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Facts and Fears: Hard Truths from a Life in Intelligence
The former Director of National Intelligence speaks out
When he stepped down in January 2017 as the fourth United States Director of National Intelligence, James Clapper had been President Obama's senior intelligence advisor for six and a half years, a period that included such critical events as the discovery of Osama bin Laden, the leaks of Edward Snowden, the Benghazi attack, and Russia's influence on the 2016 U.S election. In Facts and Fears Clapper traces his career through his rise in ranks of the military, the history of several decades of national intelligence operations, the growing threat of cyberattacks, his relationships with presidents and Congress, and the truth about Russia's role in the presidential election. He describes, in the wake of Snowden and WikiLeaks, his efforts to make intelligence more transparent and to push back against the suspicion that Americans' private lives are subject to surveillance.
Clapper considers such difficult questions as, is intelligence ethical? Is it moral to use human sources to learn secrets, to intercept communications, to take pictures of closed societies from orbit? What are the limits of what we should be allowed to do? What protections should we give to the private citizens of the world, not to mention our fellow Americans? Is there a time that intelligence officers can lose credibility as unbiased reporters of hard truths by asserting themselves into policy decisions?
When he stepped down in January 2017 as the fourth United States Director of National Intelligence, James Clapper had been President Obama's senior intelligence advisor for six and a half years, a period that included such critical events as the discovery of Osama bin Laden, the leaks of Edward Snowden, the Benghazi attack, and Russia's influence on the 2016 U.S election. In Facts and Fears Clapper traces his career through his rise in ranks of the military, the history of several decades of national intelligence operations, the growing threat of cyberattacks, his relationships with presidents and Congress, and the truth about Russia's role in the presidential election. He describes, in the wake of Snowden and WikiLeaks, his efforts to make intelligence more transparent and to push back against the suspicion that Americans' private lives are subject to surveillance.
Clapper considers such difficult questions as, is intelligence ethical? Is it moral to use human sources to learn secrets, to intercept communications, to take pictures of closed societies from orbit? What are the limits of what we should be allowed to do? What protections should we give to the private citizens of the world, not to mention our fellow Americans? Is there a time that intelligence officers can lose credibility as unbiased reporters of hard truths by asserting themselves into policy decisions?
432 pages, Hardcover
First published May 22, 2018
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June 29, 2018
Facts and Fears: Hard Truths from a Life in Intelligence by James R. Clapper is a book I had heard a lot about and wanted to read but really I was worried it was going to be dry and boring, boy was I wrong. He looks so calm and ... sorry, but drab, I know that exciting story is he going to tell me? Well, I need to eat that piece of humble pie now, even this man's childhood was exciting! His life would make a great movie! This book talks about life growing up and his life all the way to now, it was certainly not boring! His college life, service life, the many colorful people he met, and so much more. I got this book from the library but I wish I had the money to buy it, it had some good lines I would have liked to highlighted. Recommend to all! Especially now in this day and age!
June 12, 2018
James Clapper has had a very long career in intelligence collection and he goes through it all for us here. He’s had practically every job out there in leadership in this field, capping his career as Director of National Intelligence. The DNI serves as head of the now seventeen U.S. intelligence collection agencies, and advises the National Security Council which advises the president. Listening to Mark Bramhall narrate the audio of this autobiography, it is easy to see why Clapper had such a long and successful career in government. He gets along well with others.
Most others. Clapper freely coruscates Congressional Republicans who used government policy or intelligence outcomes to lash out politically at their opponents (Democrats in office), and he spares no pity for Snowden, Poitras, and Greenwald in their pursuit of borderless-ness in secrets uncovered during surveillance.
Which led me to a queer insight: Greenwald as a journalist does as much spying on government as it does on him. Both want the other side’s secrets uncovered and their own preserved�(“only I can preserve individual liberty…�) Snowden was most outspoken about individual rights, and therefore on the far right of America’s political spectrum, and yet he chose a far-left journalist to reveal his secrets to. Strange bedfellows. I was never completely onboard with Snowden or Greenwald but I think Clapper does himself and his agency a disservice by not acknowledging that these folks provided a corrective to potentially invasive intelligence collection, a fact he does in fact make near the end of this very long book.
I picked up this book because I read a coupe of interesting conclusions he’d come to in his nearly sixty years in office, but i wasn’t expecting such a long recitation of every job in his long career. It struck me at the start that an intelligence chief is an unlikely one to write a tell-all. By the end of his career Clapper acknowledges that the secret aspect of intelligence doesn't have as much cache as it used to, and agrees that it is probably for the best that their activities are out in the open. If you don't mind my saying, this is a result of those men and women who forced this information to be revealed, and yes, it probably is for the better in some ways. Clapper doesn’t seem to hold back on describing the reporting responsibilities and personalities in the agencies he headed, which should save foreign governments time trying to work it all out.
Clapper claims one reason he wrote this book is to want to encourage interested young people to join the intelligence community. The other reason would undoubtedly be countering the criticism he has gotten as a critical person in major intelligence successes and failures of the past forty years. His last posting as Director of the Office of National Intelligence sounds kind of a bum job: no power but lots of responsibility to make sure all intelligence departments are singing off the same sheet of music. That’s the kind of job they give you if you last long enough in a sea of sharks. Big enough to blame, old enough to bury.
There is no doubt that Clapper had a congenial personality and was able to hold his own among those who did not self-destruct over the years. Anyone’s career that lasted sixty years is worth listening to, I reckon. In my opinion, he gave himself more credit than he should have for allowing gay and trans individuals to serve in the military and intelligence services--after all, this was a very long time coming and too late anyhow. It was a real shock to most Americans not directly attached to the military to discover how many individuals had been undergoing sex-change treatment before Chelsea Manning put a spotlight on the fact.
This book is necessary for anyone interested in intelligence as a career, or anyone who wants to know how we got from there to here. I listened to the audio, read by Mark Bramhall and produced by Penguin Audio. Viking produced the hardcover.
Most others. Clapper freely coruscates Congressional Republicans who used government policy or intelligence outcomes to lash out politically at their opponents (Democrats in office), and he spares no pity for Snowden, Poitras, and Greenwald in their pursuit of borderless-ness in secrets uncovered during surveillance.
Which led me to a queer insight: Greenwald as a journalist does as much spying on government as it does on him. Both want the other side’s secrets uncovered and their own preserved�(“only I can preserve individual liberty…�) Snowden was most outspoken about individual rights, and therefore on the far right of America’s political spectrum, and yet he chose a far-left journalist to reveal his secrets to. Strange bedfellows. I was never completely onboard with Snowden or Greenwald but I think Clapper does himself and his agency a disservice by not acknowledging that these folks provided a corrective to potentially invasive intelligence collection, a fact he does in fact make near the end of this very long book.
I picked up this book because I read a coupe of interesting conclusions he’d come to in his nearly sixty years in office, but i wasn’t expecting such a long recitation of every job in his long career. It struck me at the start that an intelligence chief is an unlikely one to write a tell-all. By the end of his career Clapper acknowledges that the secret aspect of intelligence doesn't have as much cache as it used to, and agrees that it is probably for the best that their activities are out in the open. If you don't mind my saying, this is a result of those men and women who forced this information to be revealed, and yes, it probably is for the better in some ways. Clapper doesn’t seem to hold back on describing the reporting responsibilities and personalities in the agencies he headed, which should save foreign governments time trying to work it all out.
Clapper claims one reason he wrote this book is to want to encourage interested young people to join the intelligence community. The other reason would undoubtedly be countering the criticism he has gotten as a critical person in major intelligence successes and failures of the past forty years. His last posting as Director of the Office of National Intelligence sounds kind of a bum job: no power but lots of responsibility to make sure all intelligence departments are singing off the same sheet of music. That’s the kind of job they give you if you last long enough in a sea of sharks. Big enough to blame, old enough to bury.
There is no doubt that Clapper had a congenial personality and was able to hold his own among those who did not self-destruct over the years. Anyone’s career that lasted sixty years is worth listening to, I reckon. In my opinion, he gave himself more credit than he should have for allowing gay and trans individuals to serve in the military and intelligence services--after all, this was a very long time coming and too late anyhow. It was a real shock to most Americans not directly attached to the military to discover how many individuals had been undergoing sex-change treatment before Chelsea Manning put a spotlight on the fact.
This book is necessary for anyone interested in intelligence as a career, or anyone who wants to know how we got from there to here. I listened to the audio, read by Mark Bramhall and produced by Penguin Audio. Viking produced the hardcover.
January 19, 2021
This is a preliminary review, as I am only 120 pages into this 422-page book. My rating 4 stars is also preliminary.
So why do I not wait to write this review until I will have finished reading this book?
Here is the reason: I can only stomach 1 to 2 pages of this book at a time, so heaven knows whether or not I’ll live long enough to finish reading this book. While 12 pages of this memoir are Clapper’s very readable recollections of his life as a “military brat�, the narration of his life as an adult becomes at times so unreadable that I feel like smacking James Clapper with his book. Yet this would be unfair. It is not his fault. It’s the fault of the system, a system he was born into and into which he grew roots. I consider James Clapper a decent person, who, against all odds, has been committed all his life to serve the country. And what I particularly like about him is that--unlike many other people in leading positions--he accepts accountability and doesn't shy away from self-criticism.--Sorry I have to interrupt now, as I have to write a very important letter:
Dear God,
I hate to bother you, but I have a massive complaint against one of your saints, namely, Saint Bureaukrates. He has been meddling for many decades with the American government system. Not only has he goofed up the military to a point that I consider it incapable of successfully waging any war, but he also has his not-so-holy fingers in the administration, the congress, and just about every government or government-related agency, association, bureau, center, commission, committee, corps, council, department, institution, office, operation, organization, project, and service you can possibly find. Not only that. Your Saint Bureaukrates has infested the whole system—military and non-military—with intelligence facilities (call them agencies, bureaus, offices, services, or whatever), which are just about as compatible with each other as our 4 old chickens, who no longer lay eggs but spend their days pecking on each other, while causing expense. And it gets worse. While these intelligence facilities are causing expense—lots of expense!—your unholy saint has caused the system to continuously integrating several of these intelligence facilities while disintegrating others and starting all over when one such project is finished; all this while continuously renaming newly created or integrated facilities as well as old, unaltered facilities. And if there is nothing to rename, at least, the abbreviation of the name will be changed, which will require new stationary and emblems—all, of course, with taxpayers� money! I wonder when these intelligence facilities ever find time to do any actual work.
There is so much more to tell about Saint Bureaukrates� harmful meddling with the American government system. Therefore, dear God, I urge you to read the above book yourself. I am sure this will convince you that you need to expel Saint Bureaukrates from your court of saints. If you allow me to make a recommendation, I suggest to send Saint Bureaukrates down to the basement and let him reorganize hell, which, as all bureaucratic endeavors, is a permanent job and can keep him and all occupants of hell busy for the remainder of eternity. This will not only give the American government system a chance to recover over time but will also fully occupy Luzifer and his ally devils and, thus, save not only America but our whole planet from Luzifer’s evil activities on earth.
I trust, dear God, that you will be doing the right thing to save America, so that it will again earn to be called “The Land of the Free� and the saying that “America is the Land of Unlimited Possibilities� will no longer mean “unlimited stupid possibilities�.
Yours truly,
Lilo Huhle-Poelzl
Dear reader of my preliminary review, thank you for staying with me while I wrote this important letter.
So should you read the above book? My answer:
If you have ever been with the U.S. military or have held a U.S. government job, I would say, it is safe for you to read this book. You are probably immune to much or all of this bureaucratic stupidity. So reading this book is not likely to cause you any physical or mental health issues.
If you have never been exposed to any substantial bureaucratic stupidity yet are very resilient, I would still advise you to read this book, as it is an enlightening experience to learn how the American system works (or rather, in most cases, doesn’t work). However, I would strongly advise you to read this book in very small installments, as more than 2 pages at a time might cause you serious health damage.
Will I finish reading this book? I am not sure yet. Even though I have experienced German bureaucracy while living in Germany (a bit more than half of my 81 years) and I have seen and enjoyed the wonderful Cuban comedy-movie “Death of a Bureaucrat�, I might not be prepared for much more of American bureaucracy, should James Clapper’s book continue reading like a farce. I am afraid that, at some point, I might start screaming until an ambulance will come and haul me off to the next major hospital that features a psychiatric ward.
So why do I not wait to write this review until I will have finished reading this book?
Here is the reason: I can only stomach 1 to 2 pages of this book at a time, so heaven knows whether or not I’ll live long enough to finish reading this book. While 12 pages of this memoir are Clapper’s very readable recollections of his life as a “military brat�, the narration of his life as an adult becomes at times so unreadable that I feel like smacking James Clapper with his book. Yet this would be unfair. It is not his fault. It’s the fault of the system, a system he was born into and into which he grew roots. I consider James Clapper a decent person, who, against all odds, has been committed all his life to serve the country. And what I particularly like about him is that--unlike many other people in leading positions--he accepts accountability and doesn't shy away from self-criticism.--Sorry I have to interrupt now, as I have to write a very important letter:
Dear God,
I hate to bother you, but I have a massive complaint against one of your saints, namely, Saint Bureaukrates. He has been meddling for many decades with the American government system. Not only has he goofed up the military to a point that I consider it incapable of successfully waging any war, but he also has his not-so-holy fingers in the administration, the congress, and just about every government or government-related agency, association, bureau, center, commission, committee, corps, council, department, institution, office, operation, organization, project, and service you can possibly find. Not only that. Your Saint Bureaukrates has infested the whole system—military and non-military—with intelligence facilities (call them agencies, bureaus, offices, services, or whatever), which are just about as compatible with each other as our 4 old chickens, who no longer lay eggs but spend their days pecking on each other, while causing expense. And it gets worse. While these intelligence facilities are causing expense—lots of expense!—your unholy saint has caused the system to continuously integrating several of these intelligence facilities while disintegrating others and starting all over when one such project is finished; all this while continuously renaming newly created or integrated facilities as well as old, unaltered facilities. And if there is nothing to rename, at least, the abbreviation of the name will be changed, which will require new stationary and emblems—all, of course, with taxpayers� money! I wonder when these intelligence facilities ever find time to do any actual work.
There is so much more to tell about Saint Bureaukrates� harmful meddling with the American government system. Therefore, dear God, I urge you to read the above book yourself. I am sure this will convince you that you need to expel Saint Bureaukrates from your court of saints. If you allow me to make a recommendation, I suggest to send Saint Bureaukrates down to the basement and let him reorganize hell, which, as all bureaucratic endeavors, is a permanent job and can keep him and all occupants of hell busy for the remainder of eternity. This will not only give the American government system a chance to recover over time but will also fully occupy Luzifer and his ally devils and, thus, save not only America but our whole planet from Luzifer’s evil activities on earth.
I trust, dear God, that you will be doing the right thing to save America, so that it will again earn to be called “The Land of the Free� and the saying that “America is the Land of Unlimited Possibilities� will no longer mean “unlimited stupid possibilities�.
Yours truly,
Lilo Huhle-Poelzl
Dear reader of my preliminary review, thank you for staying with me while I wrote this important letter.
So should you read the above book? My answer:
If you have ever been with the U.S. military or have held a U.S. government job, I would say, it is safe for you to read this book. You are probably immune to much or all of this bureaucratic stupidity. So reading this book is not likely to cause you any physical or mental health issues.
If you have never been exposed to any substantial bureaucratic stupidity yet are very resilient, I would still advise you to read this book, as it is an enlightening experience to learn how the American system works (or rather, in most cases, doesn’t work). However, I would strongly advise you to read this book in very small installments, as more than 2 pages at a time might cause you serious health damage.
Will I finish reading this book? I am not sure yet. Even though I have experienced German bureaucracy while living in Germany (a bit more than half of my 81 years) and I have seen and enjoyed the wonderful Cuban comedy-movie “Death of a Bureaucrat�, I might not be prepared for much more of American bureaucracy, should James Clapper’s book continue reading like a farce. I am afraid that, at some point, I might start screaming until an ambulance will come and haul me off to the next major hospital that features a psychiatric ward.
July 22, 2018
This is the memoir of James Robert Clapper (1941- ). Clapper is a retired Lieutenant General of the United States Air Force. He was Director of National Intelligence (2010-2016), Director of Defense Intelligence (1992-1995), Director of the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (2001-2006), Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence (2007-2010).
Clapper wanted to attend a military academy but he failed to meet the vision requirements. He joined the U.S. Marine Corp Reserve then after a time he transferred to ROTC at the University of Maryland. I noted that General Colin Powell and General Michael Hayden also were ROTC graduates. After graduation he joined the Air Force and later got his masters at St. Mary’s University. He also graduated from Air Command and Staff College and the Air War College. Clapper says his father was an Intelligence Officer and he wanted to follow in his steps. I am impressed by both Clapper and his wife Sue’s dedication to service of country and military. Both of them were children of career military parents.
The book is well written. Clapper does a good job explaining how the intelligence community works and interacts with Congress. He is very candid with his observations and sheds light on how intelligence works. He is objective and does not hesitate to point out his mistakes as well as successes. He notes that an intelligence office is to provide unbiased facts only. I was most interested in his comments about Leon Panetta, Diane Feinstein and Claire McCaskill. I found the book helpful in understanding what’s going on today. Clapper also provided insight on the conflict between civil liberties and federal intrusions. The section where Clapper uses the evaluation they apply to other countries and applied it to our county, I found fascinating. Clapper also explains how the intelligence agencies work. I found the section about the budget interesting. He also explains how the Russian interfered with the election.
Clapper did not write the book all by himself; he used Trey Brown a former military speech writer to help him. Mark Bramhall does a good job narrating the book. Bramhall is an actor and award-winning audiobook narrator. The book is almost nineteen hours.
Clapper wanted to attend a military academy but he failed to meet the vision requirements. He joined the U.S. Marine Corp Reserve then after a time he transferred to ROTC at the University of Maryland. I noted that General Colin Powell and General Michael Hayden also were ROTC graduates. After graduation he joined the Air Force and later got his masters at St. Mary’s University. He also graduated from Air Command and Staff College and the Air War College. Clapper says his father was an Intelligence Officer and he wanted to follow in his steps. I am impressed by both Clapper and his wife Sue’s dedication to service of country and military. Both of them were children of career military parents.
The book is well written. Clapper does a good job explaining how the intelligence community works and interacts with Congress. He is very candid with his observations and sheds light on how intelligence works. He is objective and does not hesitate to point out his mistakes as well as successes. He notes that an intelligence office is to provide unbiased facts only. I was most interested in his comments about Leon Panetta, Diane Feinstein and Claire McCaskill. I found the book helpful in understanding what’s going on today. Clapper also provided insight on the conflict between civil liberties and federal intrusions. The section where Clapper uses the evaluation they apply to other countries and applied it to our county, I found fascinating. Clapper also explains how the intelligence agencies work. I found the section about the budget interesting. He also explains how the Russian interfered with the election.
Clapper did not write the book all by himself; he used Trey Brown a former military speech writer to help him. Mark Bramhall does a good job narrating the book. Bramhall is an actor and award-winning audiobook narrator. The book is almost nineteen hours.
Read
January 3, 2024My view of the intelligence services was formed during the Church hearings in 1975, and all the bad opinions I held then were only affirmed when the news about the CIA's extreme rendition (kidnapping) and extreme interrogation (torture) protocols broke following 9/11.
But then I heard James Clapper talking about his work in the IC (Intelligence Community) and he sounded like a pretty decent guy trying to do an impossible job. So I read his book, Facts and Fears: Hard Truths from a Life in Intelligence. In outlook it reminded me a lot of James Comey’s biography, A Higher Truth. Neither man is a politician. Comey is a better storyteller and Clapper digs down into the details, but both men appear to be dedicated to speaking truth to power. It was interesting to me how bothered both men were by Trump’s inflation of the number of people who attended his inauguration.
Clapper is unsparing in criticizing his own mistakes, some of which were doozies (WMD in Iraq, for example). But he learned from that and other failures, specifically that at least in part the cause of those failures was the way the intelligence bureaucracies regarded the proprietary nature of intelligence; in other words, that they weren’t sharing what they learned with each other. From then on Clapper’s mission was to ensure that, going forward, they do.
The chapter on Benghazi is essential reading. It never occurred to me to wonder why Ambassador Chris Stevens put himself into harm’s way, and the fog of deliberate political obfuscation by the various Congressional committees investigating Benghazi essentially ensured that the truth never will be known. He doesn’t have much nice to say about the current Congress but he backs up his criticism with an insider’s view of how the sausage gets made in the chapter “Consumed by Money.� It’s pretty painful to read, and if nothing else it will certainly drive you to the voting booth. The stupefyingly ignorant and self-serving questions he receives when he testifies before Congress will, too (including one from my own senator, Dan Sullivan, joy).
And Clapper convinced me absolutely that the Russians interfered in the 2016 election, although they never expected Trump to win
On Election Day, November 8, no one really believed Mr. Trump had a chance—including the Russians, who had never pivoted back to promoting him, and who, it could be argued, gave Green Party candidate jill Stein more favorable coverage. On election night, they’d planned a multi-faceted campaign to discredit Clinton’s win, with the Twitter hashtag #DemocracyRIP.
and they are without question continuing to interfere in our politics today.
The Russians are astutely and persistently exploiting this divisiveness with every controversial issue they can identify, and regrettably, we are a very inviting target for them as they target both sides of every issue…To be clear, the Russians are our primary existential threat. All those nuclear weapons they have or are developing are intended for only one adversary: the United States.
Clapper is famous for the phrase “Everything will be okay,� but on December 12, 2016
…I…picked up the speech I had planned to deliver Wednesday at a dinner in my honor, when I was scheduled to address INSA, the large intelligence industry association whose predecessor I’m been president of in the 1990s. My talk was � once again � built around the reassuring phrase, “It’ll be okay.� I can my speechwriter into the office, handed him the speech, and told him, “I don’t think I can say this anymore.�
An eye-witness account from a front-row seat to recent history, and very much worth reading.
But then I heard James Clapper talking about his work in the IC (Intelligence Community) and he sounded like a pretty decent guy trying to do an impossible job. So I read his book, Facts and Fears: Hard Truths from a Life in Intelligence. In outlook it reminded me a lot of James Comey’s biography, A Higher Truth. Neither man is a politician. Comey is a better storyteller and Clapper digs down into the details, but both men appear to be dedicated to speaking truth to power. It was interesting to me how bothered both men were by Trump’s inflation of the number of people who attended his inauguration.
Clapper is unsparing in criticizing his own mistakes, some of which were doozies (WMD in Iraq, for example). But he learned from that and other failures, specifically that at least in part the cause of those failures was the way the intelligence bureaucracies regarded the proprietary nature of intelligence; in other words, that they weren’t sharing what they learned with each other. From then on Clapper’s mission was to ensure that, going forward, they do.
The chapter on Benghazi is essential reading. It never occurred to me to wonder why Ambassador Chris Stevens put himself into harm’s way, and the fog of deliberate political obfuscation by the various Congressional committees investigating Benghazi essentially ensured that the truth never will be known. He doesn’t have much nice to say about the current Congress but he backs up his criticism with an insider’s view of how the sausage gets made in the chapter “Consumed by Money.� It’s pretty painful to read, and if nothing else it will certainly drive you to the voting booth. The stupefyingly ignorant and self-serving questions he receives when he testifies before Congress will, too (including one from my own senator, Dan Sullivan, joy).
And Clapper convinced me absolutely that the Russians interfered in the 2016 election, although they never expected Trump to win
On Election Day, November 8, no one really believed Mr. Trump had a chance—including the Russians, who had never pivoted back to promoting him, and who, it could be argued, gave Green Party candidate jill Stein more favorable coverage. On election night, they’d planned a multi-faceted campaign to discredit Clinton’s win, with the Twitter hashtag #DemocracyRIP.
and they are without question continuing to interfere in our politics today.
The Russians are astutely and persistently exploiting this divisiveness with every controversial issue they can identify, and regrettably, we are a very inviting target for them as they target both sides of every issue…To be clear, the Russians are our primary existential threat. All those nuclear weapons they have or are developing are intended for only one adversary: the United States.
Clapper is famous for the phrase “Everything will be okay,� but on December 12, 2016
…I…picked up the speech I had planned to deliver Wednesday at a dinner in my honor, when I was scheduled to address INSA, the large intelligence industry association whose predecessor I’m been president of in the 1990s. My talk was � once again � built around the reassuring phrase, “It’ll be okay.� I can my speechwriter into the office, handed him the speech, and told him, “I don’t think I can say this anymore.�
An eye-witness account from a front-row seat to recent history, and very much worth reading.
May 26, 2018
A book that everyone, no matter what party should read
The beginning of this book is a Birdseye view of something few of us see. Two generations giving their life, and in a sense the lives of their families to the service of our country. Service to protect us. General Clapper wrote this book and does media interviews to try to give honest information as best he can within the constraints of material being classified. He followed his father in a lifetime of protecting Americans. If you enjoy a review of out nations history, this book gives you that. When he gets to recent years, it’s not just history that we obviously can’t change. He gives us an insight of the current situation of the Russian threat to our elections - something we need to know. No matter what party you are affiliated with. We need to aggressively monitor and stop the infiltration of Russia into our US cyber soil.
Thanks to General Clapper for writing this “must read�
I would recommend it to anyone.
The beginning of this book is a Birdseye view of something few of us see. Two generations giving their life, and in a sense the lives of their families to the service of our country. Service to protect us. General Clapper wrote this book and does media interviews to try to give honest information as best he can within the constraints of material being classified. He followed his father in a lifetime of protecting Americans. If you enjoy a review of out nations history, this book gives you that. When he gets to recent years, it’s not just history that we obviously can’t change. He gives us an insight of the current situation of the Russian threat to our elections - something we need to know. No matter what party you are affiliated with. We need to aggressively monitor and stop the infiltration of Russia into our US cyber soil.
Thanks to General Clapper for writing this “must read�
I would recommend it to anyone.
Shelved as 'wish-list'
May 23, 2018Rachel Maddow shares a passage from former DNI James Clapper's new book, "Facts and Fears," in which he describes the effect of the massive Russian propaganda campaign in support of Donald Trump in the 2016 election.May.23.2018
December 29, 2019
Clapper’s story starts with the surprisingly roundabout adventures of his time in the military (a career in Air Force intelligence that began with being commissioned in the Marine Corps among other things). However, once he begins managing intelligence organizations as a senior military officer and a civilian, the story becomes rather tedious as he describes his bureaucratic battles with congressional representatives, the media, and other government departments.
The narrative becomes re-invigorated as Clapper synthesizes a series of complex issues without superfluous tangents such as: the history of Russian/Soviet interference in US elections, the marginalization of voters that brought Donald Trump to the Presidency, and the rise and fall of Mike Flynn.
I think his most helpful insight is that the primary goal of the Russian operation to interfere in the 2016 election was not the propagation of lies so much as to convince the electorate that many basic truths are “unknowable�.
While I might recommend this book for some of Clapper’s insights on the events over the last few years, the reader will need to be patient about reaching this point.
The narrative becomes re-invigorated as Clapper synthesizes a series of complex issues without superfluous tangents such as: the history of Russian/Soviet interference in US elections, the marginalization of voters that brought Donald Trump to the Presidency, and the rise and fall of Mike Flynn.
I think his most helpful insight is that the primary goal of the Russian operation to interfere in the 2016 election was not the propagation of lies so much as to convince the electorate that many basic truths are “unknowable�.
While I might recommend this book for some of Clapper’s insights on the events over the last few years, the reader will need to be patient about reaching this point.
August 14, 2018
While I doubt Mr. Clapper and I share the same philosophy on who to vote for (except perhaps the last presidential election), I do completely respect his service to our country. This book is one more piece of service. He is genuinely alarmed at the unprecedented way the Russians are interfering with our elections and in undermining the confidence Americans have in their government and governmental institutions so wrote this book, I think, primarily to share this fear. He is angered and annoyed by how trump has treated the intelligence community and Comey in particular. He is much more upset and worried about the Russian invasion of our country and meddling to disrupt our country. The Russians have an unprecedented invasion into our cyberspace. I get the impression that FB is the least of it. Beware of any organization called RT! That stands for Russia Today and is likely at least highly influenced by what Putin wants it to say and do. He does point blank state that he feels Putin wanted to directly hurt Hilary Clinton for a remark she made while Secretary of State. He refuses to have an opinion or, at least to express an opinion on collusion. However, he does point out that trump and RT certainly kept in constant parallel step all the way in their comments and actions. He definitely is not impressed by trump. He was impressed by Obama and commented that a scolding from Obama would distress him severely whereas a scolding from trump wouldn't. Another concern of his that I am quite impressed with is his concern that the LGBTQ+ community should receive fair treatment. He admires how so many of them have had the burden of keeping their inherent gender secret yet do excellent work over the years. Fundamentally his concern is that we have a diverse community and do not appreciate how wonderful that is and show respect to those who differ from us.
He wants our democracy to survive the Russian corruption and wrote this book to aid in that attempt. And I thank him for doing that. Read this book. Tell people and urge them to read it. Do it ASAP.
He wants our democracy to survive the Russian corruption and wrote this book to aid in that attempt. And I thank him for doing that. Read this book. Tell people and urge them to read it. Do it ASAP.
July 16, 2018
While it's really an overview of James Clapper's career, Facts and Fears also serves as a history of the IC because James Clapper was there for almost every significant event of the last 50+ years. A very important book to read especially now.
June 1, 2018
This book is historically a very important book. Clapper contributes to our
knowledge of the factors turning the Presidential Election in 2016. He is the
first to come to the conclusion that Putin's influence on that election
was probably the decisive factor.
Although Hillary Clinton won the popular vote by a margin of about 3 million voters,
Clapper explains how Vladimir Putin, with his botnets, probably swung
the election to Donald Trump. The Russians targeted the battleground (swing)
states with their informational warfare so that the election was won by
80,000 votes in three states. Many voters were convinced to reject the other
candidate because of the propaganda generated by the Russians.
According to Clapper, the American exposure to the Russian cyber and information
warfare was much more than that. Although some people would not go so far, because
of many other factors involved, such as the Benghazi investigation noise, Jim Comey's comments
about Hillary Clinton after deciding not to file criminal charges against her, etc.. Clapper convincingly makes a not just a plausible, but a probable case, for the notion that the election was won by a margin of 80,000 votes in three swing states, each of which was targeted by the Russians. Voter exposure to the bot amplification of propaganda was extensive enough so that I am inclined
to concur with fmr. Director James Clapper on this matter. Although we can't be absolutely certain about this, yet I believe that is likely that Clapper's claim is correct. I am reluctant to believe that so large a swath of Americans are of such politically pathetic sophistication, that they could not spot a snake-oil salesman pandering so much political drivel for so-long.
Robert A. Yaffee, Ph.D.
knowledge of the factors turning the Presidential Election in 2016. He is the
first to come to the conclusion that Putin's influence on that election
was probably the decisive factor.
Although Hillary Clinton won the popular vote by a margin of about 3 million voters,
Clapper explains how Vladimir Putin, with his botnets, probably swung
the election to Donald Trump. The Russians targeted the battleground (swing)
states with their informational warfare so that the election was won by
80,000 votes in three states. Many voters were convinced to reject the other
candidate because of the propaganda generated by the Russians.
According to Clapper, the American exposure to the Russian cyber and information
warfare was much more than that. Although some people would not go so far, because
of many other factors involved, such as the Benghazi investigation noise, Jim Comey's comments
about Hillary Clinton after deciding not to file criminal charges against her, etc.. Clapper convincingly makes a not just a plausible, but a probable case, for the notion that the election was won by a margin of 80,000 votes in three swing states, each of which was targeted by the Russians. Voter exposure to the bot amplification of propaganda was extensive enough so that I am inclined
to concur with fmr. Director James Clapper on this matter. Although we can't be absolutely certain about this, yet I believe that is likely that Clapper's claim is correct. I am reluctant to believe that so large a swath of Americans are of such politically pathetic sophistication, that they could not spot a snake-oil salesman pandering so much political drivel for so-long.
Robert A. Yaffee, Ph.D.
July 6, 2018
Beware readers, this is not a review, just an angry rant.
I don't often 1-star-rate books I haven't read based on who wrote them, but James Clapper lied under oath to Congress about unconstitutional mass surveillance of everyone in the US by the NSA.
What he writes about Russian meddling in US politics might not even be lies.
But I don't trust him and never will for his criminal perjury.
He did not forget and he did not accidentally lie either. Those are the standard excuses politicians always use when caught lying.
I see his book as an attempt to make people trust him again and repair his public image. I hope that attempt fails.
I don't often 1-star-rate books I haven't read based on who wrote them, but James Clapper lied under oath to Congress about unconstitutional mass surveillance of everyone in the US by the NSA.
What he writes about Russian meddling in US politics might not even be lies.
But I don't trust him and never will for his criminal perjury.
He did not forget and he did not accidentally lie either. Those are the standard excuses politicians always use when caught lying.
I see his book as an attempt to make people trust him again and repair his public image. I hope that attempt fails.
June 17, 2018
There are many people to whom I’d like to recommend this book (and some I’d like to smack with it, any way of getting the message across.) This is an incredibly insightful and candid behind-the-scenes look at a career spent in service to the US in a field where failures are public and successes may never be truly known. I’d definitely recommend it to anyone with an interest in how the intelligence community serves the nation.
Read
July 29, 2018Sorry, but as much as I think of the man and the appearances he's been making on TV, this is just too tedious at the start to convince me to keep on going - plus it's due back at the library.
Update 7/29. I did jump ahead to the parts about 2016 election, etc. It was easily 2/3 of the way into the book when I got there, and much too late to start into the most important part of the book IMO. By then it was too little too late and not enough snips or hints of anything new to make this worth the time.
Update 7/29. I did jump ahead to the parts about 2016 election, etc. It was easily 2/3 of the way into the book when I got there, and much too late to start into the most important part of the book IMO. By then it was too little too late and not enough snips or hints of anything new to make this worth the time.
December 8, 2018
I don't actually give many books 5 stars. And this one isn't perfect but it likely should be required reading for all Americans. It's a surprisingly engaging account of one man's lifetime of service to his country. Now in his mid 70s he's had a lifetime of being closely involved with many of the main events in contemporary history. He was never and is not a politician. A military man and a dogged career civil servant, always in the intelligence community, his stated mantra is to speak truth to power. To analyze incoming data, to id what is known, acknowledge what is unknown, keep your 'thoughts' separate... And leave the policy making up to those whose job it is to make policy .
He worked through many administrations but finally, permanently retired on January 20, 2017. Not in response to the election but because all appointed heads of governmental organizations all resign at the same time when there is a new.administration.
Why would a man used to keeping the nation's secrets secret, write a memoir? Well, I'm glad he did just for the history lesson, but also for the peek into that kind of a life of service. Oh yes, and to attempt to really wake everyone to the Russian interference in sowing dissent. When Russia can set the American people against one another, cause them to distrust anything done by the government, and make people disbelieve even basic facts ... Well that goes a long way to destabilizing the power of this country. If America is turned against itself how easy is it for Russia to again ascend? It costs them next nothing and has reaped major rewards.
He worked through many administrations but finally, permanently retired on January 20, 2017. Not in response to the election but because all appointed heads of governmental organizations all resign at the same time when there is a new.administration.
Why would a man used to keeping the nation's secrets secret, write a memoir? Well, I'm glad he did just for the history lesson, but also for the peek into that kind of a life of service. Oh yes, and to attempt to really wake everyone to the Russian interference in sowing dissent. When Russia can set the American people against one another, cause them to distrust anything done by the government, and make people disbelieve even basic facts ... Well that goes a long way to destabilizing the power of this country. If America is turned against itself how easy is it for Russia to again ascend? It costs them next nothing and has reaped major rewards.
May 29, 2018
It’s really substantive without being dry or overwhelming with details. They balanced conveying his history with keeping things moving. Not that it’s fast-paced but it didn’t get bogged down and I never got impatient. It held my attention and I was quite eager to pick it up every day, even inpatient. And I wasn’t left with that sense of disappointment that Comey’s book left me with because his was so much less informative. With Clapper, you get details, as much as he’s able to include. And you get his opinions about a lot of controversial things. It’s a quality book.
It’s a memoir, it isn’t a book about politics or social justice or even the IC. Except it’s also about all of that.
His writing partner, Trey Brown, did a good job of capturing Clapper’s voice. He’s such a straight shooter and it feels very genuine, clearly thought out and presented, with a lot of wry humor.
Logistically, it was another larger print nonfiction books, one of several I’ve read this year. Maybe the publishers think mostly old people will read it. That’s OK with me, I’m one of them now. And also someone finally included a glossary of abbreviations! I started General Hayden’s book (not the new one, the one before that) and was annoyed that I had to make a list to keep up with him.
It’s a memoir, it isn’t a book about politics or social justice or even the IC. Except it’s also about all of that.
His writing partner, Trey Brown, did a good job of capturing Clapper’s voice. He’s such a straight shooter and it feels very genuine, clearly thought out and presented, with a lot of wry humor.
Logistically, it was another larger print nonfiction books, one of several I’ve read this year. Maybe the publishers think mostly old people will read it. That’s OK with me, I’m one of them now. And also someone finally included a glossary of abbreviations! I started General Hayden’s book (not the new one, the one before that) and was annoyed that I had to make a list to keep up with him.
July 29, 2018
This is the book Comey could have written, no this is the book that Comey should have written. James Clapper in over 400 dense, dry, taciturn pages explains more about how the intelligence community works and how it fails than I think I have ever seen from any other source. At the same time, agree with him or not, you get the impression of a man with little ego, tremendous integrity and genuine humility who attributes his success to strong women in his life who kept him grounded, organized and well counseled, to the staffs that he attributes the execution of the hard work and to mentors who with both positive and negative examples taught him how to manage the talent. He writes about the waste of talent he saw through the early years as he saw highly qualified people dishonorably discharged or dismissed because of sexual orientation, race or gender and his efforts to retain the best by elimination of factors that he described as nonsense. This is a man who saw his duty as to "tell truth to power" no matter what it cost him personally or professionally. He does not suffer fools well and he describes the ultimate irony at the end of his 55 year career of public service, the country may now be in the hands of the biggest fool of all.
December 11, 2018
Clapper lived his life in the Intelligence Community. His father was an Army Intelligence officer and their family moved around the world. Clapper entered the Marines and then the Air Force to serve. He followed his military intelligence career with a long civilian service as Director of National Intelligence.
Why I started this book: I'd heard that Trump revoked this guy's security clearance and thought, hmm I need to know more.
Why I finished it: I had to stop at a few points and scream into a pillow. Clapper is blunt and clear on how the Russians influenced our 2016 election (and to various elections around Europe too, we're not the only ones) and how our lack of reaction will encourage them to more excesses. His disdain for Congressional camera posing is clear too. He's as equally blunt about his mistakes and the lessons that he's learn. Fascinating story and a reminder that facts are VITAL, and that America will not succeed in a post-fact or alternative-fact world.
Why I started this book: I'd heard that Trump revoked this guy's security clearance and thought, hmm I need to know more.
Why I finished it: I had to stop at a few points and scream into a pillow. Clapper is blunt and clear on how the Russians influenced our 2016 election (and to various elections around Europe too, we're not the only ones) and how our lack of reaction will encourage them to more excesses. His disdain for Congressional camera posing is clear too. He's as equally blunt about his mistakes and the lessons that he's learn. Fascinating story and a reminder that facts are VITAL, and that America will not succeed in a post-fact or alternative-fact world.
October 28, 2019
Top three takeaways:
1. Rising to the top of the national security field is pretty hard work, and in Jim's case involved:
- Working relatively non-stop hours for many many years.
- Moving role and frequently location every couple of years. I don't really understand how people do this unless on partner's career is subserviant to the others', or unless one partner's career is remote/footloose.
- Getting lucky.
2. Jim seems to have defined a specific domain in which he'll "speak truth to power", namely on matters of intelligence. On all other matters, he keeps quiet. This makes him a powerful and trusted ally.
3. The sorts of senior management roles that Jim excels at seem to require being able to quickly take the pulse of an organisation and its employees, as well as a much wider array of stakeholders.
Unfortunately I still don't really understand what made Jim such an effective Director of National Intelligence where previous people in that role had failed.
1. Rising to the top of the national security field is pretty hard work, and in Jim's case involved:
- Working relatively non-stop hours for many many years.
- Moving role and frequently location every couple of years. I don't really understand how people do this unless on partner's career is subserviant to the others', or unless one partner's career is remote/footloose.
- Getting lucky.
2. Jim seems to have defined a specific domain in which he'll "speak truth to power", namely on matters of intelligence. On all other matters, he keeps quiet. This makes him a powerful and trusted ally.
3. The sorts of senior management roles that Jim excels at seem to require being able to quickly take the pulse of an organisation and its employees, as well as a much wider array of stakeholders.
Unfortunately I still don't really understand what made Jim such an effective Director of National Intelligence where previous people in that role had failed.
January 9, 2019
I started off listening to this book, but it needed to be returned to the library, so, in chapter 10 I switched to the hardback.
James Clapper has worked in intelligence for every president from JFK to Barack Obama. He had no axe to grind. If his country called, he served, ending his career as Director of National Intelligence. He knew before many that the Russians were undermining the 2016 election. He was concerned when his friend and FBI director was fired. Then Trump misquoted Clapper - several times - to make his case. Clapper couldn't have it. Thus this book.
No histrionics. Just facts. An excellent read.
James Clapper has worked in intelligence for every president from JFK to Barack Obama. He had no axe to grind. If his country called, he served, ending his career as Director of National Intelligence. He knew before many that the Russians were undermining the 2016 election. He was concerned when his friend and FBI director was fired. Then Trump misquoted Clapper - several times - to make his case. Clapper couldn't have it. Thus this book.
No histrionics. Just facts. An excellent read.
May 21, 2020
Truly a compelling reading. So much goes behind the scenes in our National Intelligence Security Agencies that is mind boggling how to stay current with world-wide threats to America and its allies. And to James Clapper's credit, serving under different administrations, to please at one point the Republican President, and then, to a Democrat President's Office.
Fascinating book and yet somewhat troublesome feeling as we as citizens know very little when "the big brother" is watching (mildly spying?) on us without our knowledge.
Fascinating book and yet somewhat troublesome feeling as we as citizens know very little when "the big brother" is watching (mildly spying?) on us without our knowledge.
September 7, 2020
Americans need to read this book. In his memoir, Clapper shares his lifetime of experience as an honorable servant of our country and our democracy. He gives readers a unique window into the American intelligence community, their capabilities, sacrifices, and limitations. The memoir covers in some detail: Assange, Snowden, North Korea, Russia, and the sadly still very fresh in our memories 2016 Election and Russian election interference.
May 18, 2019
This is nonfiction as James R Clapper tells his story and how be became senior director of National Intelligence. This one was long and I wasn't sure I'd be able to get through this, so that was my mindset when I started this. I actually enjoyed the first half of this. It was more like an autobiography and it read well. He had an interesting life and had some lucky opportunities, but he also worked hard to make the most of it. I appreciated that part of his story. If this book had ended right in the middle, it would be a solid 4 stars. But the author didn't.
Now the last part was all about the politics. That isn't my favorite, but it also isn't a deal breaker. He seemed to go against his advice in the first half....obtain facts, understand fear and then proceed. That is NOT the second half. It was mostly his take on political incidents and politicians and he did a lot of explaining. This was pretty biased and by the end, it was a little too much. It felt like he was trying so hard. I was just glad to see it end. 2 stars for the latter half. I'll have to settle for 3.
Now the last part was all about the politics. That isn't my favorite, but it also isn't a deal breaker. He seemed to go against his advice in the first half....obtain facts, understand fear and then proceed. That is NOT the second half. It was mostly his take on political incidents and politicians and he did a lot of explaining. This was pretty biased and by the end, it was a little too much. It felt like he was trying so hard. I was just glad to see it end. 2 stars for the latter half. I'll have to settle for 3.
July 28, 2018
President Barack Obama referred to the job of Director of National Intelligence as the second most thankless job in Washington. After reading James Clapper's memoir, it would be hard to argue that point. Clapper recounts his life from birth up to the present day, but certainly the bulk of the book concerns his six and half years as DNI. One has to wonder what impulse of sadism possessed Clapper to take this high profile, high responsibility, yet low authority job. Seriously though, he did it because he was asked to take it on by Obama, because he was an expert in intelligence and had spent his life working in the field, and because he has a deep commitment to the United States, which is evident throughout his entire life.
Clapper breezes through his early life and keeps most of the stops in his long military career (he served in the Air Force for over thirty years) confined to describing what particular position he occupied and when he was promoted. He has lived all over the world. Unfortunately, as good as he is on intelligence matters, his story-telling skills leave much to be desired. The narrative quickly bogs down with acronyms for the various intelligence agencies and government departments that he either worked for or with. At times it was like reading the alphabet soup agencies that the New Deal created. There are just too many to keep everything straight. Add the various generals that come and go, and it quickly becomes difficult to remember what exactly Clapper is doing at any given location.
Another thing the reader will need to become accustomed to while reading about Clapper's life is the phrase “speaking truth to power�. Clapper uses it constantly. Had I know how often, I would have started a count when I first came across the phrase. It means not being afraid to tell someone that you report to things that person does not want to hear. Despite his penchant for occasionally being blunt, and also for living the phrase that he so often repeats, Clapper achieved some very high positions, both in the military and in civilian roles for the government. While I did grow tired of the repetition of the phrase, it would be most welcome to see some current high-ranking members of the government use it, aside from some who are soon to be leaving the scene.
Clapper is pro-LGBT rights, and frequently mentions his support for this group, which I most definitely applaud. He recites some examples from early in his career when government employees were dishonorably discharged from the military for no other reason than being gay, and how stupid he thought it was � both on a personal level for the people involved and on a professional level for the loss of knowledge and experience that these people were using towards defending our country. It makes me wish that Clapper had been in higher in the military much earlier than he was, so he could have slowed or tried to derail such discriminatory policies.
Most of the final quarter of the book is devoted to the 2016 election and Russia's interference in that event. Despite not caring for the book's plodding pace up to this point, Clapper really picked it up in this area. He is sharp, professional, non-partisan, and direct about what he saw (at least, what he is able to tell us, as apparently there is still a plethora of classified materials concerning this seemingly never-ending subject) and how he felt during his last year as DNI. I believe that his non-partisanship and objectivity lends him an authority that many other officials lack. This is someone who has devoted his life to intelligence gathering on behalf of the United States. He is not interested in helping or hurting Republicans or Democrats; he is interested in keeping America safe. His work at high levels in both the George W. Bush and Barack Obama administrations confirms that statement.
If he did have a partisan agenda, it is not evident here. While Donald Trump comes in a large dose of criticism, and with good reason, Clapper makes it known that he was not always in agreement with Obama's actions and statements. The media also get their turn on the roasting spit as he writes of multiple times where networks and newspapers either got something blatantly wrong, twisted something but did not retract it, or tried to play games with him in the hopes of causing him to stumble and say something that he probably should not have said. It is clear that he has a somewhat caustic view of today's media environment, while also understanding that they do have an important role to play in maintaining a democratic society. The institution that he is most critical of, though, is Congress. The partisan political ploys that both sides played over a number of issues during his tenure as DNI has left him with a sour taste for Congressmen. In that sense, he is much like a vast majority of Americans, if polls about Congressional approval ratings are at all accurate.
Clapper wrote this book because he is genuinely fearful about the direction that Trump is taking this country. He sees a fundamental breakdown of our democratic system, and he shudders to think where this will ultimately lead the United States. While I do think that Clapper's book is worth reading (anything who has served as long as he has is going to have some interesting experiences to recount), it really will not appeal much to a general audience. You have to be either really interested in the unfolding Russian meddling saga, or be highly attuned to the various intelligence agencies and what they do, for this to hold your sustained interest. I do think that Clapper has a sense of humor, and a passage here and there are pithy. But on the whole, this is pretty dry � though quite important � stuff.
Grade: C+
Clapper breezes through his early life and keeps most of the stops in his long military career (he served in the Air Force for over thirty years) confined to describing what particular position he occupied and when he was promoted. He has lived all over the world. Unfortunately, as good as he is on intelligence matters, his story-telling skills leave much to be desired. The narrative quickly bogs down with acronyms for the various intelligence agencies and government departments that he either worked for or with. At times it was like reading the alphabet soup agencies that the New Deal created. There are just too many to keep everything straight. Add the various generals that come and go, and it quickly becomes difficult to remember what exactly Clapper is doing at any given location.
Another thing the reader will need to become accustomed to while reading about Clapper's life is the phrase “speaking truth to power�. Clapper uses it constantly. Had I know how often, I would have started a count when I first came across the phrase. It means not being afraid to tell someone that you report to things that person does not want to hear. Despite his penchant for occasionally being blunt, and also for living the phrase that he so often repeats, Clapper achieved some very high positions, both in the military and in civilian roles for the government. While I did grow tired of the repetition of the phrase, it would be most welcome to see some current high-ranking members of the government use it, aside from some who are soon to be leaving the scene.
Clapper is pro-LGBT rights, and frequently mentions his support for this group, which I most definitely applaud. He recites some examples from early in his career when government employees were dishonorably discharged from the military for no other reason than being gay, and how stupid he thought it was � both on a personal level for the people involved and on a professional level for the loss of knowledge and experience that these people were using towards defending our country. It makes me wish that Clapper had been in higher in the military much earlier than he was, so he could have slowed or tried to derail such discriminatory policies.
Most of the final quarter of the book is devoted to the 2016 election and Russia's interference in that event. Despite not caring for the book's plodding pace up to this point, Clapper really picked it up in this area. He is sharp, professional, non-partisan, and direct about what he saw (at least, what he is able to tell us, as apparently there is still a plethora of classified materials concerning this seemingly never-ending subject) and how he felt during his last year as DNI. I believe that his non-partisanship and objectivity lends him an authority that many other officials lack. This is someone who has devoted his life to intelligence gathering on behalf of the United States. He is not interested in helping or hurting Republicans or Democrats; he is interested in keeping America safe. His work at high levels in both the George W. Bush and Barack Obama administrations confirms that statement.
If he did have a partisan agenda, it is not evident here. While Donald Trump comes in a large dose of criticism, and with good reason, Clapper makes it known that he was not always in agreement with Obama's actions and statements. The media also get their turn on the roasting spit as he writes of multiple times where networks and newspapers either got something blatantly wrong, twisted something but did not retract it, or tried to play games with him in the hopes of causing him to stumble and say something that he probably should not have said. It is clear that he has a somewhat caustic view of today's media environment, while also understanding that they do have an important role to play in maintaining a democratic society. The institution that he is most critical of, though, is Congress. The partisan political ploys that both sides played over a number of issues during his tenure as DNI has left him with a sour taste for Congressmen. In that sense, he is much like a vast majority of Americans, if polls about Congressional approval ratings are at all accurate.
Clapper wrote this book because he is genuinely fearful about the direction that Trump is taking this country. He sees a fundamental breakdown of our democratic system, and he shudders to think where this will ultimately lead the United States. While I do think that Clapper's book is worth reading (anything who has served as long as he has is going to have some interesting experiences to recount), it really will not appeal much to a general audience. You have to be either really interested in the unfolding Russian meddling saga, or be highly attuned to the various intelligence agencies and what they do, for this to hold your sustained interest. I do think that Clapper has a sense of humor, and a passage here and there are pithy. But on the whole, this is pretty dry � though quite important � stuff.
Grade: C+
June 28, 2018
Facts and Fears: Hard Truths from a Life in Intelligence by James R. Clapper and Trey Brown
“Facts and Fears� is a compelling memoir of the intelligence community. Former Director of National Intelligence (DNI), James R. Clapper shares his vast experiences as a public servant in a rather candid and methodical manner. This frank 431-page book includes the following twelve chapters: 1. Born into the Intelligence Business, 2. Command and Controversy, 3. The Peace Dividend, 4. 9/11 and Return to Service, 5. The Second Most Thankless Job in Washington, 6. Benghazi, 7. Consumed by Money, 8. Snowden, 9. Not a Diplomat, 10. Unpredictable Instability, 11. The Election, and 12. Facts and Fears.
Positives:
1. A well-researched book.
2. An interesting topic. James Clapper is a credible and candid author with a high degree of integrity. Unlike most authors of this ilk he is not afraid to admit personal mistakes and shortcomings.
3. The book covers a lot of territory, covering multiple administrations and of course to the present.
4. The introduction whets the appetite of readers. “We’d been watching how the Russians were trying to influence US voters, not what impact they may have been having. We had no empirical evidence to assess whether the Russian influence campaign was working, and on Election Day, I was disturbed to recognize it probably had.�
5. The book is in essence a memoir covering the intelligence community. Clapper’s fascinating career provides readers unique insights. The fact that he worked under both Republican and Democratic administrations is a testament to his professionalism.
6. So what is intelligence? “Intelligence involves research, determination, persistence, patience, continuity, drawing inferences in the absence of complete information, and taking advantage of vulnerabilities and what you overhear in others� conversations, no matter how cryptic and jargon-filled they are.�
7. Makes clear what his role as a leader is in the intelligence community. “Our objective typically is to reduce uncertainty for decision makers as much as possible, whether they’re in the Oval Office, at the negotiating table, or on the battlefield.� “As a lifelong intelligence officer, I instinctively live by the first, fundamental, unwritten law of intelligence work: Speak straight, unbiased intelligence truth to power, and leave the business of policy making to the policy makers.�
8. Does go into some detail on the roles and responsibilities of the different agencies. “In 1991, the US Intelligence Community included four large, full-time intelligence agencies and the four intelligence components of the military services. The Department of Defense harbored three of the major intelligence agencies: the National Security Agency, NSA—the lead for intercepting signals and communications (established when I was in grade school in 1952 and that my dad, Sue’s dad, Sue, and I had served in); the Defense Intelligence Agency, DIA—the central hub for intelligence on foreign military capabilities and intentions; and the National Reconnaissance Office, NRO—the organization that designed, launched, and flew intelligence satellites, including all the overhead missions to keep tabs on the Soviets.�
9. The value of diversity explained. “It was the same reasoning for why we needed a diverse workforce: bringing together different perspectives and experiences enabled us to formulate a range of different options for action. In the Intelligence Community, the old saying “the sum is greater than the parts� has profound meaning.�
10. The fight against terrorism. “My primary job, under the 2003 legislation that created USD(I), was making sure DOD intelligence components had the resources to operate, a task made easier by the fact that we were at war. As the fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan continued and we uncovered terrorist networks and plans to attack in the United States and Europe, every year we asked for an increase in funding for the Military Intelligence Program. And every year we got it.�
11. Captures the challenges of the intelligence community. “I always cautioned the president and secretaries that intelligence work was about acquiring and assessing foreign secrets, not predicting events or reading minds.�
12. Finally an assessment on Benghazi I can trust. “I stressed that, while there were many things we didn’t know, we could say with certainty that the Benghazi incident was not a carefully orchestrated terrorist attack, planned months in advance.�
13. Provides plenty of examples that illustrate his points. “On the afternoon of April 15, as crowds cheered the runners finishing the Boston Marathon, two homemade bombs exploded at the finish line, killing three people and injuring almost three hundred, including sixteen survivors who lost arms or legs. Amid all the confusion, the perpetrators of the attack walked away unscathed.�
14. An entire chapter dedicated to Snowden. Explains the implications and the extent of damage. “Unlike Manning, however, Snowden had unique IT accesses and had acted methodically to steal secrets, continuing to collect them for a full six months after first communicating with the person to whom he planned to leak, tricking his coworkers into giving him their passwords, even changing to a new job with different accesses to get at other files he wanted to leak. The materials Manning had leaked were embarrassing; the secrets Snowden was releasing were revealing to our adversaries and international terrorist groups how to avoid or thwart our surveillance. By the time the video was published online, Edward Snowden had bid farewell to Greenwald, Poitras, and MacAskill and gone to ground in Hong Kong with Sarah Harrison, Julian Assange’s most trusted aide and someone who actually knew how to disappear.�
15. His interesting assessment of Putin. Spoiler alert. “I believe this whole episode illustrates how Western observers, particularly diplomats completely misread Putin. He’s not an idealist, and he doesn’t care about communism or want to follow in Lenin’s or Stalin footsteps. While he’s a former KGB officer, he’s not a callback to the Soviets. He’s more of a throwback to the tsars, and wants to restore the greatness of the Russian empire.�
16. The power of the internet to deceive. “The internet enabled Russian trolls to bring their conspiracy theories directly to the types of people who believe airline contrails are a government plot to poison everyone on the ground.�
17. Unpredictable instability. “The United States had begun to show many of the same characteristics of instability we used to assess other nation-states. First among these was increasing inequality of income and wealth.�
18. Goes into detail on how Russians influenced our elections. “The Kremlin-funded television network Russia Today had been on the air during the 2008 election, but its name and its coverage were too “on the nose,� too obvious, and no one had watched it. In 2009, it rebranded itself as “RT� and positioned itself as an alternative to CNN and Fox News, similar to what Al Jazeera did at the time.�
19. The facts in short. “Unpredictable instability brought pain, war, and suffering to the world. In the United States, it gave us Donald Trump.�
20. A section of photographs.
Negatives:
1. The book bogs down at time. Mr. Clapper can be verbose.
2. Civil to a fault.
3. No supplementary material. I would have liked a timeline, charts or diagrams.
4. No links to sources!
In summary, this is a very substantive book. James Clapper comes across as a man of integrity thus making his words credible and his message clear, that he is concerned about the Russian assault on our traditional values and institutions of governance. The book does bog down in sections and the writing is not always crisp. Lack of supplementary material doesn’t help either but the historical accounts are accurate and the book is worthy of being read. I recommend it!
Further suggestions: “A Higher Loyalty� by James Comey, “Fire and Fury� by Michael Wolff, “Trumpocracy� by David Frum, “What Happened � by Hillary Rodham Clinton, “Can It Happen Here?: Authoritarianism in America� by Cass R. Sunstein, “Fantasyland: How America Went Haywire� by Kurt Andersen, “It’s Even Worse Than You Think� by David Cay Johnston, “How Democracies Die� by Steven Levitsky, and “The Assault on Intelligence� by Michael V. Hayden.
“Facts and Fears� is a compelling memoir of the intelligence community. Former Director of National Intelligence (DNI), James R. Clapper shares his vast experiences as a public servant in a rather candid and methodical manner. This frank 431-page book includes the following twelve chapters: 1. Born into the Intelligence Business, 2. Command and Controversy, 3. The Peace Dividend, 4. 9/11 and Return to Service, 5. The Second Most Thankless Job in Washington, 6. Benghazi, 7. Consumed by Money, 8. Snowden, 9. Not a Diplomat, 10. Unpredictable Instability, 11. The Election, and 12. Facts and Fears.
Positives:
1. A well-researched book.
2. An interesting topic. James Clapper is a credible and candid author with a high degree of integrity. Unlike most authors of this ilk he is not afraid to admit personal mistakes and shortcomings.
3. The book covers a lot of territory, covering multiple administrations and of course to the present.
4. The introduction whets the appetite of readers. “We’d been watching how the Russians were trying to influence US voters, not what impact they may have been having. We had no empirical evidence to assess whether the Russian influence campaign was working, and on Election Day, I was disturbed to recognize it probably had.�
5. The book is in essence a memoir covering the intelligence community. Clapper’s fascinating career provides readers unique insights. The fact that he worked under both Republican and Democratic administrations is a testament to his professionalism.
6. So what is intelligence? “Intelligence involves research, determination, persistence, patience, continuity, drawing inferences in the absence of complete information, and taking advantage of vulnerabilities and what you overhear in others� conversations, no matter how cryptic and jargon-filled they are.�
7. Makes clear what his role as a leader is in the intelligence community. “Our objective typically is to reduce uncertainty for decision makers as much as possible, whether they’re in the Oval Office, at the negotiating table, or on the battlefield.� “As a lifelong intelligence officer, I instinctively live by the first, fundamental, unwritten law of intelligence work: Speak straight, unbiased intelligence truth to power, and leave the business of policy making to the policy makers.�
8. Does go into some detail on the roles and responsibilities of the different agencies. “In 1991, the US Intelligence Community included four large, full-time intelligence agencies and the four intelligence components of the military services. The Department of Defense harbored three of the major intelligence agencies: the National Security Agency, NSA—the lead for intercepting signals and communications (established when I was in grade school in 1952 and that my dad, Sue’s dad, Sue, and I had served in); the Defense Intelligence Agency, DIA—the central hub for intelligence on foreign military capabilities and intentions; and the National Reconnaissance Office, NRO—the organization that designed, launched, and flew intelligence satellites, including all the overhead missions to keep tabs on the Soviets.�
9. The value of diversity explained. “It was the same reasoning for why we needed a diverse workforce: bringing together different perspectives and experiences enabled us to formulate a range of different options for action. In the Intelligence Community, the old saying “the sum is greater than the parts� has profound meaning.�
10. The fight against terrorism. “My primary job, under the 2003 legislation that created USD(I), was making sure DOD intelligence components had the resources to operate, a task made easier by the fact that we were at war. As the fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan continued and we uncovered terrorist networks and plans to attack in the United States and Europe, every year we asked for an increase in funding for the Military Intelligence Program. And every year we got it.�
11. Captures the challenges of the intelligence community. “I always cautioned the president and secretaries that intelligence work was about acquiring and assessing foreign secrets, not predicting events or reading minds.�
12. Finally an assessment on Benghazi I can trust. “I stressed that, while there were many things we didn’t know, we could say with certainty that the Benghazi incident was not a carefully orchestrated terrorist attack, planned months in advance.�
13. Provides plenty of examples that illustrate his points. “On the afternoon of April 15, as crowds cheered the runners finishing the Boston Marathon, two homemade bombs exploded at the finish line, killing three people and injuring almost three hundred, including sixteen survivors who lost arms or legs. Amid all the confusion, the perpetrators of the attack walked away unscathed.�
14. An entire chapter dedicated to Snowden. Explains the implications and the extent of damage. “Unlike Manning, however, Snowden had unique IT accesses and had acted methodically to steal secrets, continuing to collect them for a full six months after first communicating with the person to whom he planned to leak, tricking his coworkers into giving him their passwords, even changing to a new job with different accesses to get at other files he wanted to leak. The materials Manning had leaked were embarrassing; the secrets Snowden was releasing were revealing to our adversaries and international terrorist groups how to avoid or thwart our surveillance. By the time the video was published online, Edward Snowden had bid farewell to Greenwald, Poitras, and MacAskill and gone to ground in Hong Kong with Sarah Harrison, Julian Assange’s most trusted aide and someone who actually knew how to disappear.�
15. His interesting assessment of Putin. Spoiler alert. “I believe this whole episode illustrates how Western observers, particularly diplomats completely misread Putin. He’s not an idealist, and he doesn’t care about communism or want to follow in Lenin’s or Stalin footsteps. While he’s a former KGB officer, he’s not a callback to the Soviets. He’s more of a throwback to the tsars, and wants to restore the greatness of the Russian empire.�
16. The power of the internet to deceive. “The internet enabled Russian trolls to bring their conspiracy theories directly to the types of people who believe airline contrails are a government plot to poison everyone on the ground.�
17. Unpredictable instability. “The United States had begun to show many of the same characteristics of instability we used to assess other nation-states. First among these was increasing inequality of income and wealth.�
18. Goes into detail on how Russians influenced our elections. “The Kremlin-funded television network Russia Today had been on the air during the 2008 election, but its name and its coverage were too “on the nose,� too obvious, and no one had watched it. In 2009, it rebranded itself as “RT� and positioned itself as an alternative to CNN and Fox News, similar to what Al Jazeera did at the time.�
19. The facts in short. “Unpredictable instability brought pain, war, and suffering to the world. In the United States, it gave us Donald Trump.�
20. A section of photographs.
Negatives:
1. The book bogs down at time. Mr. Clapper can be verbose.
2. Civil to a fault.
3. No supplementary material. I would have liked a timeline, charts or diagrams.
4. No links to sources!
In summary, this is a very substantive book. James Clapper comes across as a man of integrity thus making his words credible and his message clear, that he is concerned about the Russian assault on our traditional values and institutions of governance. The book does bog down in sections and the writing is not always crisp. Lack of supplementary material doesn’t help either but the historical accounts are accurate and the book is worthy of being read. I recommend it!
Further suggestions: “A Higher Loyalty� by James Comey, “Fire and Fury� by Michael Wolff, “Trumpocracy� by David Frum, “What Happened � by Hillary Rodham Clinton, “Can It Happen Here?: Authoritarianism in America� by Cass R. Sunstein, “Fantasyland: How America Went Haywire� by Kurt Andersen, “It’s Even Worse Than You Think� by David Cay Johnston, “How Democracies Die� by Steven Levitsky, and “The Assault on Intelligence� by Michael V. Hayden.
June 2, 2019
Generally, there are a few essential things that I do not like about the memoir and biography format. Almost without fail, I am bored reading about these politicians' childhoods, high school experiences, how they met their sweethearts, the birth of their kids, and their kids' experiences in grade school. The one recent exception was Michele Obama's recounting of how she met Barack Obama, their courtship, and their relationship; but, this is part of the point of reading Ms. Obama's memoir, we were looking to gain insight into the 44th President through the eyes and experiences of the First Lady. If Ms. Obama's memoir proved the exception, Clapper's memoir proved the rule. No matter how steeped in Freudianism I get, I cannot get interested in those early experiences. Had we not known how world events would shake out, his earlier professional experiences in the service and intelligence community focused on North Korea and the USSR would have in and of themselves been noteworthy but not momentous.
Fortunately Clapper's memoir gets going once he gets past all of that. In fact, he only kicks it into fourth gear during what we can call his second act, when he returns from the private sector during the George W. Bush Administration. That brings us back to the heady days after 9/11 and the debates of civil liberties versus intelligence collection. For those still enticed by the ineptitudes of the Bush Administration and the political intrigue thereafter, things really get going leading up to his firing by Rumsfeld, his return from retirement shortly later under Robert Gates, returning to the administration that had just fired him, and his continuation under the Obama Administration. Given the circumstances that ensued, in what could be called his third act, Clapper finds his fifth gear. That's when things get cooking, with world events and Clapper's perspective as Director of National Intelligence (DNI). To paraphrase Lin Manuel Miranda, he was in the room where it happened with the mission that got Osama Bin Laden in 2011. As readers, we do know how world events turned out after then, and the politics have not hasted since. And that is when the past become prologue. The most interesting and informative sections related to his perspective as DNI concerning the Russian interference in the 2016 elections and his insight as former DNI concerning the 45th president's international policy towards Russia and North Korea.
The memoir's format and style is to focus on the particular. This is the format's limitations for readers more interested in politics, policy, and governance. However, when the author was intricately involved in the topical issues and the headline making stories of the day, the memoir's interest may surpass the genre's inherent limitations. Towards the end, Clapper's foray manages to do this. If you pick this up, make sure to appreciate Clapper's more humorous moments, especially his famous characterization of the government's various approaches to dealing with and riding dead horses. It's a bit of a shame that Comey's memoir gathered all of the attention, eclipsing and dominating the sales over Clapper's.
Fortunately Clapper's memoir gets going once he gets past all of that. In fact, he only kicks it into fourth gear during what we can call his second act, when he returns from the private sector during the George W. Bush Administration. That brings us back to the heady days after 9/11 and the debates of civil liberties versus intelligence collection. For those still enticed by the ineptitudes of the Bush Administration and the political intrigue thereafter, things really get going leading up to his firing by Rumsfeld, his return from retirement shortly later under Robert Gates, returning to the administration that had just fired him, and his continuation under the Obama Administration. Given the circumstances that ensued, in what could be called his third act, Clapper finds his fifth gear. That's when things get cooking, with world events and Clapper's perspective as Director of National Intelligence (DNI). To paraphrase Lin Manuel Miranda, he was in the room where it happened with the mission that got Osama Bin Laden in 2011. As readers, we do know how world events turned out after then, and the politics have not hasted since. And that is when the past become prologue. The most interesting and informative sections related to his perspective as DNI concerning the Russian interference in the 2016 elections and his insight as former DNI concerning the 45th president's international policy towards Russia and North Korea.
The memoir's format and style is to focus on the particular. This is the format's limitations for readers more interested in politics, policy, and governance. However, when the author was intricately involved in the topical issues and the headline making stories of the day, the memoir's interest may surpass the genre's inherent limitations. Towards the end, Clapper's foray manages to do this. If you pick this up, make sure to appreciate Clapper's more humorous moments, especially his famous characterization of the government's various approaches to dealing with and riding dead horses. It's a bit of a shame that Comey's memoir gathered all of the attention, eclipsing and dominating the sales over Clapper's.
March 20, 2019
This is really two books in one, both of which I recommend. The first half is really a history of modern intelligence, starting with his dad’s intelligence job in the 50s and James Clapper’s military and intelligence service that started during the Kennedy administration. It was an interesting and well-written history from an insider’s perspective.
The second half is probably why many people pick it up: the Obama administration and Russian interference in the 2016 election. I don’t know that it will convince many people. One of the strengths I see in the book will likely be used to dismiss Clapper’s conclusions by those who do not want to believe them. Namely, Clapper is open and takes responsibility for previous intelligence failures. Those who want to dismiss Russian interference can easily do so as yet another intelligence failure, even though Clapper does provide specific ways in which the intelligence community has improved and learned from its failures and the evidence he provides to give weight to the claims.
Even if this book will not change minds, I recommend it to a wide range of readers so they can learn the history, including recent history of the intelligence community and how intelligence is gathered.
Lastly, I read the audiobook and have great praise for the narrator, whose voice was wonderful.
The second half is probably why many people pick it up: the Obama administration and Russian interference in the 2016 election. I don’t know that it will convince many people. One of the strengths I see in the book will likely be used to dismiss Clapper’s conclusions by those who do not want to believe them. Namely, Clapper is open and takes responsibility for previous intelligence failures. Those who want to dismiss Russian interference can easily do so as yet another intelligence failure, even though Clapper does provide specific ways in which the intelligence community has improved and learned from its failures and the evidence he provides to give weight to the claims.
Even if this book will not change minds, I recommend it to a wide range of readers so they can learn the history, including recent history of the intelligence community and how intelligence is gathered.
Lastly, I read the audiobook and have great praise for the narrator, whose voice was wonderful.
January 21, 2023
If you've been paying attention to the news since 2015 (and for the last five decades) there's probably not a lot of new information to be gleaned from this play-by-play of the run up to 2017. (It's clearly been pretty thoroughly vetted by intelligence agencies so as not to divulge anything that might give away operational capabilities, and that's a kind of bona fide that I'm certain Mr. Clapper would, himself, approve of.) In fact, relatively little of this memoir is about of the period of Russian intrusion into Western politics, which is probably why most folks will be interested in picking up this book. He gets there when he gets there. The majority is autobiographical, starting off with Clapper's early forays into data management and gathering when he listened in on the local police band when he was a kid, and running right through the subsequent 5+ decades of public service in the intelligence community (the IC) that he made his career.
The big takeaway for me from this book isn't the recent history lesson so much as the revelation of how very personal Intelligence work is. Oh, not in the rah-rah patriotism that Clapper occasionally engages in (and which I would generally support, since he goes about it in a thoughtful way) but in that Clapper makes a point of discussing how often he made efforts to interact and form relationships with various agency professionals, and with allies overseas. This is one of those little realities that Americans don't tend to understand about spies. In American mythology and media spies are very clinical creatures. They're cold-blooded and ruthless, willing or even happy to engage in the most stark, life-or-death decision making process, and always happy to make the dark call in the name of expedience in darkened rooms lit only by glowing computer monitors. Reading his account of his career, one would think that as head of the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA), a director of the Office of the Director of National Intelligence and Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence, Clapper spent most of his time chatting over crab cakes and entrees at various social functions in Washington D. C. and other nation's capitals. Of course, he takes pains not to go into his day-to-day overmuch, but that assessment is probably more accurate than not. At the upper levels of the game, I'm sure there's a lot of glad-handing.
I say that because at the lower levels of the game, we as Americans don't appreciate the personal nature of the work as much as other countries do. Americans play short game when it comes to espionage, and though I do think Clapper gives us a very bowdlerized view of the intelligence services that is in many ways colored by his own experience and upbringing, I find it interesting that he made little or no effort to really describe espionage in ways that Americans might digest, especially given the "hard truths" nature of this book. Instead, he presents many of the aspects of the American polity and the interaction with foreign governments in a way that is almost naive, which seems hard to connect up with five plus decades of service in the IC. And it's very possible he presented it that way because... well, that's the only way he sees it. In his decades as an intelligence officer and "executive" of various civilian agencies, he may not fully see the history and methods of espionage on the global level, and that may be a systemic short-sightedness not just on his part, but on the American IC as a whole.
Explaining that may take something of a rant on my part:
When an authoritarian, espionage-based police state achieves a particular level of internal stability it begins to look outward. In the past three decades under Putin, Russia has begun again trading in it's greatest export. Not oil or caviar, but spies and propaganda.
Right now, under Putin, Russia is an authoritarian, espionage-based police state. Under the Soviets, most infamously under Stalin, but also under Lenin and under Stalin's successors, Russia was an authoritarian, espionage-based police state. The KGB and the Cold War being how that manifested in the minds of most Westerners, but it goes right back to well before WWII. Under the Czars, Russia was also an authoritarian, espionage-based police state. The antecedents of the KGB back then were called such things as the moral police and the Okhrana and the struggle was called The Great Game. Before that shadow war we have Russia in Eastern Europe engaging in the partitioning of Poland under Catherine the Great using, among others, various right-bank Cossacks. The list goes on. While there have been periods when Russia was internally divided so those in charge had to dedicate their time to suppressing their own people, and could not engage in influence campaigns outside the motherland, but in order to find a time when Russia was NOT an authoritarian, espionage-based police state, you'd have to go back to the medieval period when the region was a bunch of territorial city/states struggling for control over their demesne, and fighting off encroaching neighbors. People get lost in the political marketing terms like "Communism" and "Monarchy" (which is, of course, the purpose in such terms as used by Russian social engineering) but the basis of Russian hegemony is Muscovite expansion of their authoritarian, espionage-based police state, and has been since well before Peter the Great began traveling incognito through Europe, soaking up Western ideas and regurgitating them in an influence campaign against the Ottoman Turks during his "Great Embassy" of 1797. When looked at as a continuum, the only changes are in the deceptive vocabulary (which we'd call Orwellian these days: an irony that I'm sure Eric Blair would soak up like eggs and bacon) of the serfdom shifting into a worker's paradise, etc. Putin is only nominally different from a Czar—as was Stalin—and the only change is the ever shifting nomenclature and whatever acronyms (OGPU, NKVD, KGB, GRU) get applied to the current generation of commissars.
These days we see the results in our own politics, and many people are starting to come to terms with Russian influence in 2016, but the same methods and products have been exported by Russia from Kiev to Carson City, and the seeds of that process started when former KGB officer in charge of turning Western operatives, Putin, Vladimir, maneuvered his way into power. It's been in the works since the day he took office, and now he's reaping the harvest.
By contrast, Americans are quite naive when it comes to the methods of espionage. If you think of the great institutions of American espionage like the CIA, the NSA, the Department of Homeland Security, we're talking about very recent developments. The CIA didn't even exist until after WW2 when we retasked the quickly assembled OSS to the purpose. The NSA has origins in code-breaking and signals intelligence going back to the early 20th century, but again, didn't really exist until after WW2, and certainly wasn't the monolithic data collection vacuum that it is now for many decades after it was guys using HAM radios in dingy basements of federal offices.
In fact, the entire basis of American intelligence services isn't really espionage in the broader sense. Of course, we do engage in the full range of cloak and dagger, and have done since before the country was established as an independent nation, but if you look at the many billions we spend, we think of espionage as a kind of corporatized data collection and analysis. To most of the world, that's not espionage. In his book, Clapper expressly makes this point. For instance, his not-so-grudging admiration for the Chinese 2015 hack of federal personnel files included security-clearance database is, in his estimation, fair game. It's the kind of thing that makes for very good data analysis, and that's what spies do—in his estimation, that is.
In fact, the kind of information gathering that Clapper describes is a commodity that is bought, exchanged or stolen by spies from states and corporations. It's not the trade itself. What Americans think of as espionage makes America a target of espionage as much as anything else. When the CIA does engage in more active espionage it often does so hamfistedly or half-heartedly. Think of the fumbling of the CIA in South America or in our various overseas wars. Under the cockroach theory of history (if you see one cockroach in your kitchen that means you have ten more hiding under the 'fridge...) that involvement in foreign affairs does indicate a broader secret effort the likes of which we don't see, but from what we do see, it's hard to recognize our efforts as having anything like the long-term thinking or the short-term tools that are ingrained in the services of nations like Russia, or Britain, or China. American espionage is largely a process of throwing money at a problem and macromanaging not micromanaging the results. Arguably, that's to maintain a "plausible deniability" or to otherwise keep America's hands clean, but I'd suggest one look at the playbook of Russian disinformation military intelligence operatives engaging in cyber warfare right down to the tweet level and tell me if that's how you think they see the game.
By contrast, information is itself a weapon in the hands of most of the rest of the agencies in charge of other nation's espionage, and I want to say they are good at using it that way, but I'm not confident that they are good so much as we are very, very bad at it. And that's a systemic issue that reading Clapper's memoir did nothing to dispel.
Another example of how Americans don't understand the basic elements of espionage as the game is played by much of the world comes from an anecdote I read many years ago, and about which I'm not going to be able to cite a source (so I apologize for that, but please just bear with me for a moment.) In the story I read, an American journalist was doing research into the career of Robert Hanssen, arguably one of the most successful turncoats to turn to the Russians before, say, 2015. Hanssen is currently serving 15 consecutive life sentences in a supermax prison. When the journalist told a Russian intelligence officer that he'd be talking to Hanssen soon, the journalist was specifically asked to tell Hanssen that all the money the Russian government owed him was being kept for him in Moscow, safe and sound, ready for him to take possession of the cash and reap all the rewards of being a hero of the Russian people in a penthouse apartment in the sky of Moscow.
Americans can see no purpose for this whatever. Barring some sort of spectacular prison break, an incredibly bad spy exchange, or some as yet unforessen subservience to his Kremlin masters from Donald Trump, Hanssen will die in prison 15 times or so. When I talk about this with my fellow Americans, they always ask why that would be. (Sometimes in exasperated, even indignant tones, in fact....) What's the point in putting aside money for him? To the American mind, that's a double bonus. "We sure played that guy!" they might think. The American attitude is about getting something for nothing.
The Russians, however, made a point of telling the journalist to relay this message to Hanssen, not because they expect to ever have to pay him his worker's wages, but because they want every other American with a security clearance to know how good they are about keeping their word. It's not about Hanssen. It's about the next ten, twelve, two hundred Western operatives they can turn. It's about letting the community know through Hanssen that they are still open for business, and looking to recruit. I say, "through Hanssen" there, but really it's through the journalist doing the interview. Conveying that message to Hanssen, and to the public through that journalist, and to the rest of the IC community from which they are looking to recruit, was very likely the only reason Russian intelligence allowed that interview to happen in the first place. Just like that, a helpful idiot with a press pass becomes a recruiter for Russian intelligence. Sure, Hanssen got caught, but the Russians still appreciate him. He's remains a hero to them, is still "on the payroll" and they're happy to reward his efforts. Think about that, office worker at a gray building outside D.C., when you're shredding documents that might be worth more than your annual salary....
Consider likely the greatest American IC/espionage triumph since WW2: the defeat of the Russians in Afghanistan. (An event that Clapper barely touches on in his memoir, BTW....) While this is simplistic, essentially, we declared victory and went home, taking our billions of dollars with us. Our leaving so abruptly and completely might just maybe kinda sorta have an association with all the events that lead to us going back to that country after 9/11. While I have no crystal ball, I'm certainly not the only person who has connected up those dots.
And this is where I think Clapper's book fails, and—if I might be so bold—where I think Clapper himself fails, and where American IC culture fails. According to his own account, the extent and success of Russian state interference in 2016 was as much as a surprise to James Clapper, a man at the very highest levels of the American intelligence apparatus, as it was to many millions of Americans. Even as he left office, he somehow refused to believe the Donald Trump was a Russian asset, and describes briefing him as if there weren't anything else going on. Trump remains "outrageous" and detrimental to the IC community that Clapper dedicated so much of his life to, but he never seems willing or able to make the leap that this is done out of anything than pique and ego, even as he describes the parity of Trump with Russian psyops efforts. His complaints in his memoir still ring more of indignation, and a play by play of the calumny both internal and external to the American political campaigns and the media, than an analysis of how we're just going about it the wrong way, and that we do so out of sheer naivete. Our system of governance assumes an awful lot of good faith on the part of the participants, and we can certainly debate how reasonable that is, but it's catastrophic to assume a similar level of good faith and American-style information gathering from, say, China or Russia. They don't play by those rules, and never have. They don't see it as a short term game. The much vaunted "youth" of the American culture is in many ways over-stated, but in this regard we are very much behind. Yet there's no call for even responsive, let alone pro-active measures in this book, and if it's meant to give us hard truths about the bare-knuckle nature of intelligence and espionage in the 21st century, it does so with boxing gloves on, outlining the Queensberry Rules without ever seeming to acknowledge that this isn't the Olympics.
The big takeaway for me from this book isn't the recent history lesson so much as the revelation of how very personal Intelligence work is. Oh, not in the rah-rah patriotism that Clapper occasionally engages in (and which I would generally support, since he goes about it in a thoughtful way) but in that Clapper makes a point of discussing how often he made efforts to interact and form relationships with various agency professionals, and with allies overseas. This is one of those little realities that Americans don't tend to understand about spies. In American mythology and media spies are very clinical creatures. They're cold-blooded and ruthless, willing or even happy to engage in the most stark, life-or-death decision making process, and always happy to make the dark call in the name of expedience in darkened rooms lit only by glowing computer monitors. Reading his account of his career, one would think that as head of the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA), a director of the Office of the Director of National Intelligence and Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence, Clapper spent most of his time chatting over crab cakes and entrees at various social functions in Washington D. C. and other nation's capitals. Of course, he takes pains not to go into his day-to-day overmuch, but that assessment is probably more accurate than not. At the upper levels of the game, I'm sure there's a lot of glad-handing.
I say that because at the lower levels of the game, we as Americans don't appreciate the personal nature of the work as much as other countries do. Americans play short game when it comes to espionage, and though I do think Clapper gives us a very bowdlerized view of the intelligence services that is in many ways colored by his own experience and upbringing, I find it interesting that he made little or no effort to really describe espionage in ways that Americans might digest, especially given the "hard truths" nature of this book. Instead, he presents many of the aspects of the American polity and the interaction with foreign governments in a way that is almost naive, which seems hard to connect up with five plus decades of service in the IC. And it's very possible he presented it that way because... well, that's the only way he sees it. In his decades as an intelligence officer and "executive" of various civilian agencies, he may not fully see the history and methods of espionage on the global level, and that may be a systemic short-sightedness not just on his part, but on the American IC as a whole.
Explaining that may take something of a rant on my part:
When an authoritarian, espionage-based police state achieves a particular level of internal stability it begins to look outward. In the past three decades under Putin, Russia has begun again trading in it's greatest export. Not oil or caviar, but spies and propaganda.
Right now, under Putin, Russia is an authoritarian, espionage-based police state. Under the Soviets, most infamously under Stalin, but also under Lenin and under Stalin's successors, Russia was an authoritarian, espionage-based police state. The KGB and the Cold War being how that manifested in the minds of most Westerners, but it goes right back to well before WWII. Under the Czars, Russia was also an authoritarian, espionage-based police state. The antecedents of the KGB back then were called such things as the moral police and the Okhrana and the struggle was called The Great Game. Before that shadow war we have Russia in Eastern Europe engaging in the partitioning of Poland under Catherine the Great using, among others, various right-bank Cossacks. The list goes on. While there have been periods when Russia was internally divided so those in charge had to dedicate their time to suppressing their own people, and could not engage in influence campaigns outside the motherland, but in order to find a time when Russia was NOT an authoritarian, espionage-based police state, you'd have to go back to the medieval period when the region was a bunch of territorial city/states struggling for control over their demesne, and fighting off encroaching neighbors. People get lost in the political marketing terms like "Communism" and "Monarchy" (which is, of course, the purpose in such terms as used by Russian social engineering) but the basis of Russian hegemony is Muscovite expansion of their authoritarian, espionage-based police state, and has been since well before Peter the Great began traveling incognito through Europe, soaking up Western ideas and regurgitating them in an influence campaign against the Ottoman Turks during his "Great Embassy" of 1797. When looked at as a continuum, the only changes are in the deceptive vocabulary (which we'd call Orwellian these days: an irony that I'm sure Eric Blair would soak up like eggs and bacon) of the serfdom shifting into a worker's paradise, etc. Putin is only nominally different from a Czar—as was Stalin—and the only change is the ever shifting nomenclature and whatever acronyms (OGPU, NKVD, KGB, GRU) get applied to the current generation of commissars.
These days we see the results in our own politics, and many people are starting to come to terms with Russian influence in 2016, but the same methods and products have been exported by Russia from Kiev to Carson City, and the seeds of that process started when former KGB officer in charge of turning Western operatives, Putin, Vladimir, maneuvered his way into power. It's been in the works since the day he took office, and now he's reaping the harvest.
By contrast, Americans are quite naive when it comes to the methods of espionage. If you think of the great institutions of American espionage like the CIA, the NSA, the Department of Homeland Security, we're talking about very recent developments. The CIA didn't even exist until after WW2 when we retasked the quickly assembled OSS to the purpose. The NSA has origins in code-breaking and signals intelligence going back to the early 20th century, but again, didn't really exist until after WW2, and certainly wasn't the monolithic data collection vacuum that it is now for many decades after it was guys using HAM radios in dingy basements of federal offices.
In fact, the entire basis of American intelligence services isn't really espionage in the broader sense. Of course, we do engage in the full range of cloak and dagger, and have done since before the country was established as an independent nation, but if you look at the many billions we spend, we think of espionage as a kind of corporatized data collection and analysis. To most of the world, that's not espionage. In his book, Clapper expressly makes this point. For instance, his not-so-grudging admiration for the Chinese 2015 hack of federal personnel files included security-clearance database is, in his estimation, fair game. It's the kind of thing that makes for very good data analysis, and that's what spies do—in his estimation, that is.
In fact, the kind of information gathering that Clapper describes is a commodity that is bought, exchanged or stolen by spies from states and corporations. It's not the trade itself. What Americans think of as espionage makes America a target of espionage as much as anything else. When the CIA does engage in more active espionage it often does so hamfistedly or half-heartedly. Think of the fumbling of the CIA in South America or in our various overseas wars. Under the cockroach theory of history (if you see one cockroach in your kitchen that means you have ten more hiding under the 'fridge...) that involvement in foreign affairs does indicate a broader secret effort the likes of which we don't see, but from what we do see, it's hard to recognize our efforts as having anything like the long-term thinking or the short-term tools that are ingrained in the services of nations like Russia, or Britain, or China. American espionage is largely a process of throwing money at a problem and macromanaging not micromanaging the results. Arguably, that's to maintain a "plausible deniability" or to otherwise keep America's hands clean, but I'd suggest one look at the playbook of Russian disinformation military intelligence operatives engaging in cyber warfare right down to the tweet level and tell me if that's how you think they see the game.
By contrast, information is itself a weapon in the hands of most of the rest of the agencies in charge of other nation's espionage, and I want to say they are good at using it that way, but I'm not confident that they are good so much as we are very, very bad at it. And that's a systemic issue that reading Clapper's memoir did nothing to dispel.
Another example of how Americans don't understand the basic elements of espionage as the game is played by much of the world comes from an anecdote I read many years ago, and about which I'm not going to be able to cite a source (so I apologize for that, but please just bear with me for a moment.) In the story I read, an American journalist was doing research into the career of Robert Hanssen, arguably one of the most successful turncoats to turn to the Russians before, say, 2015. Hanssen is currently serving 15 consecutive life sentences in a supermax prison. When the journalist told a Russian intelligence officer that he'd be talking to Hanssen soon, the journalist was specifically asked to tell Hanssen that all the money the Russian government owed him was being kept for him in Moscow, safe and sound, ready for him to take possession of the cash and reap all the rewards of being a hero of the Russian people in a penthouse apartment in the sky of Moscow.
Americans can see no purpose for this whatever. Barring some sort of spectacular prison break, an incredibly bad spy exchange, or some as yet unforessen subservience to his Kremlin masters from Donald Trump, Hanssen will die in prison 15 times or so. When I talk about this with my fellow Americans, they always ask why that would be. (Sometimes in exasperated, even indignant tones, in fact....) What's the point in putting aside money for him? To the American mind, that's a double bonus. "We sure played that guy!" they might think. The American attitude is about getting something for nothing.
The Russians, however, made a point of telling the journalist to relay this message to Hanssen, not because they expect to ever have to pay him his worker's wages, but because they want every other American with a security clearance to know how good they are about keeping their word. It's not about Hanssen. It's about the next ten, twelve, two hundred Western operatives they can turn. It's about letting the community know through Hanssen that they are still open for business, and looking to recruit. I say, "through Hanssen" there, but really it's through the journalist doing the interview. Conveying that message to Hanssen, and to the public through that journalist, and to the rest of the IC community from which they are looking to recruit, was very likely the only reason Russian intelligence allowed that interview to happen in the first place. Just like that, a helpful idiot with a press pass becomes a recruiter for Russian intelligence. Sure, Hanssen got caught, but the Russians still appreciate him. He's remains a hero to them, is still "on the payroll" and they're happy to reward his efforts. Think about that, office worker at a gray building outside D.C., when you're shredding documents that might be worth more than your annual salary....
Consider likely the greatest American IC/espionage triumph since WW2: the defeat of the Russians in Afghanistan. (An event that Clapper barely touches on in his memoir, BTW....) While this is simplistic, essentially, we declared victory and went home, taking our billions of dollars with us. Our leaving so abruptly and completely might just maybe kinda sorta have an association with all the events that lead to us going back to that country after 9/11. While I have no crystal ball, I'm certainly not the only person who has connected up those dots.
And this is where I think Clapper's book fails, and—if I might be so bold—where I think Clapper himself fails, and where American IC culture fails. According to his own account, the extent and success of Russian state interference in 2016 was as much as a surprise to James Clapper, a man at the very highest levels of the American intelligence apparatus, as it was to many millions of Americans. Even as he left office, he somehow refused to believe the Donald Trump was a Russian asset, and describes briefing him as if there weren't anything else going on. Trump remains "outrageous" and detrimental to the IC community that Clapper dedicated so much of his life to, but he never seems willing or able to make the leap that this is done out of anything than pique and ego, even as he describes the parity of Trump with Russian psyops efforts. His complaints in his memoir still ring more of indignation, and a play by play of the calumny both internal and external to the American political campaigns and the media, than an analysis of how we're just going about it the wrong way, and that we do so out of sheer naivete. Our system of governance assumes an awful lot of good faith on the part of the participants, and we can certainly debate how reasonable that is, but it's catastrophic to assume a similar level of good faith and American-style information gathering from, say, China or Russia. They don't play by those rules, and never have. They don't see it as a short term game. The much vaunted "youth" of the American culture is in many ways over-stated, but in this regard we are very much behind. Yet there's no call for even responsive, let alone pro-active measures in this book, and if it's meant to give us hard truths about the bare-knuckle nature of intelligence and espionage in the 21st century, it does so with boxing gloves on, outlining the Queensberry Rules without ever seeming to acknowledge that this isn't the Olympics.
June 5, 2018
This memoir from former Director of National Intelligence, James Clapper, is a mixed bag but quite revealing mainly as to the actual function (or lack thereof) of the person occupying the DNI chair.
At a time when blanket cynicism is ruling people's view of intelligence work, mainly because the dolt in charge of our executive branch has decided they are our enemy, it is always welcome news to hear such a full-throated, historically grounded, and evidence based account as to the work these people do.
The office of the DNI is a strange one in that at first glance it seems to offer a great deal of influence, however in practice the effect that the person occupying this role can have is entirely dependent on the willingness of the President to actually read the PDB (for which the DNI is entirely responsible) and use the DNI as an interface resource with the rest of the intelligence community. Frequently, when there is an intelligence issue that has little to do with the DNI it is nevertheless hung around their necks as they make for easier replaced targets than directors of the CIA, NSA, FBI, DIA, etc... Along with the pain of attempting to unify the fissiparity and fiefdoms in the intelligence community, this is very much the reason that since the inception of the role in 2005, there have been 7 DNI's (2 of them acting) with only one of them, James Clapper for nearly 7 years, making it to the 2 year mark in the position.
Clapper's extended term in this role was occupied by great successes, some controversy, and a great deal of being thrown under the media bus (for so long that he quips he thought about changing the oil why he was down there...) for intelligence missteps or general lack of intelligence. From the successful raid on OBL's compound in Pakistan, the fallout from Snowden's leaks, the beginnings of Russian meddling in America's electoral processes; Clapper and the IC were frequently being lambasted for either having too much capability and spying on Americans or being brought before inquisitions wondering why we weren't reading the emails of terrorists who committed murder on US soil. This balance between national security and personal liberty is one that every DNI must contend with, and while I think he paints an overly flattering portrait of his work with this balancing act, he nevertheless handled it better (at least 3x better) than anyone else in this role.
The final section dealing with Trump's persistent disdain for the IC is Clapper at his most candid and is right on the money. No one would ever say that our IC has been blameless in any given year, however, to initiate a combative relationship with the institutions designed to be your eyes and ears to the rest of the world, despite the things that Trump is "hearing" from "many people," is to entirely miss the point of the work these professionals do. And then to continue this asinine working relationship by consciously deciding to remain blind in the area of foreign intelligence, an area to which Trump brought no knowledge in the first place, compounds a pre-existing ignorance while at the same time attempting to delegitimize an honorable profession.
At a time when blanket cynicism is ruling people's view of intelligence work, mainly because the dolt in charge of our executive branch has decided they are our enemy, it is always welcome news to hear such a full-throated, historically grounded, and evidence based account as to the work these people do.
The office of the DNI is a strange one in that at first glance it seems to offer a great deal of influence, however in practice the effect that the person occupying this role can have is entirely dependent on the willingness of the President to actually read the PDB (for which the DNI is entirely responsible) and use the DNI as an interface resource with the rest of the intelligence community. Frequently, when there is an intelligence issue that has little to do with the DNI it is nevertheless hung around their necks as they make for easier replaced targets than directors of the CIA, NSA, FBI, DIA, etc... Along with the pain of attempting to unify the fissiparity and fiefdoms in the intelligence community, this is very much the reason that since the inception of the role in 2005, there have been 7 DNI's (2 of them acting) with only one of them, James Clapper for nearly 7 years, making it to the 2 year mark in the position.
Clapper's extended term in this role was occupied by great successes, some controversy, and a great deal of being thrown under the media bus (for so long that he quips he thought about changing the oil why he was down there...) for intelligence missteps or general lack of intelligence. From the successful raid on OBL's compound in Pakistan, the fallout from Snowden's leaks, the beginnings of Russian meddling in America's electoral processes; Clapper and the IC were frequently being lambasted for either having too much capability and spying on Americans or being brought before inquisitions wondering why we weren't reading the emails of terrorists who committed murder on US soil. This balance between national security and personal liberty is one that every DNI must contend with, and while I think he paints an overly flattering portrait of his work with this balancing act, he nevertheless handled it better (at least 3x better) than anyone else in this role.
The final section dealing with Trump's persistent disdain for the IC is Clapper at his most candid and is right on the money. No one would ever say that our IC has been blameless in any given year, however, to initiate a combative relationship with the institutions designed to be your eyes and ears to the rest of the world, despite the things that Trump is "hearing" from "many people," is to entirely miss the point of the work these professionals do. And then to continue this asinine working relationship by consciously deciding to remain blind in the area of foreign intelligence, an area to which Trump brought no knowledge in the first place, compounds a pre-existing ignorance while at the same time attempting to delegitimize an honorable profession.
June 12, 2018
This is a well written and timely memoir of the former director of the Office of National Intelligence under Obama and a veteran of over 50 years of service. It is a detailed accounting of his work at various agencies, his service to multiple Presidents, his testimony to Congress at different times, and most recently his involvement in learning about and documenting the Russian interference in the 2016 elections. This book is comparable to Michael Hayden’s “Playing to the Edge� and the two books are complementary and entertaining.
It is clear from the book that Clapper is a highly talented administrator and committed national servant. The attitude clear towards the end of the book about the need to carry one the work of intelligence in informing leaders while keeping away from “policy� is clear and admirable. A reader gets a good sense of how things worked in the intelligence bureaucracy and the types of stresses and strains that the leaders of the IC bureaucracies have to work under. I was particularly sympathetic to the sadness and concerns that went with the onset of the new administration and its polemical attacks on the IC. I did not need to be convinced about these issues but Clapper’s account is moving and persuasive.
For readers who have followed the politics of the past decade and the strange pseudo-anthropology that has arisen about the 2016 election, the book does not shed much new light in general issues but does clarify the details of how the time line unfolded. The most valuable portions of the book for me were the details that Mr. Clapper sheds on the nature of the Russian interference in the 2016 election, a set of events that is still unfolding through the course of the investigations by Mueller of various aspects of the administration. On those accounts alone, the book is well worth the effort to read. Clapper also provides considerable detail on the nature and differences among the varied government agencies that make up the Intelligence Community (IC).
In terms of style, the book is a well written and straightforward memoir and is very believable. Taking Mark Twain’s warnings about the difficulties of honest memoirs to heart, Clapper comes across as informed, experienced, self-deprecating, and as reasonably close to “objective� as could be expected by a book like this at a time like this. It is one of serveral books that a concerned citizen should read these days, but it is an important one.
It is clear from the book that Clapper is a highly talented administrator and committed national servant. The attitude clear towards the end of the book about the need to carry one the work of intelligence in informing leaders while keeping away from “policy� is clear and admirable. A reader gets a good sense of how things worked in the intelligence bureaucracy and the types of stresses and strains that the leaders of the IC bureaucracies have to work under. I was particularly sympathetic to the sadness and concerns that went with the onset of the new administration and its polemical attacks on the IC. I did not need to be convinced about these issues but Clapper’s account is moving and persuasive.
For readers who have followed the politics of the past decade and the strange pseudo-anthropology that has arisen about the 2016 election, the book does not shed much new light in general issues but does clarify the details of how the time line unfolded. The most valuable portions of the book for me were the details that Mr. Clapper sheds on the nature of the Russian interference in the 2016 election, a set of events that is still unfolding through the course of the investigations by Mueller of various aspects of the administration. On those accounts alone, the book is well worth the effort to read. Clapper also provides considerable detail on the nature and differences among the varied government agencies that make up the Intelligence Community (IC).
In terms of style, the book is a well written and straightforward memoir and is very believable. Taking Mark Twain’s warnings about the difficulties of honest memoirs to heart, Clapper comes across as informed, experienced, self-deprecating, and as reasonably close to “objective� as could be expected by a book like this at a time like this. It is one of serveral books that a concerned citizen should read these days, but it is an important one.
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