The Protracted Conflict

JAMES BURNHAM

Nobody seems left to say a good word for the poor old Central Intelligence Agency. There’s no doubting that a scapegoat is a convenient beast to have at hand, groveling at our feet, on which to toss the blame for the Bay of Pigs, Vietnam, Latin American dictators, the Kennedy assassination, apartheid, the cold war, lousy mail service, and Watergate. Even if you decline to join the lynching party, you’ve got to admit that an intelligence agency that didn’t notice Egypt’s 1973 buildup and kept a creep like Philip Agee on its payroll for a decade can’t be quite perfect.

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JAMES BURNHAM

Nobody seems left to say a good word for the poor old Central Intelligence Agency. There’s no doubting that a scapegoat is a convenient beast to have at hand, groveling at our feet, on which to toss the blame for the Bay of Pigs, Vietnam, Latin American dictators, the Kennedy assassination, apartheid, the cold war, lousy mail service, and Watergate. Even if you decline to join the lynching party, you’ve got to admit that an intelligence agency that didn’t notice Egypt’s 1973 buildup and kept a creep like Philip Agee on its payroll for a decade can’t be quite perfect.