One New York Life

I think this book came to PLR via a co-worker. It’s not a genre normally on her reading list because it’s not 1) by a woman 2) about women 3) historic fiction or 4) Glamour. See No Evil by Robert Baer is an autobiographical account of an ex-CIA case officer writing about his time on the ground in the Middle East. The book is presented in its final draft form as it was presented to the CIA with the Agency’s redactions intact. It’s the source material on which 2005’s Syriana was based and is sold as a glimpse in to how the CIA operated in the 70s and 80s vs. how it currently operates. The publishing company certainly struck while the iron was hot, putting it out about 18 months after the September 11th attacks.

The lion’s share of this book deals with Baer’s own experience as a field agent in the CIA. He goes over how he recruited spies, how he met with them, and how he kept them safe. He takes the reader from the agency he joined — one that actively recruited agents with ties to the families of suicide bombers and terrorist leaders — to the agency we have today. An agency that doesn’t really believe in the gathering of intelligent via word-of-mouth, but instead with satellite imagery and computer networks. The problem, he points out, is that a satellite image can’t find a network of tunnels and a computer monitor can’t track not put on a network. Opponents of political correctness will have a field day with this book. The most egregious example being a passage where Baer describes taking over an informant contact from an agent who’s moved on. We find out the agent, on the US’s dime, spent all of her meetings trying to convince the informant to accept Jesus Christ as his lord and savior instead of debriefing him for information. When informed of this, the government tells Baer they can’t reprimand her because of the First Amendment.

The book takes a trip from interesting to disconcerting in final section. The final section deals mostly with the invasiveness of oil companies in the US Government. It tries to put in to context exactly how much money flows in to DC via oil companies and foreign governments and how it shapes policy. CIA operations that are stopped so they don’t tick off a royal family. Oil money donated to the Clinton campaign leading to suspended CIA investigations. Stuff that if read on the Internet would be dismissed as conspiracy theory nonsense. With a real, vetted source describing this stuff, it carries a frightening amount of weight.

Another somewhat disconcerting thing I took from the book — it turns out that federal government agencies really don’t get along together. It’s not something created by Hollywood for movie conflicts. This seems unbelievable. Why is the government divided in to the DEA, DOD, FBI, CIA, and DHS if none of them care to share information or work together? What’s the point? Why do we pay people in multiple agencies to work against each other? It’s a scary thought that the agencies tasked with preventing attacks and crime are actually as chaotic as 24 portrays them.

There is a quote from the book that has stayed with me. Baer is investigating a bombing in Saudi Arabia and his superior tells him he may have to stop because of Amoco’s interests in the region. Baer asks his superior: “Do you mean to tell me we have to stop an operation against a terrorist group — one perhaps responsible for killing five Americans in Saudi Arabia — to protect Amoco’s balance sheets?” That’s the theme from the last part of the book. Oil company wallets reach so deep in to Washington that it affects Washington’s ability to gather information. And that’s a very scary thing. And don’t think it starts and ends with the Bush family. The book touches on money trails that include the Clintons, Kennedys, and other deeply rooted in DC.

It would be easy to write this book off as a guy grinding an axe with an agency that passed him by. You could do that — and you might even be right — but what you find is that the agency probably shouldn’t have passed him by. He seems to simply want an agency with eyes on the ground gathering information from people. Not via coercion, but from the folks in these Middle Eastern countries who don’t really believe in blowing themselves up to make a point. Regardless of what fear-mongers would have you believe, they are out there.

Everyone should read this book. Seriously.