Too Long; Didn't Read
<span>O</span>ne of the best-known books on legendary C.I.A. spy hunter James Jesus Angleton was called “Wilderness of Mirrors,” an idiomatic title borrowed from a poem by T.S. Eliot. The turn of phrase is a vivid metaphor for the world of counterintelligence — it calls to mind a vast expanse of reflections, some distorted, some flat, tilted at various angles, placed at different distances, each casting back divergent versions of reality in a cacophony of information that overwhelms the traveler. It helps us understand that while counterintelligence is a relatively simple concept on its face, that apparent simplicity belies greater complexity at every turn.