Aldrich Ames

I came into the Agency with a set of ideas and attitudes that were quite typical of people coming into read more

I came into the Agency with a set of ideas and attitudes that were quite typical of people coming into the Agency at that time. You could call it liberal anti-communism.

Because interrogations are intended to coerce confessions, interrogators feel themselves justified in using their coercive means. Consistency regarding the technique read more

Because interrogations are intended to coerce confessions, interrogators feel themselves justified in using their coercive means. Consistency regarding the technique is not important; inducing anxiety and fear is the point.

Historians don't really like to carry on speculative debates, but you could certainly argue that the likelihood of a Soviet read more

Historians don't really like to carry on speculative debates, but you could certainly argue that the likelihood of a Soviet invasion of Western Europe was extremely, extremely low.

An espionage organization is a collector: it collects raw information. That gets processed by a machinery that is supposed to read more

An espionage organization is a collector: it collects raw information. That gets processed by a machinery that is supposed to resolve its reliability, and to present a finished product.

Deciding whether to trust or credit a person is always an uncertain task.

Deciding whether to trust or credit a person is always an uncertain task.