Book gives glimpse into post-9/11 CIA

Hard Measures, written by Puerto Rican-born Jose A. Rodriguez, Jr., is a fascinating book about his 31 years of service in the CIA.

His mission was to oversee the running of covert operations, the recruitment of spies and the theft of secrets on behalf of the United States. Eventually, he became its chief.

Often he had to make instant decisions concerning arrests around the world on his own, as waiting for consultation with Washington since “Washington” tends to respond in terms of “meetings, position papers, contingency planning and consulting the British.”

He goes into the problematic relations with the Pakistanis, giving specific examples of terrorists mysteriously disappearing and describing relations between our two nations as “fragile.”

Boldly, he writes: “when terrorists are taken out by blunt force by the American government, our ability to exploit their phones, computers and minds dies with them. The U.S. has chosen to unilaterally disarm itself in the war on terror; in writing this book there is no more urgent message I want to convey.”

As early as college and law school, Rodriguez decided he wanted to get into the CIA for “world travel, adventure and involvement in important matters.” This book contains all three.

After training, he had to learn the language of the foreign country he was sent to rather than relying on his native tongue, which, of course, was Spanish.

He writes of foreign affairs, particularly of methods of getting foreign spies to talk, providing interesting information on all kinds of CIA operations. He writes with great sincerity, sometimes with gentle irony and humor.

Following 9/11, the CIA was ordered to learn as much as possible about Osama Bin Laden and his organization, al-Qaeda, which they proceeded to do. He uses the capture of the terrorist Abu Zubaydah to explain the process of various levels of torture and their different purposes – along with histories of other terrorists and inquisitions.

Much of the waterboarding done by the U.S. government was recorded on tapes – which Rodriguez, for quite a few reasons, thought should be destroyed. Discussion on this issue took some three years to resolve and provides the book with a surprising ending.

Rodriguez gives us a great deal of information about the CIA and its interaction with politics in this extremely well-written book.

Book info:
Hard Measures
By Jose A. Rodriguez, Jr. with Bill Harlow
Threshold Editions, $27 

Posted by Rae Eastman on January 10, 2013. Filed under Arts and Entertainment,Book Reviews,Columns,Opinion. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry