A Much Less Secret Service

Images of the “invisible government” or the “secret state”—particularly prominent in depictions in popular culture and sensationalist journalism on the intelligence services of the Cold War superpowers (the KGB, the CIA, the FBI, the NSA)—have stoked fears of sinister, shadowy, ruthless, all-powerful organizations with global reach, stunning technological armory, and absolutely no scruples. Oddly enough, this image competes with another, contradictory image of intelligence services, one that rises to the surface each time a major intelligence failure is witnessed. In this alternative universe, the intelligence services are bumbling incompetents who never saw the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor until the bombs struck; who failed to catch even a glimpse of the Al-Qaeda terrorists who commandeered the planes that brought down the Twin Towers; who were too busy chasing phantom Reds under beds to notice the FLQ terrorists who precipitated the...