Book Review: Fair Play

Fair Play: The Moral Dilemmas of Spying

Written by James M. Olson in 2006

The Raccoon: James M. Olson’s career as a case officer for the CIA led him to worry that too many vital moral decisions are left in the hands of individuals. In his book, Olson aims to open the discussion over whether the United States should establish rules of “fair play” and what actions are permissible in the game of espionage. Olson first tells his own story, then outlines historical arguments for and against spying, dating back to the Bible, then summarizes the US’ own changing policies and presidents’ outlooks on intelligence.

Following these introductions, the heart of the book presents fifty scenarios of moral dilemmas that the CIA has or could face in the near future. These scenarios range from more familiar issues, such as administering suicide pills, to deeply complex questions, including posing as another country’s intelligence service to recruit a potential informant who is anti-American, feeding an informant’s addiction to drugs or prostitutes, and using dolphins in suicide attacks against terrorists targeting US submarines. All of the stories use fictional details yet have historical precedent. After prompting the reader to consider his or her own answer to each proposed action, Olson has enlisted the help of other CIA employees, soldiers, professors, and students to offer their perspectives.

UNMASKED: I expected Fair Play to be a quick read. The book is not especially long, and its division into individual scenarios makes it easy to pick up for five minutes at a time, without needing to remember any people or facts for more than five pages. However, in trying to engage with the book as Olson suggests, examining my own feelings and logic toward each scenario, I ended up having to work through each page and wrestle with questions, contingencies, and exceptions that are still turning gears in the back of my mind.

The brilliance of Fair Play lies in how Olson steadily walks the reader through just how many variables are involved in a given question, showing rather than telling us that these decisions can never be black and white. For example, following the scenario of bribing an agent with prostitutes, Olson presents another similar case, with the small caveat that this time, the prostitutes are children. Likewise, readers who accept the use of a CIA case officer entering another country undercover as a journalist may not extend that understanding to recruiting a journalist for CIA operations.

For scenarios like recruiting a journalist, I did not initially appreciate the implications of the case officer being exposed. In these more subtly questionable chapters, Fair Play’s commentators prove invaluable, discussing in this case how thousands of civilian US journalists could be negatively affected. I often found that my answer would change two or three times over the course of a chapter due to the varying arguments presented by these other writers. One of the underlying themes of Fair Play is that moral decisions of this magnitude should not be left to one individual, and Olson’s choice to include dozens of other opinions in his explanations of intelligence operations reveals a true commitment to this idea.

Strengths:

• Olson includes extensive notes in a section entitled “Spying 101,” comprising one tenth of the entire book and explaining everything else I wanted to know about US intelligence agencies and particular operations.
• Even including the aforementioned scenarios that come in series, none of the chapters feel repetitive. Fair Play also employs different, relevant commentators for each scenario.

Weaknesses: Other than there being some hard questions to swallow, I cannot find anything wrong with this book.

Rating: 20/20 Romeo operations

Ideal Setting: Would it be morally acceptable to read a book revealing that the US lacks rules or guidelines to stop its representatives from using espionage tactics you would harshly condemn, and not act on it?