A s most government analysts know, in the tedious process of winnowing useful intelligence from mounds of often unrelated information the trickiest step is that of evaluation. It is even trickier trying to evaluate books about the evaluators. The titles here under review are largely concerned with an appraisal of the merits and shortcomings not only of our own foreign espionage organization, the Central Intelligence Agency, but those of several other nations; so, when the authors indulge in what are demonstrably well-pondered judgments for praise or blame, one must bear in mind that none of them has, on the record, ever served time in “the intelligence community.”
The Secret War: The Story of International Espionage since World War II, by Sanche de Gramont. Putnam, $5.95
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