VIDEO: The Politicization of the CIA with John A. Gentry
Dr. John A. Gentry served as an intelligence analyst at the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). Dr. Gentry is currently an adjunct professor at Georgetown University.
Dr. Gentry received his Ph.D. in political science from the George Washington University.
About John A. Gentry
Dr. John A. Gentry is an adjunct professor at Georgetown University, where teaches an undergraduate course on the U.S. intelligence community. He writes regularly on intelligence topics and security issues more generally.
He was for 12 years an intelligence analyst at the Central Intelligence Agency, where he mainly worked economic issues associated with the Soviet Union and Warsaw Pact countries. For two of those years, he was senior analyst on the staff of the National Intelligence Officer for Warning. He is a retired U.S. Army Reserve officer, with most assignments in special operations and intelligence arenas. He was mobilized in 1996 and spent much of 1996 as a civil affairs officer in Bosnia. Dr. Gentry formerly taught at the College of International Security Affairs, National Defense University, George Mason University, the National Intelligence University, and Columbia University. He is a member of the Editorial Committee of the International Journal of Intelligence and CounterIntelligence, a prominent academic journal that focuses on intelligence studies.
Dr. Gentry has an economics background and received a Ph.D. in political science from the George Washington University. His most recently published book is Neutering the CIA: Why US Intelligence Versus Trump Has Long-Term Consequences (Armin Lear Press, 2023). He co-authored (with Joseph S. Gordon) Strategic Warning Intelligence: History, Challenges, and Prospects (Georgetown University Press, 2019). And, he has published about 35 articles on intelligence topics. He can be reached at jag411@georgetown.edu.
About
Neutering the CIA is an insider look at how political bias at the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) has undermined its effectiveness both domestically and internationally. The central case study is the impact of the bias on the interaction between the CIA and the Trump Administration, although the origins of the problem link to Robert Gates becoming head of CIA’s analysis directorate in 1982, and then later, director of the CIA.
Holman Jenkins, Jr. praised the book in The Wall Street Journal: “A new book from Georgetown University scholar and former CIA analyst John Gentry, Neutering the CIA, is worth your time. His academic detachment makes all the more eye-opening his chapter on how James Clapper and John Brennan used diversity as a screen to fill the intelligence community with partisan Obama allies. Only a psychiatrist, though, can explain the media’s silence on the biggest resulting disaster, the fake Russian intelligence supplied by the CIA and used by the FBI to justify its unorthodox actions in the Hillary Clinton email case, now widely understood to have inadvertently delivered Mr. Trump to the White House in 2016.” Beginning in 2016, former and currently serving US intelligence officers, mainly from the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), conducted a major political campaign featuring public commentary and leaks designed to thwart the presidential candidacy, and then the presidency, of Donald Trump.
This “politicization” of intelligence, which traditionally is defined as the injection of personal or organizational perspectives into intelligence products to serve personal, ideological, or organizational interests of intelligence officers, reflected a remarkable change from the once-strong CIA ethos of apolitical public service. This book describes the startling political activism of intelligence officers in recent years, identifies its causes, and evaluates its many negative consequences. Most importantly, the activists damaged the credibility of US intelligence in the eyes of Trump Administration officials and undoubtedly many future senior national leaders, thereby eroding the trust in intelligence that decision-makers must have if they are to use intelligence effectively. Although the overt activism subsided in 2021, the Biden administration has not addressed its causes.
The evident success of activists in helping to defeat Trump in 2020 surely has emboldened some intelligence officers, who remain poised to attack presidential candidates whose political views they dislike. This book also identifies actions needed to address this significant threat to American democracy.
Order Dr. Gentry’s Book “Neutering the CIA”: https://www.amazon.com/Neutering-CIA-…
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TRUMP: This is the final battle
— Benny Johnson (@bennyjohnson) May 1, 2024
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