The depiction of congressional oversight in spy film and fiction: Is congress the new meddler?

Abstract

How have writers of spy fiction been able to turn an inherently dubious profession into a breeding ground for heroes and heroines? Drawing from a letter written to the first writer who ever used a spy as a central character, indeed, a hero, this paper suggests that such a transformation is made easier when, among other things, well-meaning people present obstacles to the spy's work – people who meddle in the business of spying. The paper concludes, after a survey of several contemporary writers, that they have done so by turning Congress into the meddler. With very few exceptions, writers of spy fiction in the United States, since the creation of congressional oversight, have made Congress the source of most obstacles in the conduct of espionage.

Notes

1 Maria Edgeworth's 1823 letter is cited in George Dekker, James Fenimore Cooper: The Novelist (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul 1967) p.67.

2 Brett F. Woods, ‘Revolution and Literature: Cooper's The Spy Revisited’ at <http://www.earlyamerica.com/review/2003_winter_spring/coopers_spy.htm> (accessed on 15 March 2007).

3 John Buchan, The 39 Steps (Edinburgh: William Blackwood and Sons 1915).

4 The best treatment of this early period is Frank J. Smist, Jr., Congress Oversees the United States Intelligence Community, 1947–1989 (Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press 1990). The best treatment of the establishment of oversight is Loch K. Johnson, A Season of Inquiry: Congress and Intelligence (New York: Dorsey Press 1988). This abbreviated version in this paper is drawn from Johnson with some sentences taken directly from Edward P. Levine and Stan A. Taylor, ‘U.S. Senate Oversight of the intelligence Community: Powers and Strategies’, a paper presented at the March 1977 Annual Convention of the International Studies Association in St. Louis, Missouri.

5 For interesting insights on this topic from former DCI Richard Helms, see Loch K. Johnson, ‘Spymaster Richard Helms: An Interview with the Former US Director of Central Intelligence’, Intelligence and National Security 18/3 (2003) pp.24–31.

6 Technically the Rockefeller Commission was called the U.S. President's Commission on CIA Activities within the United States; the Church Committee was the United States Senate Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations with Respect to Intelligence Activities.

7 See Gerald K. Haines, ‘Looking for a Rogue Elephant: The Pike Committee Investigations’, Studies in Intelligence 42/5 (1999) pp.81–92.

8 I am grateful to the students in my US Intelligence and National Security Class during Winter Semester 2007 who read hundreds of spy novels and wrote reports on them. Without their help I would not have been able to survey nearly as much spy fiction as I did.

9 Robert Ludlum, The Parsifal Mosaic (New York: Bantam Books 1983) p.103.

10 Robert Ludlum, The Apocalypse Watch (New York: Bantam Books 1995) p.106.

11 Robert Ludlum, The Matarese Countdown (New York: Bantam Books 1997).

12 Robert Ludlum, The Prometheus Deception (New York: St. Martin's Press 2000) p.11.

13 Ken Ringle, ‘Allen Drury, Father of the D.C. Drama’, Washington Post, 4 September 1998, p.D01.

14 Allen Drury, Advise and Consent (New York: Doubleday and Company 1959).

15 Ringle (note 13).

16 Allen Drury, Pentagon (New York: Doubleday and Company 1986) p.99.

17 Allen Drury, A Thing of State (New York: Scribner 1995) p.36.

18 Vince Flynn, Separation of Powers (New York: Pocket Books 2001).

19 Vince Flynn, Executive Powers (New York: Pocket Books 2003) p.49.

20 Ibid. pp.336–7.

21 Vince Flynn, Consent to Kill (New York: Simon & Schuster 2005) pp.50–1.

22 Ibid. p.52.

23 Ibid. p.51.

24 Ibid. pp.54–5.

25 Ibid. p.91.

26 Ibid. p.106.

27 Sneakers (Universal Pictures 1992).

28 William Hood, Spy Wednesday (New York: W.W. Norton 1986) p.33.

29 Ibid. p.33.

30 Ibid.

31 Joseph Finder, The Moscow Club (New York: New American Library 1991) p.157.

32 Robert Ludlum, The Janson Directive (New York: St. Martin's Press 2002) p.571.

33 Ibid. p.579.

34 Robert Littell, The Company (New York: Overlook Press 2002).

35 Vince Flynn, Memorial Day (New York: Atria Books 2002) p.2.

36 Ibid. p.11.

37 Ibid.

38 Gary Hart and William Cohen, The Double Man (New York: William Morrow 1985) p.31.

39 Ibid. p.44.

40 Ibid. p.168.

41 Ibid. p.185.

42 Ibid. p.27. However, the oversight committee was created in 1976, not 1974.

43 Gary Hart, The Strategies of Zeus (New York: William Morrow 1987) p.147.

44 Tom Clancy, Clear and Present Danger (New York: Berkley 1990).

45 Ibid. p.216.

46 Ibid. p.394.

47 Ibid. p.366.

48 Ibid. p.417.

49 Ibid. p.453.

50 Ibid. p.651.

51 Ibid.

52 Ibid. p.653.

53 Clear and Present Danger (Paramount 1994).

54 The writer was at this meeting.