Mary McCarthy Quotes
The likelihood of a cataclysmic warning failure is growing. Disaster looms!
On May 11, 1998, India exploded a nuclear bomb. The CIA and the NSA were caught flatfooted. They had no inkling of such an event, and found out about it when the Indian Government announced it. The entire world balance of power had shifted and the United States had no warning despite the fact that the Indian Prime Minister and other Officials had publicly stated that they were working on a nuclear bomb. The American Warning System had failed totally. That is what prompted McCarthy’s statement. However, many key people at the CIA were angry at their old colleague for so dramatically drawing attention to what they regarded as a slip up. Later, when she returned to the CIA, there was much contention and she was fired by Republican Director Porter Goss, but the details of the circumstances have never been made public.
Mary McCarthy, CIA intelligence analyst, National Intelligence Officer for Warning, Special Assistant to the President (William Clinton), Senior Director for Intelligence Programs, Member of the National Security Council, National Security Council Report, 1998
Sourced by: Eigen's Political and Historical Quotations
The intelligence agencies had in many cases not shared critical information with the oversight committees and the White House and in a number of cases actually lied to them.
Even the CIA and the other U. S. Intelligence missed predicting the Arab Spring, but so did the intelligence services of all our allies, Russia, China and even Israel which usually has the best intelligence in the Middle East. One of the reasons he argues is that media and technology played such an important role in facilitating the Arab Spring and the intelligence agencies do not really understand the new media world. The people who do some argue are too young to ever be in enough key positions in these agencies to have much influence.
He was the Station Chief During the Blackhawk Down Catastrophe.
Most of the successful intelligence agency administrators think that Cheney and some others are absolutely wrong that there should not be any discussion. There are times, of course, where secrecy is critical, but that does not mean that there cannot be classified discussion and coordination. Almost every one of the disastrous intelligence agency fiascos, could have been avoided if there were more and wider discussion in the planning. In many cases, Chaney, William Casey and others who hold their view prefer no discussions is that lawyers cannot block the operation on grounds of illegality. Or other agencies cannot get their priorities into the mix. If the NSA had discussed their plan to hack into the telephone calls of our most important allies with the State Department, the plan might not have gone through or if it had, the President would have been consulted. The Bay of Pigs was based on a set of assumptions that were not true and our government had a number of experts who could have debunked the assumptions the CIA planners were counting on which did not pan out.
Kay was chasing around Iraq trying to find the weapons that the George W. Bush administration had said definitely existed. Based on the weapons existence, the United States went to War in Iraq. No weapons were ever found.
When he became a candidate, he modified this position and stated that he would abolish both agencies spying on Americans activities but not necessarily abolish all the functions of the agency.
The CIA did not have a long tradition. It was created after WWII when the OSS was are espionage organization had been disbanded In the early days of the Cold War, the CIA went rogue and engaged in covert activities without the knowledge and approval of the President and his cabinet. General Maxwell Taylor conducted a thorough investigation and the agency was brought under control. There hav been several more incidents since then and every few years there have been additional scandals of unauthorized operations which were harmful to American interests and values. In a democracy it is always hard to control a secret organization. Actually, at the beginning of WWII, we had almost no espionage capability and President Roosevelt had a series of friends who provided him with intelligence until William Donavan had time to establish the OSS which did such a wonderful job.
Precursor to CIA. During WWII Donovan’s OSS, the FBI and the State Department had the three civilian intelligence organizations while each of the 4 Armed Services had their own intelligence services. Rarely did any of these 7 organizations communicate with any of the others. In the case of the OSS, the FBI and the military services tended to try and obstruct many of their operations. This was the first call for what became the CIA.
Mary Therese McCarthy was an American novelist, critic and political activist, best known for her novel The Group, her marriage to critic Edmund Wilson, and her storied feud with playwright Lillian Hellman.
