Deep Black: Space Espionage and National Security
An enormous amount of factual information, much of it hardly known, is packed into this thick book describing U.S. space intelligence gathering activities. Burrows, a journalist who has written on space and aviation for two decades, has clearly talked to many people and burrowed many facts. One feels overwhelmed by the data and impressed by the technical capabilities this country has developed. There can be no question that various forms of "black" information play a major role in our evaluation of Soviet military capabilities as well as other worldwide activities. The National Reconnaissance Office which, it is said, officially does not exist, had a budget of $5 billion in 1985. Much of what is presented in this lively book will be useful to more analytically oriented scholars.
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The history of intelligence since World War I shows no dividends resembling the miracles of spy-thriller fiction. The benefits gained by fielding a worldwide team of secret agents are not worth the exorbitant cost. Spies sometimes provide useful information on weapons development and other long-term threats; usually their information is outdated or irrelevant. The CIA should stick to its strengths: analysis for policymakers and high-tech surveillance. Cloak-and-dagger foreign policy tempts presidents into shirking the hard work of diplomacy and politics. The practice has blackened America's reputation and subverted its democracy.
The failure to prevent the September 11, 2001, attacks or find Iraqi WMD have put intelligence at the center of this year's presidential campaign. The key to better performance, however, lies not in major reforms but in the character and sense of responsible officials.
"The most fundamental method of work ... is to determine our working policies according to the actual conditions. When we study the causes of the mistakes we have made, we find that they all arose because we departed from the actual situation . . . and were subjective in determining our working policies."-"The Thoughts of Mao Tse-tung."

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