Carved into the wall at the entrance of the CIA headquarters is the biblical verse, “And ye shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free” (John 8:32). It’s the polite, civilized version of the view within the CIA and the U.S. intelligence community that their job is “telling truth to power”—where they have the facts and the political types are officials whose ideological and bureaucratic biases stand in the way of sound statecraft.
Gary Schmitt is a resident scholar in strategic studies and American institutions at the American Enterprise Institute.
