11/14 DRAFT
Brandeis University
Department of Politics
Spring 2015
POL 171b – National Intelligence: Theory, Practice, and
Cinematic Imagination
Mr. Burg
[Tu-Fri, 12:30-1:50]
Contact information for Prof. Burg: Office: Olin-Sang 108, Phone: x2752
Spring Office Hours: Tu, Fri, 11-12, 2-3; and by appointment email: burg@brandeis.edu
Course Description
This course is focused on understanding the challenge of developing useful “intelligence” in service of national policy making, the relationship between covert operations and intelligence (to the extent it is possible for anyone outside these worlds to understand them), and ways in which films have shaped (or reflect) popular understanding of intelligence and covert operations. We will read work by experienced intelligence professionals and academics, and view and reflect on some of the “better” (artistically, and in terms of what we might learn from them) spy/espionage films.
Course Requirements
1. Class attendance. Students are required to attend every lecture.
2. Read and reflect on the reading assigned for each class.
Students are expected to come to class having done the assigned reading and/or viewing, and reflected on it. Although this is a “lecture course,” there will be some discussion, including discussion initiated by students.
3. Critical review of assigned films. Students are required to view, in their entirety, 17 full-length feature films outside of class, and contribute to critical discussion in class of what each film has to say about the nature of intelligence and espionage. Viewing these films, reflecting on their content, and preparing to discuss them are part of the assigned
“reading” for the course. The films will be available online to students enrolled in the class via LATTE.
4. Mid-Term Examination.
In-class, Tuesday February 24. The exam will consist of one essay. There will be two essay questions from which to choose.
5. One short essay. Due in class, March 20.
Students will be required to submit a 5-7 page essay addressing the following issue:
Does secrecy in defense of security inevitably lead to unethical/immoral behavior? Is the collection of intelligence by covert means therefore incompatible with democracy? If yes, is it reasonable to think the US can sustain security in the absence of

2 unethical/immoral behavior? If no, what limits would you set on covert action (if none, you still have to argue your case)?
Students are required to make use of the readings assigned to date, as appropriate, as sources for the essay.
The essay must be typewritten, double-spaced in 12-point font, with 1.25-inch margins .
Pages must be numbered (top of the page, right side). Your name must appear on the first page. The essay must be submitted in class, in hard copy. No electronic submissions will be accepted.
6. A three-hour final exam, to be administered during “finals week.” The exam will require students to answer one essay question (there will be a choice of three).
Academic Honesty
Students are expected to be honest in all academic work.
All written work for this course must include appropriate citation of the sources used. See section 56c ("Avoid
Plagiarism") of the Concise English Handbook for guidance. The university policy on academic honesty is distributed annually as part of the Rights and Responsibilities handbook . Instances of suspected dishonesty will, without exception, be forwarded to the Office of Student Affairs for possible referral to the Student Judicial System.
Potential sanctions include failure in the course and suspension from the university. If you have any questions about this, please ask.
Use of cell phones in class is prohibited.
If you use your phone in class (e.g., texting), you will be asked to leave. If you wish to leave your phone on, in “silent” mode, because of an ongoing emergency situation to which you may need to respond, please speak to me at the start of class (or email me earlier in the day) to let me know. If you need to respond, please leave the class to do so.
If your phone goes off because you forgot to turn it off (we all do it), just apologize and turn it off (and don’t let it happen again!).
Use of laptops during class is restricted to class-related activity
This includes, but is not restricted to, note-taking, accessing your annotated version of the assigned reading, source-checking, looking up facts quickly to add to classroom discussion, accessing the latte site in connection with class discussion, etc.
Using your laptop for non-class related activities is disrespectful to classmates and the instructor, denies us the potentially important contribution you otherwise might make were you paying attention, and is distracting to those around you. Please do not disrespect others. You will be asked to leave class for “inappropriate use of a laptop”.
Documented Disabilities
If you are a student with a documented disability on record at Brandeis University and wish to have a reasonable accommodation made for you in this class, please see
Prof. Burg immediately after class.

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Evaluation
Students enjoy complete academic freedom in the classroom, within the limits defined by the standards of mutual respect and responsible discourse (we will discuss these concepts briefly at the outset of the course).
The mid-term counts for 25 percent of the grade; the short essay for 25 percent; the final exam for 40 percent; and class attendance and participation for 10 percent.
Reminder: All written work for the course will be evaluated in terms of both intellectual substance and technical and stylistic quality of the writing (i.e., spelling, syntax, word usage, etc. all “count”).
Schedule of Classes, Readings, Films and Discussion Topics
NOTE: ALL readings, film clips, and films for this course [except the text by Loch
Johnson, which is available for purchase in the bookstore] are available electronically on the LATTE site for this course.
Tuesday, January 13
Introduction to the Course
Friday, January 16 - National Intelligence and the Spy Film
Len Scott and Peter Jackson, “The Study of Intelligence in Theory and Practice”
Intelligence and National Security 19, 2 (Summer 2004), pp. 139-169
Alan R. Booth, “The Development of the Espionage Film” Intelligence and
National Security 5, 2 (October 1990), pp. 136-160
Tuesday, January 20 – Pre-War Spy Films
Hitchcock, The 39 Steps [1935]
Friday, January 23 – Organization of intelligence
Loch K. Johnson, National Security Intelligence chapter 1 (1-34)
“Top Secret America” A Washington Post Investigation (online at projects.washingtonpost.com/top-secret-america )
Thomas Fingar, “Office of the Director of National Intelligence: Promising Start
Despite Ambiguity, Ambivalence and Animosity,” and Roger Z. George, “Central
Intelligence Agency: The President’s Own,” in The National Security Enterprise:
Navigating the Labyrinth edited by Roger Z. George and Harvey Rishkof (Georgetown
U. Press, 2011), Chapters 7 & 8, pp. 139-175.
Tuesday, January 27 – Collection, Accumulation, and Analysis
Loch K. Johnson, National Security Intelligence chapter 2 (35-76)
“Chinese Hacking NYT” – selections from the New York Times [pdf]
Friday, January 30 - Cold War films (I): Morality, Loyalty, Corruption

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Hitchcock, North by Northwest [1959]
Tuesday, February 3 - Cold War films (II): The individual versus the organization
Martin Ritt, The Spy Who Came In From the Cold [1963]
Friday, February 6 - The Bond Phenomenon: Consumerism, Sexism, and
Ideological Conceit
Terence Young, From Russia with Love [1963]
Martin Campbell, Casino Royale [2006]
Tuesday, February 10 – Hollywood and the advanced technologies of collection
(NSA, NRO, NGA as “Big Brother”)
Tony Scott, Enemy of the State [1998]
Thomas Rid, “Cyberwar and Peace,” Foreign Affairs 92, 6 (Nov/Dec 2013): 77-
87.
Friday, February 13 – Espionage as Farce
The Coen Brothers, Burn After Reading
FIRST SPRING BREAK
Tuesday, February 24 – IN-CLASS MID-TERM EXAM
Friday, February 27 - Covert Action as Heroics
Loch K. Johnson, National Security Intelligence chapter 3 (77-108)
Ben Affleck, Argo [2012]
Tuesday, March 3 – The (Questionable) Ethics of Intelligence
James A. Barry, “Covert Action Can Be Just”
Orbis 37, 3 (Summer 1993), pp.
375-391
Ross Bellaby, “What’s the Harm? The Ethics of Intelligence Collection”
Intelligence and National Security 27, 1 (February 2012), pp. 93-117.
Friday, March 6 - The covert agent’s moral dilemma
Fred Schepisi, The Russia House [1990]
Ridley Scott, Body of Lies [20080
Tuesday, March 10 – Interrogation, Torture and Consequence
Kathryn Bigelow, Zero Dark Thirty [2012]
Errol Morris, Standard Operating Procedure [2008]
David Luban, “Liberalism, Torture, and the Ticking Bomb” Virginia Law Review
91 (2005), pp. 1425-1461.
Friday, March 13 – Congress vs the Threat to Liberty
Loch K. Johnson, National Security Intelligence chapter 5 (144-176)
Christopher Hayes, “What the public doesn’t know about the secret program of spying, assassination and torture conducted by the US government: and how Congress

5 once exposed it and can investigate it again”
The Nation (September 14, 2009), pp. 12-
19.
Mark M. Lowenthal, Intelligence: From Secrets to Policy (Washington, DC: CQ
Press, 2009), Chapter 10: “Oversight and Accountability,” pp. 199-229.
Tuesday, March 17 - Hollywood anticipates, and Exploits the Threat
Sidney Pollack, Three Days of the Condor [1975]
Doug Liman, The Bourne Identity [2002]
Friday, March 20 – ASSIGNED ESSAY DUE IN CLASS TODAY
- Counterintelligence
Loch K. Johnson, National Security Intelligence chapter 4 (109-143)
Frederick L. Wettering, “Counterintelligence: The Broken Triad” International Journal of Intelligence and Counterintelligence 13, 3 (2000), pp. 265-300
Tuesday, March 24 – Ideology, Money, and Sex: Why and how traitors commit treason
Stan A. Taylor and Daniel Snow “Cold War Spies: Why they spied and how they got caught” Intelligence and National Security 12, 2 (1997), pp. 111-125.
U.S. Department of Justice, “A Review of the FBI's Handling and Oversight of
FBI Asset Katrina Leung.”
Unclassified Executive Summary (Office of the Inspector
General, May 2006), 24 pp.
John Diamond, The CIA and the Culture of Failure: U.S. intelligence from the end of the Cold War to the invasion of Iraq (Stanford: Stanford UP, 2008) chapter 5:
Aldrich Ames and the Decline of Human Intelligence (199-247, plus notes)
Friday, March 27 – Hollywood’s take on the molehunt, and the CIA’s Criticism of it
Robert De Niro, The Good Shepherd [2006]
David Robarge, et al., “The Good Shepherd” Studies in Intelligence 51, 1 (2007)
Nicholas Dujmovic, “Hollywood don’t you go disrespectin’ my culture: The
Good Shepherd versus real CIA history”
Intelligence and National Security 23, 1 (2008), pp. 25-41
Tuesday, March 31 - A British take on the molehunt
Thomas Alfredson, Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy [2011]
SECOND (PASSOVER) SPRING BREAK
Tuesday, April 14 – Loyalty and Betrayal in the Spy film
Tony Scott, Spy Game [2001]
Friday, April 17 – Politicization of the intelligence process
James P. Pfiffner, “Did President Bush Mislead the Country in His Arguments for
War with Iraq?”
Presidential Studies Quarterly 34, 1 (March 2004), pp. 25-46
Paul R. Pillar, “Intelligence, Policy, and the War in Iraq”
Foreign Affairs 85, 2
(Mar-Apr 2006), pp. 15-27

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Diamond, The CIA and the Culture of Failure, chapter 9: Desert Mirage (374-
425, plus notes)
Scott Lucas, “Recognising Politicization: The CIA and the Path to the 2003 War in Iraq,”
Intelligence and National Security , 26, 2-3 (2011), pp. 203-227 .
Tuesday, April 21 Intelligence failures
Amy B. Zegart, “September 11 and the Adaptation Failure of U.S. Intelligence
Agencies”
International Security 29, 4 (Spring, 2005), pp. 78-111
Joshua Rovner and Austin Long, and Amy B. Zegart, “Correspondence,”
International Security 30, 4 (Spring 2006), pp. 196-208.
Friday, April 24 - The new threat to civil liberties: Edward Snowden and the Debate over Electronic Surveillance
Michael Hirsh and Sara Scorcher, “Edward Snowden Is Completely Wrong”
National Journal (Jun 13, 2013)
The June 2013 New Yorker debate online [“The New Yorker Debate” pdf]
Jack Goldsmith,
“We Need An Invasive NSA: There’s No Better Way to Stave
Off the Coming Onslaught of Cyberattacks”
The New Republic (October 23, 2013), 10-12
Tuesday, April 28 – WRAP-UP: Intelligence, Security, Liberty, and Democracy
FINAL EXAM (date/time TBD)