GlOSSARY - LEGACY OF ASHES

[Bentley, Group Founder, Leader, Chief]

Alisa, here is the bio for O'Sullivan - I do not get it!


Stephanie O’Sullivan
Associate Deputy Director, Central Intelligence Agency
Ms. Stephanie O’Sullivan became the Associate Deputy Director of the Central Intelligence Agency in December 2009. She works with the Director and Deputy Director in the overall leadership of the Agency, with emphasis on day-to-day management of the organization.

Prior to becoming ADD/CIA, Ms. O’Sullivan for four years led the Directorate of Science and Technology—the part of the Agency responsible for developing and deploying innovative technology in support of intelligence collection and analysis. Earlier in her career, she held various management positions in the DS&T, where her responsibilities included systems acquisition and research and development in fields ranging from power sources to biotechnology.

Ms. O’Sullivan joined the CIA in 1995 after working for the Office of Naval Intelligence and TRW. She holds a Bachelor of Science degree in civil engineering from the Missouri School of Mines.

[Bryan]

Interesting indeed. I think open source should be a piece of the intelligence puzzle. So far the CIA seems to lean on one thing and usually that one thing is a poor source. They use janitors that make stuff up, or newspapers to brief the president, photographs...crazy way of going about things.

[Bentley, Group Founder, Leader, Chief]

I know; they keep this agency as it is and complain about the deficit.

[Alisa]

Bryan, I agree with you. They can't ignore the openly available information, even if the open nature of it is suspect. Something is hardly a secret if it is posted on the internet, but to fail to use it seems like an oversight. It's their reliance on publicly available information with little else to back it up that is intolerable.

Bentley, as you aptly point out, O'Sullivan's bio seems a bit scant for the job. Looks like an office operations person to me! Ugh.

[Bentley, Group Founder, Leader, Chief]

Alisa, that is because they are sitting behind some desk at the Pentagon or another governmental building reading newspapers and doing clippings. That is not called intelligence in my book.

My thoughts exactly Alisa; you see the problem. Why is Obama recommending or rubber stamping her; probably because it is an unimportant position. Maybe she is like an operations manager.

[Tom]

New related book, looks pretty good

by Douglas C. Waller

[Bentley, Group Founder, Leader, Chief]

Thank you Tom.

[Tom]

Some related and/or follow up reading..

CIA : Suggested Reading List

I found a book on the list of Allen Dulles, whom I have wanted to read more on for a while, that I am going to be picking up.
by Peter Grose

Looks like there are a lot of other good books listed there as well.

[Bentley, Group Founder, Leader, Chief]

It is always good to read from sources of both sides Thank you once again Tom.

[Bentley, Group Founder, Leader, Chief]

Mary commented:

,jumping ahead (chapter 38) not as a spoiler but a point of timely discussion, perhaps.

In 1981 and again in 1985, the CIA entered discussions with the Regan White House concerning Qaddafi and his support of terrorism. Their hesitation to covertly intervene was directly linked to (blamed on) the Senate investigation into the Intelligence Agencies and the restrictions it laid out in it's wake.

Today's question to me is not "What if" (in fact, I have never been a fan of "what if" history) but the question were the actions not taken "Right or Wrong"?

Byran,
If this is totally out of line just delete it!

Mary, yes unfortunately the weekly threads are non spoiler but I will note that you made a comment for those folks who do not mind spoilers and/or have read ahead which is frequently the case for some folks.