Agency-securities Books

Riveting data, fascinating compilation. Brilliant use of pie graphs.

This book is the third level (not including ACS) in obtaining your FLMI designation. Of the LOMA books I have studied, this has been the easiest reading. The case studies in the book were easy to understand. This book is well written and very interesting. If studied/read all the way through, you will receive a vast knowledge of insurance and how federal/state laws play a part in the insurance world.

I liked this book. It is good for anyone interested in the United Nations history of theory for peacekeeping and to see where peacekeeping theory is headed. Contributors look to see what works and what doesn't work in Peacekeeping missions. There are some prominent contributors to this book. Including the current Secretary-General of the UN and a former Secretary-General. To me the most inspired part of the book was a special foreword by Nelson Mandela. This is a man that has fought for peace most of his life and he could be considered one of the greatest men of the 20th century.

Jonathan Koppell has written a fine and subtle analysis of hybrid organizations, ones which combine elements of the private firm with those of the government agency. He shows how such organizations -- Amtrack, the mortgage intermediaries Fredie and Fannie -- can be harder to control from Washington than regular public agencies. He also explores ways in which hybrids can sometimes be very productive instruments for public goals. This is a first-class study of an increasingly important topic.

The United Nations Security Council is the world's most important decision-making body on issues of international peace and security. This book by Bailey and Daws is the definitive study of its procedures, now in a third edition. It is well-written and based on superb scholarship. Anyone who works on Council issues must refer to this important volume.

The book was great, it really hit close to home, it explained the sanctions and its effects on the people not the government. Very moving.

I was impressed by the scholarship and analysis. Having met Jim Noren, I can attest to the depth behind the words. I can't recommend it enough.

Book Reviews

United Press International July 27, 1982

Jack Redden

The Soviet Estimate: U.S. intelligence analysis and Russian military strength, by John Prados (Dial Press, $17.95)

John Prados could not have picked a better time for his book, ''The Soviet Estimate.'' The Reagan adminstration has been busy telling of the Soviet threat ever since taking office.

Each new adminstration goes through the rhetoric and then reality of deciding a military policy, but this one came in with claims of American weakness reminiscent of John Kennedy's charges of a ''missile gap.''

The history of U.S. estimates of Soviet strength that Prados relates is not likely to raise optimism in the nation. But more alarming than mistakes in estimates, which obviously so far haven't been fatal, is the political maneuvering with the figures by both elected officials and the military-intelligence establishments.

For all the criticism of the CIA, history seems to show less danger of off-base figures from that body, involved just in spying, than from branches of the military with vested interests in the perceived Soviet threat.

The record consistently shows high estimates from the air force for the Soviet airborne threat -- backing up its demands for larger budget allocations to counter the supposed danger.

Despite skepticism based on past over-estimates, Prados does agree with the view that both the United States and the Soviet Union are nearing the point of being able to destroy each other's land-based missiles.

Whether or not there really will be a ''window-of-vulnerability'' in the next few years, he correctly points out that the government's estimates of Soviet power and intentions will become ever more important during this period as the concern over a pre-emptive strike deepens.

--
Red Scares;The Soviet Estimate: U,S, Intelligence Analysis and Russian Military Strength. By John Prados

Newsweek

July 12, 1982,

BOOKS; Pg. 74A

LENNY GLYNN

Silencer pistols and sang-froid are the staples of spy novels, but satellite photos and yellowed clippings from foreign technical journals have more to do with the most crucial role of intelligence agencies: weighing the military capacities and the intentions of a nation's adversaries. In "The Soviet Estimate," John Prados fills a virtual information vacuum on how well America's spies have assessed Soviet power and prospects since World War II.

It is a tale more reminiscent of Kafka than le Carre--duels are waged with memos in Washington, not stilettos in Budapest. From the infancy of atomic weapons to current disputes about verifying nuclear-arms treaties, Prados surveys a series of controversies within the U.S. intelligence community that have shaped both American perceptions and arms budgets.

He traces an oscillating pattern of smug underestimates followed by overblown discoveries of new Soviet "threats." The Kremlin's development of nuclear weapons, for example, came years earlier than Western experts predicted in the late 1940s. As if to make up for that, a series of worrisome but ill-founded scares about Soviet bomber and missile strength followed in the 1950s and early 1960s.

Bluster: As Prados shows, the Soviets fueled American fears--in one case by flying a single wing of Bison bombers past a U.S. military attache twice, thus doubling American estimates of Russia's bomber strength. Nikita Khrushchev also bluffed about the mighty clout of his missile forces after the 1957 sputnik launch (they were, in fact, tiny and highly inaccurate). That bluster spawned the "missile gap" that helped elect John Kennedy in 1960. Then, to Moscow's horror, Kennedy proceeded to build the more than 1,000 ICBM's that still form the core of the U.S. deterrent. Having overestimated Soviet power in the late 1950s, the CIA proceeded to underestimate the scope and pace ofthe Soviet buildup that followed the Kremlin's humiliating backdown in the 1962 Cuban missile crisis.

Prados believes that both the errors and the criticism of them stem, in part, from the most troubling trend in the U.S. intelligence community: the growing importance of both service interests--particularly the Navy and Air Force--and of political ideology in shaping intelligence estimates. Frightening estimates that help secure approval for new weapons systems generally advance their authors' careers--even when they later prove grossly off the mark. The civilian role in the process has steadily weakened. Under a system inaugurated by Henry Kissinger, for example, a single CIA analyst is now responsible for producing each year's "Soviet Estimate." The effect is to pit a lone civilian's views against those of the corporate bodies of Army, Air Force and Naval intelligence--backed by the political weight of the services and the defense industries that equip them.

Worse still, as the CIA's influence weakened in the late 1970s and early 1980s, its willingness to bend with the political winds grew. In recent years the agency has doubled both its estimates of the percent of the Russian economy devoted to the military and the number of incidents staged by international terrorists. We live in an era when analysis of Soviet weaponry and the capacity to monitor it are crucial to any hope of stopping the nuclear-arms spiral. "The Soviet Estimate" makes a strong case that arms-control advocates should now be clamoring to "unleash" the CIA's deskbound analysts even more fervently than they did to restrain its covert-action "spooks."

I'd read plenty of books about the Cuban Missile Crisis before getting a hold of this one... but know I understand. Penkovsky's espionage story is interesting as a standalone... but to know he was the one who gave SS-4 fire-times and reload operations, with diagrams of how the sites were setup, is just amazing. This information allowed the US Intelligence Community to accurate identify sites during Operation Anadyr - US analysts missed so many clues beforehand, any attempted invasion without this information would have been suicidal and foolhardy.

Col Penkovsky is a perfect example of a HUMINT source - a knowledgeable insider with technical knowledge. When first being debriefed he gave detailed technical specifications on Soviet Systems. This is not the type of spy romanticized in novels today.

Penkovsky's story is an overwhelming success story for Western intelligence services, not just the United States. Definitely a book and story worth looking into.

Doyle's book on preemption and prevention of international conflicts is a very timely one that seeks to respond to the most burning question of the day in international politics: whether and how much of force element be used by a great power to maintain international order. As for the American values readers may also benefit a lot from reading my book mentioned below.

Doyle, rightly, is very critical Bush's approach in this respect calling it open-ended that may prove to be a free for all and ultimately resulting in a state of anarchy. Yet, human beings care largely about force and rule of law and it would be naive to expect morality from common fellows sodden with divisive and group ideologies because human instincts are built that way. Doyle rightly discerns this truth and thus calls for a revision and updating of this concept of preemption.

The book is a balanced one in which human rights and the need for proper adminstration gets their proper dues. I think it has got all the attributes to appeal to huge numbers of readers.

Gautam Maitra
Author of 'Tracing the Eagle's Orbit: Illuminating Insights into Major US Foreign Policies Since Independence'.