Making The (Right) Connections: A Cautionary Account Of WMD Intelligence

Book excerpt: Making The (Right) Connections: A Cautionary Account Of WMD Intelligence Can an intelligence service find hidden weapons of mass destruction if it doesn't recognize WMD in plain sight? This hard-hitting monograph, exploiting recent declassification of Cold War materials, presents a timely case study of US intelligence performance. Presenting details of intelligence analysis at work, illustrating realities of inquiry, the convolutions and uncertainties, the known, the missed, the forgotten. Intelligence mirage and reality are contrasted, with the intricate array of made, mishandled, and missed connections providing the unifying theme. The monograph constitutes an intelligence report, reassessing evidence to reach a new conclusion unnoticed by contemporaries, and revealed here for the first time. Intelligence outcomes during missile crises of the late 1950s- early 1960s, and 1980s, are examined and contrasted in this insider's account. Deployments of Soviet long-range nuclear missiles to the German Democratic Republic (East Germany) targeted critical American and NATO assets in Britain, West Germany, Spain, as well as in other European countries (in the first crisis, undetected by Western intelligence services). The account will alter the historical perspective of US intelligence success regarding the October 1962 Cuban missile confrontation. Intelligence misconstruing of information from a key agent, Soviet officer Oleg Penkovsky, is noteworthy. Imagery, clandestine source reporting, and recent Russian revelations are meshed to provide a revised picture of events. The account imparts caveats for historians, and policy analysts evaluating contemporary WMD issues, and is essential reading for anyone seeking to understand the vagaries of intelligence analysis. Much of the material has never before been publicly revealed. The 28 pages include 11 pages with illustrations.