Volume 43, Number 1 · January 11, 1996
A Mess of Improprieties
By Murray Kempton
Human Rights Watch World Report 1996: Events of 1995
Human Rights Watch (distributed by Yale University Press), 388 pp., $30.00
Henry James introduced us to the Countess Gemini, whose repute among soberer Tuscans was 'as a lady who had so mismanaged her improprieties that they had ceased to hang together at all—which was the least that one asked of such matters.' All the same she remained a countess. The Central Intelligence Agency appears to manage its improprieties with the same slipshod hand she dealt for hers. Nonetheless, the CIA remains the CIA. In each one's case, a title accompanied by a spot of mystery carries a warrant of immunity.
Review, 652 words
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