Steven Hayward of Powerline has put up as a podcast a couple of interviews with Herbert Meyer, right-hand man to William Casey in Reagan's CIA. They date from 2014, and concern matters in 1983 particularly, as well as Poland particularly. But the principles and the lessons concern 9/11 in identical fashion, and apply to the future as well.
The theme is that there is a right way and a wrong way to run a spy outfit. The right way is to attract and empower talent: individuals of talent in positions of responsibility and authority. The wrong way is to disgust talented people so as to drive them away, and empower career bureaucratic minds in their place. What can be done with a bureaucratized agency other than shut it down and start over? My favorite quote: "Bill Casey built an OSS within the CIA."
The podcast is here; the latter 80% of it is a more leisurely discussion that took place at Meyer's home on some island in Puget Sound. It is worth the going through the more frenetic and clipped radio interview that constitutes the first 20% of the podcast.
Meyer wrote a memo urging top-level CIA to recast their thinking about what to do - win versus "lose elegantly." To say that it is thoughtful and thorough sounds pitiful, but then there is no way to do it justice. It just has to be read. The memo has been declassified and can be read in .pdf form for that authentic early-1980s look.
Meyer went on to reboot intelligence gathering from all those capable agents in the field who had not been told the right things to look for, if data were to be gathered that could form a useful information pattern in the service of testing the hypothesis that the Soviet economy was on the rocks, and not rolling along as the then-current wisdom read. In the podcast he describes in vivid terms what this reboot meant. Doing this was simple enough. But it had not been done until somebody came along and realized what was wrong with procedures and how to put them right. Thanks, Mr. Meyer, Mr. Casey.
So, Russian factory workers were so desperate that they hijacked a meat train, held the conductors, offloaded all the government meat onto stolen trucks they had ready and waiting, and got out of there fast? Who knew? Well, people had known, but had not known that the bosses back home wanted to hear the story! When that was set right, the right data could flow in and be turned into information bearing on the hypothesis and destined for the desk of a Chief Executive who very much cared to think about it.
This is a story best heard from a man at the center of it. We are lucky to have it brought for us to hear; thanks, Mr. Hayward.
The theme is that there is a right way and a wrong way to run a spy outfit. The right way is to attract and empower talent: individuals of talent in positions of responsibility and authority. The wrong way is to disgust talented people so as to drive them away, and empower career bureaucratic minds in their place. What can be done with a bureaucratized agency other than shut it down and start over? My favorite quote: "Bill Casey built an OSS within the CIA."
The podcast is here; the latter 80% of it is a more leisurely discussion that took place at Meyer's home on some island in Puget Sound. It is worth the going through the more frenetic and clipped radio interview that constitutes the first 20% of the podcast.
Meyer wrote a memo urging top-level CIA to recast their thinking about what to do - win versus "lose elegantly." To say that it is thoughtful and thorough sounds pitiful, but then there is no way to do it justice. It just has to be read. The memo has been declassified and can be read in .pdf form for that authentic early-1980s look.
Meyer went on to reboot intelligence gathering from all those capable agents in the field who had not been told the right things to look for, if data were to be gathered that could form a useful information pattern in the service of testing the hypothesis that the Soviet economy was on the rocks, and not rolling along as the then-current wisdom read. In the podcast he describes in vivid terms what this reboot meant. Doing this was simple enough. But it had not been done until somebody came along and realized what was wrong with procedures and how to put them right. Thanks, Mr. Meyer, Mr. Casey.
This is a story best heard from a man at the center of it. We are lucky to have it brought for us to hear; thanks, Mr. Hayward.
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