What do you think?
Rate this book
The C.I. Desk: FBI and CIA Counterintelligence as Seen from My Cubicle
Book by Lynch, Christopher
- GenresEspionage
448 pages, Paperback
First published December 7, 2010
3 people are currently reading
53 people want to read
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
March 7, 2021
I worked in a similar field to Mr. Lynch's for another agency. The book was certainly entertaining to read and is one of the few fairly detailed books out there about FBI's and CIA's internal CI structure during that time. It was eerily similar to what I've experienced. However, the author does indeed come across as very negative. Although I could appreciate his "underdog" take on things (as CI practitioners are want to have), he basically complained about every job he had. It seems that he just simply didn't like to do anything in CIA outside of his very narrow specialty of writing CI reviews to protect the agency's HUMINT operations. That is a CI mission, but certainly not the only one.
More to that point, his condescending attitude toward his fellow CI Center (CIC) analysts in the Directorate of Intelligence (DI) component was disappointing. That element was one of the few U.S. Government organizations responsible for true all-source CI analysis on foreign intelligence services (which, according to the author, he wanted to do being chronically disrespected at FBI). CIC's production cycle was slower and more deliberate because their work could go as high as the President. That slower pace was an intentional feature, not a shortcoming. Their mission, like the rest of DI, had far more strategic impact than writing quick-turn CI "op-eds" for HUMINT cases. I couldn't help but feel like the author had a career-long identity crisis of having a DI personality while awkwardly trying to fit into the DO the whole time. Maybe he would have had a more fulfilling career if he stuck to CIC's analytical group instead of constantly setting himself up to be subordinated to case officers.
More to that point, his condescending attitude toward his fellow CI Center (CIC) analysts in the Directorate of Intelligence (DI) component was disappointing. That element was one of the few U.S. Government organizations responsible for true all-source CI analysis on foreign intelligence services (which, according to the author, he wanted to do being chronically disrespected at FBI). CIC's production cycle was slower and more deliberate because their work could go as high as the President. That slower pace was an intentional feature, not a shortcoming. Their mission, like the rest of DI, had far more strategic impact than writing quick-turn CI "op-eds" for HUMINT cases. I couldn't help but feel like the author had a career-long identity crisis of having a DI personality while awkwardly trying to fit into the DO the whole time. Maybe he would have had a more fulfilling career if he stuck to CIC's analytical group instead of constantly setting himself up to be subordinated to case officers.
February 28, 2021
This was a bit agonizing to read. The author comes off as negative, cynical, and a classic bore. All of that was reflected in this book.
March 6, 2014
Of limited interested to those unfamiliar with the bureaucracies the author describes.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews