The Way of the Knife

by Mark Mazzetti

The CIA is actually a fragmented, cliquish culture, more like a public high school than many inside the agency care to admit. Jockish paramilitary officers tend to shun the nerdy analysts, who regard the paramilitary operatives as knuckle-draggers. At the top of the pyramid are the case officers—the spies who go out into the world—who believe they are doing the real work of the CIA and like to boast that they don’t follow orders from desk jockeys at headquarters.