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There is certainly a fascinating book (or books) to be written about the Central
Intelligence Agency's work in satellite technology, photo reconnaissance, eavesdropping,
clandestine spying and other such spooky subjects --- but THE WIZARDS OF LANGLEY is not
it.
Author Jeffrey T. Richelson's credentials are solid. He has a Ph.D. in political science,
is a senior fellow at the National Security Archive in Washington and has written several
other books on the same general subject. But here he has produced a book that makes a
potentially fascinating subject seem dull indeed.
Perhaps Richelson is actually too close to his subject. He seems endlessly fascinated with
the arcane turf wars and jurisdictional disputes between the CIA and the military, or
within the CIA bureaucracy itself, that have raged almost since the day the agency was
created in 1962. This becomes a dominant theme of his book, getting in the way of his
account of the agency's work. It is the sort of thing that might be of passing interest
only to those whose careers were directly involved; to the lay reader interested in CIA
matters, it just creates a wasteland of flat and pretty much irrelevant detail.
Richelson tries gamely to animate his account, but his prose is hardly inspired. Despite
his efforts, the people involved seldom become rounded human beings. They seem merely
pawns in the bureaucratic chess game that so fascinates him. And his pages are overrun
with that besetting sin of so many books on military matters, a bewildering mass of
acronyms that infest the book like literary crabgrass in which the reader quickly feels
trapped.
Richelson seems aware of this problem, for he has provided an appendix listing 137
different acronyms --- though missing from that list is my personal favorite: Possible
Nuclear Underground Test Site (PNUTS). If a name is needed for this addiction of the
military (and of government in general) to alphabetic abbreviations, may I propose
"acronymphomania?"
Another problem, perhaps unavoidable but no less annoying, is the book's emphasis, at the
expense of narrative flow, on technical details of the various satellites, space cameras,
and other devices developed by and for the CIA. More inside baseball for the initiate
rather than compelling storytelling for the general reader.
The book is not, to be sure, a total loss. Occasional episodes stir briefly to life ---
the complex maneuverings needed to spirit six Americans out of Iran at the height of the
1980-81 hostage crisis; accounts of three or four agency employees who betrayed secrets to
other countries; entertainingly loony accounts of CIA attempts to make spies out of cats,
birds, and human psychics (one cat, wired to the max with eavesdropping gear, was taken
out on a Washington street for a test run and promptly run over by a passing taxi). And
there are a few felicitous turns of phrase, such as Richelson's reference to legendary
"Area 51" in the Nevada desert, a spot so beloved by UFO hobbyists, as "the
world's most famous top-secret base."
Richelson has been conscientious to a fault. His 50 pages of source notes and vast
bibliography show the thoroughness of his research, but the resulting book simply does not
make his subject very interesting.
--- Reviewed by Robert Finn (Robertfinn@aol.com)
© Copyright 1996-2009, Bookreporter.com. All rights reserved.
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