid to take a risk for intelligence
The author takes the reader through a journey from his days of uncertainty as a grad student the highly secretive spy training and his own journey in finding Iran at the root of all evil While the book focuses on his entirety in the CIA and takes the reader through the timeline of events Baer is quick to reference how each event built upon the previous and the evidence continued to lead back to Iran
No doubt this book s popularity and poignant nature spawned his following book The Devil We Know
>> let down
I m surprised at the large number of favorable reviews I was very excited to read this book from the description but ended up disappointed It started out great describing what it was like to join the CIA and the training etc Then it begins to get dense with names and details and the bigger picture gets obscured
There is a whole lot of complaining in the book and when I read a book like this I must always remember that hindsight is 20/20 It is very easy to criticize decisions in the past when the outcomes have already been determined Nonetheless the author does present some valid overarching criticisms of the CIA and I m sure the CIA would do well to heed them
The author does not give a lot of historical context to his situations and I think that hurts the quality of this work
Unless you are a die hard CIA enthusiast you may want to pass on this one There are other better books that expose the CIA
