Intel publishing

Free Speech, But: The Public Writings of Former Intelligence Officials

In recent years, it’s been increasingly common for former CIA operations officers to write books and Op-Eds.   In an Op-Ed for Fox Business online last week, Bryan Dean Wright called out fundamental management failures at CIA.  And this week, another former ops officer, Doug Laux, published a book, Left of Boom, on his experience working for CIA in war zones in which he criticized President Barack Obama for not implementing an alleged CIA operation plan to support Syrian rebels. Former Deputy Director Michael Morell, who has written a book on his Agency experiences, shared with The Cipher Brief his views on public positions taken by former operations officers.

TCB: Do you approve of former operations officers writing books and op-eds?

Michael Morell:  How can I not?  I believe deeply in the Constitution in general and the First Amendment’s right to free speech in particular.  And, it certainly would be unfair for someone like me, who has written a book about my time at the Agency and who frequently writes op-eds about national security topics, to argue that other former Agency officers should not do so...