BOOK REVIEW: ‘Company Man: Thirty Years of Controversy and Crisis in the CIA’
23rd January 2014
Although the book is not what the advertising promises, it really does provide an accurate picture of life inside CIA. Its exclusive focus on how bureaucrats jostle and feel about one another is entirely consistent with my eight years of experience dealing with CIA’s top levels on the U.S. Senate’s behalf. The substance of any matter notwithstanding, it always came down to which bureaucrat would gain or lose what. The bureaucrats’ personal interests come first. The welfare and reputation of the agency come second. Everything else is incidental. This book seems to describe a collective human ice cream cone licking itself.