San Antonio College Library

"Words of Intelligence: A Dictionary is intended for the intelligence and national security forces fighting the global war on terrorism at all levels: local, state, and federal. The intelligence community has undergone massive changes since the Central Intelligence Agency, National Security Administration, and Department of Defense were created, especially with the establishment of Homeland Security and a director of national intelligence. Intelligence...

An examination of the modern-day world of covert intelligence brings to light the aims, activities, and operating methods of the Soviet Union's KGB, Britain's Secret Service, France's Deuxieme Bureau, and the America's CIA.

The amount of publicly and often freely available information is staggering. Yet, the intelligence community still continues to collect and use information in the same manner as during WWII, when the OSS set out to learn as much as possible about Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan by scrutinizing encyclopedias, guide books, and short-wave radio. Today, the supply of information is greater than any possible demand, and anyone can provide information....

Previous histories of the Civil War have explained victory or defeat in terms of the skill of commanders, the fighting qualities of the troops, and resources in men and materiel. Intelligence has been largely ignored, not because it wasn't critically important -- Lincoln called it the most difficult problem faced by the Union -- but because so little has been known about it. At the end of the war most of the intelligence records disappeared, and they...

"To gain the upper hand in conflict the ability to know what your enemy is planning is vital. Massive amounts of money have been spent and many lives have been lost in pursuit of this objective. From biblical times to the present day, leaders have employed espionage on and off the battlefield in the quest for victory. Tactics might differ, from dirty tricks and theft to interrogation and torture, but the aim is the same - to outmanoeuvre your enemy...

"Why Secret Intelligence Fails provides a frank discussion of the problems of the American intelligence community. While examining the causes of intelligence failures, the book also explores how the intelligence community functions, making it an excellent primer on secret intelligence. Rather than focusing on case studies, the book takes a holistic approach, beginning with structural issues and all the dysfunctions that emanate from them. Michael...

For many years Soviet defector Viktor Suvorov served in the GRU, the Soviet Union's top secret military intelligence organization, which is virtually unknown in the West. The GRU is concerned exclusively with assessing the military capabilities of countries outside the USSR. To that end it runs spy networks both from within embassies and from outside; it buys and steals military secrets, destroys military and political leaders, and paralyzes centers...