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Title: Body of Secrets : Anatomy of the Ultra-Secret National Security Agency by James Bamford ISBN: 0-385-49908-6 Publisher: Anchor Pub. Date: 30 April, 2002 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $14.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 3.92 (127 reviews)
Rating: 4
Summary: information overload!
Comment: a very intersting and detailed book about the NSA. however, i found myself feeling like an analyst at NSA in that i had to plow through a LOT of information, some of which was interesting but could have been condensed.
my only complaint is that the author looses his objectivity in the afterword when describing the actions of george w. bush in response to the events of 09/11.
Rating: 4
Summary: False Pretexts and Damaging Secrets - A Consistent Theme
Comment: Sure, some of his claims of NSA's present day technical capabilities and current invasion into US civilian privacy were somewhat exaggerated in the Puzzle Palace, but you can't deny that this guy's responsible for blowing the lid off a significant amount of dirt stored in this nation's vaults. Case in point: Operation Northwoods. The plans by the JCS under the direction of Gen. Lemnitzer and extreme right wingers in the defense planning establishment to attack American cities, ships, aircraft, and bases and blame it on Cuba in order to get us into war...and beyond. A lot of people go on and on about CIA and JFK, but in reality by that time CIA was removed from most Cuban activities and the pentagon became the chief player under the Cuba Project. Makes you wonder who was posing as Lee Harvey Oswald in Mexico City and making calls to a KGB assassin. We know Oswald was there, along with an imposter following behind him. We know CIA monitored both. We also know CIA got spooked when the assassination occurred and tried to suppress what they eavesdropped on. KGB certainly had no interest in creating a false KGB-Oswald connection. CIA wasn't actively involved in Cuban ops anymore because they'd once again proved inept. So that only leaves the DoD establishment as the likely operator in Mexico City. This would certainly explain why CIA covered it up and bit the bullet. God bless 'em if they've been taking the heat for so long to prevent the revolt this revelation would bring. Hoover and LBJ both said it was either a communist conspiracy or a conspiracy by the right wingers in the pentagon trying to make it look like Soviets/Cubans. We know they did everything in their power to make sure the Warren Commission testimony and evidence supported a lone gunman, preventing WWIII. It's also consistent with LBJ's troubles with the military, including the famous and real line with the Pentagon brass, "You just get me elected and you'll get the war you want." Since there never was the WWIII the JCS and right wingers wanted, I suppose you can still rationalize that LBJ and Hoover did the right thing; though they died thinking Cuba and the KGB were responsible.
Bamford achieves a first in describing and documenting the DoD, JCS, and NSA's rival with the CIA, which DoD felt was encroaching on its covert ops territory. NSA is not only a civilian intell agency, but is also responsible for funding and coordinating the military's SIGINT and IMINT activities. Iran-Contra was NSA and the Pentagon under the direction of an office of the NSC. The Office of Public Diplomacy (OPD) was responsible for all sorts of illegal activities related to Iran-Contra, including the Nicaraguan Migs story. It was closed by Congress for breaking the law. Like I said, a lot of people go on and on about CIA mistakes, but in reality, the CIA did just that...screw up. Allende's assassination was an accident, not intentional. Most of the super sensitive MK Ultra and Bluebird activities were actually run by DoD and its subsidiaries, not CIA. There was a saying back in the day, "If a bomb went off and killed everyone except the intended target, it must be CIA." I think between this book and Marchetti and Mark's CIA and the Cult of Intelligence, you have about as accurate a look at the history of U.S. intell you could possibly get. We can now further see that the use of 9/11 as a pretext for going into Iraq was coordinated out of the Office of Special Plans in the pentagon under the direction of Rumsfeld and Cheney. This office was also responsible for compiling and selecting biased and misleading intelligence, bypassing the objectivity mandate the CIA is now beholden to. It's no wonder that OPD's former head Otto Reich was appointed by Bush to the State Department. If we go back even further, we can see the thread all the way back to the 40 Committee under Kissinger and the DoD's PSYOPs in Brazil, probably the most successful news manipulation and overthrow of a democratic government in the history of the world. So successful that to this day Brazilians still think the progressive, Catholic, anti-monopolist Goulart was a hardcore Commie.
As a result, I think Bamford's next book needs to broaden to include the entire DoD, JCS, and NSA structure and its integrated history, rather than fixate on the NSA. The worst corruption has always occurred within the Pentagon and the numerous secret planning committees and defense advisory boards, many with deep connections to corporate America (e.g. ITT, United Fruit Company, Bell Helicopter, Halliburton, etc) often using defense issues to mask hidden profit motives...more false pretexts. Body of Secrets' best moments are when he starts doing this, but it's always cut a little short...as if he fears being called a radical. I think it is also this fixation that tends to tempt him to go off on NSA technical capabilities, the more extreme of which he is speculating about and has little evidence for. The EU did probably the best recent study of the NSA's likely capabilities and it has turned out to be very consistent with revelations post-9/11, like NSA still relying heavily on manual transcripts of audio conversations, not massive voice recognition computers...though we know NSA and DARPA are making advances in that department. But the trail of evidence when looked at in terms of trends and common themes should force more radical directions in his writing, not the geeky techno indulgences he sometimes gets side-tracked with.
Rating: 4
Summary: Excellent Book!
Comment: Bamford has done a masterful job of laying out the full details of the NSA's history - it's origins, inception and early years. He further offers up in stunning detail Israel's deliberate attack on the U.S.S. Liberty during the 1967 Israeli conflict with Egypt and the capture of the U.S.S. Pueblo by North Korea in early 1968 and President Johnson's maddening inaction.
The author also lays out specifics of the agency in such detail that I sometimes asked myself, "Should he really be writing this stuff? Shouldn't this be still secret/classified?" He obviously had some great access to write this important book.
I was a little surprised at Bamford's occasional liberal slant on events, specifically his criticism of President Bush regarding the 9-11 terrorist attacks. As a liberal myself, I wasn't offended, just surprised to read it here. (I was also outraged all over again at Bush's behavior on the morning and afternoon of 9/11/01.)
He also does a nice job of telling how the NSA slipped in the 1990s in keeping up with rapidly emerging technology. He also wrote very insightfully about what the NSA is doing in the future to catch up.
The only significant thing that disappointed me about the book was the lack of discussion about important events in the 1980s and 1990s. It's almost as if he got to the end of the 70s and said, "That's good enough." Since the book was published in 2001, I would have expected a lot more. Perhaps another book is forthcoming?
Anyone wishing to know about this super-secret agency, it's beginnings and it's role in many important 20th century events will be thrilled to read and own this book.
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Title: The Puzzle Palace: A Report on America's Most Secret Agency by James Bamford ISBN: 0140067485 Publisher: Viking Press Pub. Date: September, 1983 List Price(USD): $15.95 |
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Title: Inside the CIA by Ronald Kessler ISBN: 067173458X Publisher: Pocket Books Pub. Date: 01 February, 1994 List Price(USD): $7.99 |
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Title: See No Evil: The True Story of a Ground Soldier in the CIA's War on Terrorism by Robert Baer ISBN: 140004684X Publisher: Three Rivers Press Pub. Date: 07 January, 2003 List Price(USD): $14.00 |
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Title: The U.S. Intelligence Community by Jeffrey T. Richelson ISBN: 0813368936 Publisher: Westview Press Pub. Date: March, 1999 List Price(USD): $50.00 |
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Title: The Master of Disguise : My Secret Life in the CIA by Antonio J. Mendez ISBN: 0060957913 Publisher: Perennial Pub. Date: 07 November, 2000 List Price(USD): $14.00 |
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