The Human Factor

Inside the CIA's Dysfunctional Intelligence Culture

By Ishmael Jones
(Encounter Books, Paperback, 9781594033827, 383pp.)

Publication Date: April 2010

Other Editions of This Title: Google eBook, Hardcover

Categories: Political Freedom & Security - Intelligence

ISHMAEL JONES was born in the United States and raised in the Middle East, East Asia, and East Africa. He attended universities in the United States and served as an officer in the U.S. Marine Corps. In the late 1980s he joined the Central Intelligence Agency, where he served as a deep-cover officer for eighteen years, focusing on human sources with access to intelligence on weapons of mass destruction and terrorism.

"Excellent...a devastating and alarming picture."
— National Review

“Scathing – and unauthorized.”
— Congressional Quarterly

"Controversial, eye-opening account"
— Foreword Magazine

“This book should be required reading for anyone who serves in our government or is served by it. But beware: Reading The Human Factor will make you very, very angry.”
— Max Boot, Senior fellow in national security studies, The Council on Foreign Relations; author of The Savage Wars of Peace and War Made New

“Jones (the cover name the Agency gave him during his first training course), a Marine who joined the Agency’s clandestine service and became a case officer in the late ’80s, paints a devastating and alarming picture of a vast bureaucracy he calls ‘a corrupt, Soviet-style organization’.”
— Michael Ledeen, National Review Online

“Mr. Jones obviously believes that the United States deserves the best intelligence organization in the world. He believes passionately that every American taxpayer is being cheated because we are paying scores of billions of dollars for a bloated, ineffective, risk-averse organization that cannot perform the mission for which it was created.”
— John Weisman, The Washington Times

“Ishmael Jones represents an altogether uncommon breed of CIA officer, one willing to risk life and career in the pursuit of gathering better intelligence. If the CIA as a whole shared this one officer’s relentless pursuit of WMD sources, terrorists, and the rogue nations that support them, then we might find ourselves in a much safer world today. With his book The Human Factor, Jones relates the details of his extraordinary career with a notable lack of bravado and a tremendous amount of dry wit.”
— Lindsay Moran, author of Blowing My Cover: My Life as a CIA Spy

“The Human Factor is an enormously important book and a surprisingly accessible read. Hopefully, it will propel the reform debate beyond the usual tinkering…. Call him Ishmael, or not, but I call him a patriot.”
— David Forsmark, Frontpage Magazine