your friend confirmed my impression from the book as to IJ's character - very much a straight-arrow who is not "on a mission", but who has some very strong views on the agency's shortcomings - as he perceives them. I also thought (my perception) that he was a bit naive - not in his intelligence tradecraft, but in his political tradecraft.

A lot of this is consumer-driven. The Executive and/or Legislative want X (and usually far more X than is needed - and in a hurry). So, a Potemkin Village is built for a lot of $ - and nothing in substance changes. Having 90% of NOCs based in the US doing make-work (if true, as IJ claims) is obviously nuts.

Things looked better during Eisenhower, where DoS and CIA (via Dulles brothers) were part of the Breakfast Club. However, brickbats (some valid, some not) were thrown then, as well. Implementation of long-term solutions has been difficult, since some of the solutions have had blowback worse than the problems supposedly solved.