Few agencies have been more central to global affairs than the aptly-named Central Intelligence Agency. Often shrouded in mystique both cultivated and unasked for, the agency has been at the center of some of the most important foreign policy successes of the United States — such as the search for bin Laden — and also some of the country’s gravest errors, including the Iraq War WMD debacle. Yet, the agency faces profound pressure today on what its present and future mission should be in a world of increasing competition between great powers.That mission is the subject of Tim Weiner’s new book “The Mission: The CIA in the 21st Century.” Weiner has been chronicling the agency since the 1980s, from its covert action program in Afghanistan to the austere budget years of the 1990s to the rise of counterterrorism and now, the pivot to Russia, China, Iran and other U.S. adversaries.Alongside host Danny Crichton, the two talk about Weiner’s history reporting on the agency, the challenge of regrouping to confront future threats versus present ones, how the agency has struggled on intelligence gathering in China, the relationship between the FBI and CIA, and finally, what’s next for the agency under the current Trump administration.
