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Fixing Intelligence: For a More Secure America

William E. Odom
Reviewed by Lawrence D. Freedman
May/June 2003
Fixing Intelligence: For a More Secure America
William E. Odom
Yale University Press
2003
212 pp.
0300099762
$24.95
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With a background in Army intelligence and as the former head of the National Security Agency, Odom is well placed to write about how the intelligence community might be usefully restructured following September 11, although this book is based on a 1997 study. Given the inherent limitations of books about organizational structures and an explicit reluctance on the part of Odom to discuss what intelligence agencies should be looking for rather than how, this is a forcefully and cogently argued book.

It is a necessary read for anyone concerned about the future of intelligence. Odom has an insider's sense of where the bureaucratic obstacles lie. He is clearly no fan of the CIA and damns the fbi when it comes to counterintelligence. His main proposals are to make the director of central intelligence completely independent of the CIA,to improve capacities for intelligence to support military operations, and to have a separate manager for each of the "collection disciplines" of signals, Imagery, and Human Intelligence.

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