Adm. Blair’s wise ideas on spy agencies

Walter Pincus’s Fine Print column on the May 24 Fed Page, “The key to running the intelligence community,” was a knowledgable treatment of the complexities of the nation’s intelligence organization, but I fear he came to the wrong conclusion when he dismissed retired Adm. Dennis C. Blair’s cogent reorganization proposals. Adm. Blair offered several improvements that President Obama should carefully consider.

Separation of the CIA’s intelligence mission and its special operations activities is long overdue. Their existence under the same roof was a principal factor that prevented the director of central intelligence from being all he could have been, making it necessary to create a director of national intelligence to replace him. The failure to define gray areas in DNI and CIA missions must be repaired.

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And perhaps most important, Mr. Pincus was seriously wrong in saying that personality matters more than organization in determining who will be the president’s prime intelligence adviser. Just witness the relationship between CIA director George Tenet and President George W. Bush, with the “slam dunk” conclusion about Iraqi weapons of mass destruction. Far better is Gen. George Marshall’s insistence that President Harry Truman address him as “General” or, later, “Mr. Secretary.”

Jack Harney, New Carrollton

The writer is a retired intelligence professional.