Burn Before Reading: Presidents, CIA Directors, and Secret Intelligence

by Stansfield Turner

Book Overview

In this "thoughtful, entertaining, and often insightful" book, a former CIA director explores the delicate give-and-take between the Oval Office and Langley.

With the disastrous intelligence failures of the last few years still fresh in Americans minds--and to all appearances still continuing--there has never been a more urgent need for a book like this.

In Burn Before Reading, Admiral Stansfield Turner, the CIA director...

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0786867825
• ISBN13: 9780786867820
• Release Date: October 2005
• Publisher: Hachette Books
• Length: 320 Pages
• Weight: 0.86 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.0" x 6.6" x 9.4"
• Age Range: 18 years and up
• Grade Range: Postsecondary and higher

Customer Reviews

A unique perspective

Written by Jimmy Carter's CIA director, this book chronicles the history of the CIA through a unique perspective: the relationship between the president and the head of the CIA. Turner documents how the various presidents (Truman through GW Bush) have taken many different positions toward the CIA. While some like Eisenhower and Kennedy wanted to use the CIA to "make things happen" in foreign countries, some like Johnson and Clinton were distrustful of the agency. Nixon and Reagan took a more hands-off approach, while the two Bushes greatly appreciated the importance of intelligence. Some CIA directors had constant contact with the president, most notably George Tenet under George W. Bush. Some had no contact at all, like James Woolsey under Clinton. But this book makes a bigger point: the relationship between the man in the Oval Office and the man leading the CIA directly correlates to the role of intelligence in the administrations policy-making process. This book is short, in no way a thorough history of the agency itself. But for what it is, it's a great study.

CIA CHIEF REVEALS EVERYTHING!

Admiral Stansfield Turner's 2005 tome is entitled `Burn Before Reading,' a tongue-in-cheek expose about the often tempestuous relationship between a DCI and his boss, the president, since the agency's creation as the main intelligence gathering agency for the executive branch. Turner's book offers a realistic, yet sometimes humorous examination of how the DCI works for his president and tries to explain the often combative relationship between each DCI and their respective boss. He candidly reveals that many chief executives did not trust or even like their CIA chief which seems odd because the DCI is hired and works at the president's own behest. He writes that Lyndon Johnson and Bill Clinton refused to see their DCI's on a regular basis and Richard Nixon had apparent contempt for his three DCI's whom he viewed as the enemy. The Watergate debacle occurred on Nixon's watch yet the true role of the CIA in that political scandal have never been fully explained. But, with Gerald Ford taking over after Nixon's resignation, the agency was forced to disclose the `family jewels' of its worldwide covert operations and the nation was appalled at what was revealed. The CIA was then blamed for all sorts of nefarious activities for the previous thirty years. Some were true, some were fanciful tales. Yet all put a negative light on those working in Langley. Turner writes that his own time as DCI under the newly elected and CIA reform minded Jimmy Carter in 1977 was a unique challenge because of the many changes in intelligence gathering as required by the new laws enacted by the Congress at that time in an attempt to restore the agency's credibility that took place during his watch. But he admits that while he was trying to make those changes he was in constant conflict with the military bureaucrats at the Pentagon who wanted matters done their particular way, even if it was to later prove detrimental to a president's specific policy. Turner's greatest accomplishment as DCI took place during the 1979-80 crisis with Iran when the CIA was able to get six of America's embassy personnel out of Tehran through subterfuge after the rest had been detained by the invading student hostage takers who had overrun the U.S. Embassy.

A Worthwhile Read

A great book describing Presidential relationships with their respective DCIs and the Intelligence Community. Hearing about the dynamics of these personal relationships and interactions beyond the shallow perceptions one gets from the media (printed, internet, television, talk shows) was very insightful and intriguing. The book would also give the general public a little more of a pause before jumping to conclusions, as they do when watching television news and just reading only headline news. Then again, our short attention spans and selective memories probably wouldn't allow this to happen. The book is a fast read and is worth your time.

A View From the Inside

From his position as Director of Central Intelligence during the Carter presidency Admiral Turner is able to present a view of the CIA from an inside that few of us have seen. In this book he reviews the relationship between the agency and the president that they served. Sometimes the relationship has been cordial, sometimes you would use other words. Over the years there have been successes and failures, with the failures getting a lot more press. While the main part of the book is a discussion of the relationship between each of the presidents since Truman and the agency, perhaps the most interesting part of the book is recommendations for strengthening the agency so that it provides more useful assistance to the Government. His basic proposal is for more of the same. More authority for the director, more budget (of course) more control of the other agencies. There is also a suggestion to tie togeather the fifteen or so agencies that currently collect information. Needless to say, the other agencies have different opinions. From an outsider point of view, the CIA has become very oriented to collecting intelligence from 'National Technical Means' that is satellites. This worked pretty well when the target was the Soviet Union. It has not worked so well against al Queda or Iraq. Changing the target, the procedures, the languages and perhaps some major changes in philosophy may be needed.

Useful to Congress, a President, or a Future DCI

This is a useful retrospective by Admiral Stansfield Turner, Director of Central Intelligence under President Jimmy Carter, but it is most useful if you are a Member of Congress, a sitting or future President, or perhaps being considered as a future DCI. For the general public, and even for intelligence professionals, this is an interesting personal recollection and evaluation that reflects a limited appreciation for the broader literature on intelligence reform and is less likely to be exciting to those seeking to understand the minutia of intelligence. It could be very useful to the public under one condition or rather one hope: that the public react to this book as I did, to wit, the author may not have intended this, but his superb tour of the relations between Presidents and Directors of Central (or in today's terms, National) Intelligence has persuaded me that our national intelligence community must be removed from the Executive Branch. We need a new hybrid national intelligence community in which the Director is simultaneously responsive to the President, to Governors, to Congress, and to the public. It's budget must be set as a fraction of the total disposable budget of the federal government, on the order of 1%. This agency must be completely impervious to Executive or Congressional abuse, and must act as a national objective source of truth upon which to discuss policy and acqusition and liaison options. A national board of overseers could be comprised of former Presidents, former Chairmen of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and former Leaders of the House and Senate, as well as selected representatives of the public. Intelligence is now too important to be subject to the whims of politics. Intelligence is the revolutionary source of wealth as well as conflict resolution, and this author has made it clear that most Presidents simply cannot be trusted to either manage it or listen to it with wisdom. I would go so far as to suggest that national science and education also require a similar form of hybrid oversight and management. This is not to say that each Executive agency should not have its own intelligence and information operations (I2O) capabilities and functions, only that intelligence and science, like justice, need a court of last resort that cannot be undermined by ideology and personality. This suggestion is probably too radical, BUT there is one opening for a first step: the DNI should recommend to the President and to Congress that the new planned Open Source Agency integrate the Library of Congress and be the first new hybrid organization, with the Director appointed for life, as are Supreme Court Justices. The author has done an excellent job, albeit with some obvious gaps and a few errors, in focusing on the relationships between Presidents and Directors of Central Intelligence. However, the book suffers from the author's understandable but incorrect assumption that national intelligence should remain focused on s