The Human Factor by Ishmael Jones

[jmm99]

This is not quite the book I expected. I did not expect a Phillip Agee exposé; nor a legal brief; nor a dry treatise written by an analyst. I guess I expected a Bob Baer-type book, with more explicit assertion of policy (national strategy) considerations mixed in with the war stories.

The policy arguments are expressed in the Appendix (pp.355-361) in summary form; and some have been discussed here. They are here.

Keeping those points in mind as you read the book, you will see where he develops the evidence - but not point by point. It's not a legal brief, but a special kind of autobiography.

You can also glean some of the author's background, military career and CIA postings (all but OIF very generalized) from the book. IJ is very protective of his true name identity for good reasons (emphasized at various points in the book).

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Author's Note (p. vii)

"All individuals, unless they are public figures, are obscured in order to make it impossible to identify any CIA employee or agent. Dates and places of non-public events have been obscured or changed. No classified information, sources, or methods are revealed."

"Ishmael" supposedly was the nickname with which he was tagged during training. Taking him at his word above, his true nickname could be "Clint". Similarly, with all of the tags for sources and colleagues, the outsider would be hard-pressed to draw any firm conclusions. Was "Suspenders" really a wearer of suspenders, or was he really "Elephant Hide Belt" ? Was Jonah a red-haried male ? Dates and places should be treated in the same way - a café overlooking the Danube, or was it really the Vistula ? In short, this book may be inhabited by any number of legends - or maybe, only some of them are legends.

Here are some colleagues:

Loman (later, William Loman - i.e., "Willie Loman"), Roger, Max, Harry, Jonah, Moe, Godfather, Two Dog Dave, Worst Spy in the World, Andy, Sylvia, Charleton, Martin, Horace, Randy, Stefan, Bettie, Valerie;

and agents: The Twins (access agents), Dr. B (rogue state scientist).

That's through chap. 7. Now, I suppose it would be possible for an outsider to come up with something of a bio for many of these; but would it be a true bio or a legend ? Of course, to an insider of IJ's vintage, these characters (as described) might match real people.

The following did jump out at me and will to everyone else (p.137) [the context is 1996-1997, following the Ames-Nicholson flap]:

"A pretty blond woman named Valerie came into the office and sat down at our table. She said she had received a message to return to HQs and wondered what it was all about. Moments later, a group of managers beckoned her to join them in the conference room. "She's about to be purged," said the older man. Twenty minutes later, the woman returned, weeping softly."

And indeed (pp.253-255 & fns 43-46), IJ briefly addresses the Plame case from open-sources.

Disclosure is even less as to "information" derived by IJ from agents, who generally are unnamed and unlocated (the geography provided may be as legendary as some of the people).

Where the book may hit the reefs is not on its limited disclosure of "sources" and "information", but on disclosure of methods. The book is about 99% "methods" - broadly construed. In short, it's a "how to do" and "how not to do" book.

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Except for the open-source vignettes (supported by 66 footnotes) and a number of geographical and historical vignettes, the vast bulk of the book is devoted to how IJ recruited agents and obtained information; and how the CIA managers wanted him to recruit agents and obtain information. You also will get a lot on CIA personnel, approval, reporting and accounting policies, management levels, etc. - generalized at times, specific at other times.

What is classified or not is not my call.

How to set up the Ismael Jones Intel Service (as I glean it - so, in my words, not IJ's):

1. Get your domestic house and personal finances in absolute order.

2. Have 300-500K of your own money available to finance your operations.

3. Keep accurate financial records for reimbursement - eventually.

4. Build up a target list from all sources.

5. Seek approval of contacts by presenting risk-averse scenarios (even if not the expected reality); or present the contact as a "walk-in" (even if you contacted him first).

6. Contact directly in the normal course of business - make the cold call.

7. Fudge reports (as to contact details, not the information) to fit the picture wanted by agency management for "how to do".

There is a lot more - about which, opinions will differ. All in all, an interesting book - not sorry I bought the book - which I two-ferred with Bob Baer's new book on Iran. Since the book is now #20,921 in Books, neither the CIA nor the author is about to get rich.