# The Many Failures of the CIA -- Told with Humor

**URL:** https://scanalyst.fourmilab.ch/t/the-many-failures-of-the-cia-told-with-humor/6463
**Category:** Books and Media
**Tags:** bureaucracy, cia
**Created:** [25 September 2026 22:14 UTC](https://scanalyst.fourmilab.ch/t/the-many-failures-of-the-cia-told-with-humor/6463 "2026-09-25T22:14:28Z")
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### Author: ![Gavin](https://scanalyst.fourmilab.ch/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/g/439d5e/32.png) [@Gavin](https://scanalyst.fourmilab.ch/u/Gavin)
#### Post date: [25 September 2026 22:14 UTC](https://scanalyst.fourmilab.ch/t/the-many-failures-of-the-cia-told-with-humor/6463/1 "2026-09-25T22:14:28Z")

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Hat tip to the “Contemplations on the Tree of Woe” website for the recommendation on an entertaining & interesting book – “_The Pickle Factory: A Tall Tale of the CIA_”, by the pseudonymous Sam. R. Oyken. The book comes complete with (mock?) CIA redactions.

The plot tells the tale of CIA agent KRAY – all agent names are capitalized – who gets drawn into a devious plot by a mere Congressman concerned that the CIA is lying to Congress about a particular program. This takes KRAY through bar fights in upscale London pubs, a urine-saturated public phone box in Paris, and the inevitable dysentery in India. Interweaved with this entertaining story are commentaries on some of the more dramatic CIA failures.

Parts of the tale have the sense of verisimilitude – they definitely happened, somewhere, sometime. Such as the occasion when KRAY and his Marine bodyguard are fumbling in the dark inside a building in Iraq, and hear a metal object rolling towards them. “Grenade!”, shouts the Marine, throwing himself on top of the object as it explodes … as a Coke can tends to do when the full weight of a Marine lands on top of it.

Other parts seem plausible, such as the influence of the CIA on the music of Steely Dan. On the other hand, the assertion that the CIA is responsible for the successful art of Jackson Pollock has to be an invention. Probably.

Entertaining as the plot may be, it becomes clear that the author had a deadly serious purpose.

Starting in WW II, the OSS was an elite group of misfits who took huge personal risks breaking the laws of other countries to get the President useful otherwise-unavailable information on what those countries were doing. They lied to other countries but not to the US and not to themselves.

Starting around the time of the Vietnam war, that changed. Now the CIA is a highly bureaucratic, risk-averse, very expensive means of conveying to the President untrustworthy information authored by the regimes of other countries.

Author Oyken does not like this, and his book suggests a way to work around the unkillable CIA bureaucracy and get back to the real business.

Definitely worth a read!