CIA Agents Assess: How Real Is 'Homeland'?

The TV drama accurately presents the mission, intensity, pace, contradictions and complexity of a CIA station engaged in deadly battle, say two agency veterans.

As the Season 4 finale of Homeland ironically coincides with the United States draw-down of combat troops from Afghanistan at the end of the month, we wanted to use this opportunity to provide some insight and context to our long history with a complicated region. While the two of us can hardly claim impartiality here, we do bring to this commentary more than 60 years of operational experience at CIA. Collectively, we have served as chief of station in seven countries and have had extensive involvement in the problems that Homeland presents to us this season. Chuck Cogan also headed the Middle-Eastern and South Asian operational division and John MacGaffin was head of the Central Eurasian operational division as well as associate deputy director for operations at CIA. Finally, John has been a consultant to Homeland throughout this season....

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