How The CIA Can Be Fixed

As the Senate decides whether Michael Hayden should lead the agency, TIME asks CIA experts how to repair years of damage

ROBERT BAER

Former CIA field officer and author of the spy thriller Blow the House Down

The CIA has been under political assault since the early 1970s. It was also badly managed, and the agency became an ungainly bureaucracy. It didn't just happen under George W.; it's been going on for decades. It got to the point where you could be an officer on the front between Afghanistan and Pakistan, living in a tent for three years, hunting down bin Laden, and there could be a logistics guy back at headquarters who takes his kids to soccer practice on Saturday mornings...

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