The November Man

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This book reflects a struggle going on in the world of intelligence between those who deny the usefulness of agents, contractors, case officers, and all the other personnel involved in the business of espionage and those who defend the worth of HUMINT (human intelligence and analysis) in the face of the technological revolution.

The New York Times gathered estimates by intelligence officials, who agree that 85 percent of all information gained by the various U.S. intelligence agencies comes from ELINT (electronic signal intelligence), SIGINT (signal intelligence), PHOTINT (photo intelligence), RADINT (radar intelligence), and all the “hardware” sources, opposed to the information gained by spies (HUMINT).

Intelligence analyst Walter Laqueur noted in A World of Secrets that “the need for HUMINT has not decreased, but it has become fashionable to denigrate the importance of human assets because technical means are politically and intellectually more comfortable. On the other hand, the opportunities for hostile intelligence agents operating in democratic societies are incomparably greater than for their Western counterparts.”

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