Intellegnce and technology - Book Report/Review Example

Jeffrey gives a summary of how the different programs came into being. He highlights who taught the programs were bad or good ideas and the turf and bureaucracy battles, which eventually put the space satellites. Jeffrey narrates of astonishing hi-tech innovations in the intelligence gathering service (Goodman, 47). Directorate of Science and Technology-DS&T is an important element in the CIA history and the community of intelligence. DS&T as a team is responsible in making tools and equipment that enable spymasters perform their tasks.

Richelson traces DS&T from its beginning in 1947 to date (Prados, 94). He offers an analysis of each element of responsibilities and activities in a thorough detail together with the political fighting and internal wrangling that has accompanied the growth of CIA. Among the first achievement of DS&T, was the early determination to develop exploration airplanes and a sequence of sophisticated satellites for surveillance (Richelson, 29). They had cameras that were able to photograph missiles sites and soviet bomber centers with clarity from trajectories deep in space.

The first effective satellite in 1960 produced exposure of over one million square miles (Jeffrey 77). It surpassed all the initial U-2 photography. The imagery exposed that USSR had few ICBMs and bombers than officials of America feared. U.S Air force worst-case estimates proved exaggerated, and myths of missile and bomber ‘gaps’ were stabbed by practical data. Less exciting to Jeffrey were experiments by DS&T using animals to gather intelligence. The purpose was to engage remote control as a way of guiding birds and cats wired with devices for listening near important executives (Richelson, 72).

The cat could bend up on the couch close to the defense minister and record every word he says. Maybe the CIA imagined the animals could play an important role in assassination plots. The experiments were futile. Jeffrey tactfully skips over why