Making American Intelligence Smarter

Re “ ‘Spy Czar’ Isn’t the Answer,” editorial, July 21: The argument over whether there should be an intelligence “czar” is useless and irrelevant. The question should be: Why do we need 15 intelligence agencies?

For decades, none of these agencies seemed to have had a clue about what’s going on in the world, starting with the overthrow of the shah, through the collapse of [the Soviet Union], right down to Sept. 11.

These expensive bureaucracies have been spectacularly inept.

Evelyn Stern

Los Angeles

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The Times logic is saying a Cabinet-level officer to coordinate the nearly 15 independent intelligence agencies is hard to follow.

You say that there needs to be more competition to make the agencies work harder and be more effective. You say that the older, more experienced and highly educated people at the CIA are only lacking leadership and direction.

Well, that’s fine, but it isn’t a reason not to have a chief executive of intelligence. The best corporations in this country are those with great CEOs.

The job of the CEO is to coordinate the various divisions within the business and keep them working on their responsibilities to get the most efficient results and profits.

Why can’t a secretary of intelligence run the various agencies like a corporate CEO? At minimum he could make sure that the information they are gathering is shared among the various agencies.

If we find a truly gifted administrator for the job, he might even question why we need 15 agencies and do the right thing and downsize them and make them truly efficient.

Who knows, we might even save a few bucks.

Jay Slater

Los Angeles

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It won’t make a difference if there is an intelligence “czar” position created if a vice president can still wander over and receive custom-made fiction for “intelligence.”

Matt McLaughlin

Santa Barbara