Fixing Intelligence : For a More Secure America

The New York Times

The book builds on a study that Odom, an adjunct professor at Yale University and a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute, completed in 1997. He offers a cogent if sometimes labored primer on how the intelligence community works (and doesn't work) and why its labyrinth of competing agencies has impeded the flow of information within the government. He traces the roots of modern American intelligence to the fallout over Pearl Harbor and the creation of the Central Intelligence Agency in 1947. For the last 40 years, he says, the intelligence community ''has remained essentially unchanged,'' unwilling because of bureaucratic intransigence and proprietary turf wars to make the structural reforms needed to keep it relevant and effective. — Eric Litchblau

The Washington Post

In Fixing Intelligence, William Odom dissects this bureaucratic jellyfish with remarkable precision. — Lorraine Adams

Publishers Weekly

"The weakness of U.S. counterintelligence is difficult to exaggerate," says Odom, former director of the National Security Agency, and "patching and repairing here and there" won't solve the problem. Here he presents a far-reaching proposal for revamping the intelligence community, but it's no page-turner. Based on a report originally published in 1997 by a think tank, this book argues that intelligence gathering must be streamlined and cooperation increased among the many existing intelligence agencies. Perhaps Odom's most broad-ranging reform would be to create a national counterintelligence service, which he says would eliminate both competition among the various agencies and the gaps in knowledge that result from such competition. Elsewhere, he proposes broad changes in the makeup of both the FBI and the CIA. These ideas, while presented six years ago by the author, were rarely seriously discussed before September 11, and the author himself admits they are likely to meet resistance from the turf-protecting intelligence community. Odom makes a strong case that they are necessary to fight the changing threats to U.S. security. All too often, though, his language makes his points difficult to follow ("until greater resource management rationality is achieved, progress in integrating the tactical intelligence capabilities will be erratic and more by chance than design"). The book still reads too much like a report to command the wide readership its arguments warrant. It probably will, however, feed media discussions about intelligence reform and the new Homeland Security Department. (Mar.) Copyright 2003 Cahners Business Information.

Foreign Affairs

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.

Library Journal

The United States has a huge and powerful intelligence community, but its widespread flaws and gross failures have been highlighted since 9/11. Odom, a retired army general and former director of the National Security Agency, as well as the author of The Collapse of the Soviet Military, certainly has the high-level background needed for this book. He argues that our dysfunctional bureaucracy has led to unproductive turf battles, missed signals, fumbled opportunities, and expensive defeats. The new Homeland Security Department does not promise to end these dangerous problems. Chapters explain what the current setup is, where the problems are, and what might be done. Odom feels that there should be a separate counterintelligence unit that is not controlled by law enforcement personnel (as the FBI is) and that there need not be national managers of types of intelligence across the agencies. This book is a revision of the author's Modernizing Intelligence: Structure and Change for the 21st Century. As such, those knowledgeable about this subject will get the most out of it. Suitable for the intelligence collections of academic and large public libraries.-Daniel K. Blewett, Coll. of DuPage Lib., Glen Ellyn, IL Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information.