The Administration: The Silent Service

(See Cover)

What enables the wise sovereign and the good general to strike and conquer, and achieve things beyond the reach of ordinary men, is foreknowledge.

— Sun Tzu, 6th Century B.C.

Chinese military theorist

Inside a U.S. ferret satellite flashing around the earth at 17,000 m.p.h., supersensitive instruments intercept and flick back to Virginia a radio message between Moscow and a Soviet submarine in the Pacific. In Laos, an American listens attentively to the words of a cocktail waiter, then slips him a bar of silver. In an office of the U.S....