The CIA's Flawed Intelligence Service

The editorial ``Confidence in the CIA,'' Nov. 3: observes accurately that with the end of the cold war the complexity of international relations and security requires intelligence services in which the American people have confidence. These intelligence services must also possess competence.

The challenge of a diverse, expanding array of national security issues - nuclear proliferation, international terrorism, economic espionage, and ethnic conflict, among others - has begun to strain the capabilities of the ossified bureaucracies of US intelligence.

Without a complete restructuring of intelligence services designed to address the proliferation of these new challenges to global security, the US will be ill prepared to help ensure stability and peace in the 21st century.

It is urgent for Congress to review and revise the National Security Act of 1947 and to create an innovative, effective organizational structure for our intelligence services. W.F. Dunkelberger, Randolph, Vt.

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