David McCloskey

Methodically.

Methodically.

There was the critique that Jervis levels against the agency afterward.

I think it's correct.

is that essentially there was a whole bunch of reactive reporting and analysis that was being done

And there wasn't a kind of step back to look at everything in a methodical way.

And a lot of this information, you know, that frankly is really insightful on the kind of growing strength of the opposition and who's behind it and isn't making it into the hands of, you know, President Carter and the senior advisors around him in this kind of structured and systematic way.

That's important because it's pretty clear that there was what you call an anchoring bias that was really strong and at play constantly

as the CIA is watching events unfold in Iran, which is the Shah is strong and the opposition is weak and divided.

And you're sort of anchored to that viewpoint until a point well beyond it flips.

I mean, you could make the same case today, right?

I mean, you could say, well, look,

iran's security forces and military are coherent and united and loyal because they have been and the opposition is weak and divided and in even as events sort of shift those things your mental model of the world is stuck in the past right and i think that's that was very clearly the case um

in the CIA's analysis on Iran in 1979.

So you're right.

I mean, it's kind of a classic intelligence failure.

I'll admit it, Gordon, in that you had bits and pieces of

really insightful information kind of scattered throughout the system that weren't pulled together properly.

You had critical information that was just missed, right?

The Shah is sick.