Reviewing Leak: Why Mark Felt Became Deep Throat by Max Holland “Holland does more than present what is certainly a more nuanced explanation for the leaks by the whistleblower “Deep Throat.” The research that goes into this relatively short book (200 pages of text, plus exhaustive footnotes) not only collects in one place the facts… Continue reading Unknotting the Tangled Threads of Watergate Lore
Category: Secrecy
The Continuing Quandary of Covert Operations
In May 2011, shortly after a special operations team of Navy SEALs killed al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, there was a fresh surge of enthusiasm for covert operations. That is unfortunate because, behind the scenes, secret warfare is actually in crisis. We need to re-examine the suitability and constitutionality of covert operations and, among other
things, devise a sound constitutional framework for conducting them.
Conducting Shadow Wars
When al Qaeda launched the 9/11 attacks, it also thrust the United States on a decade-long (and counting) search for the best way to combat the unconventional threat posed by terrorism. That search evolved into a competition of sorts between the military’s Special Operations Forces (SOF) and the paramilitary operatives of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) for the prestige and resources that went with leading the fight against terrorism.