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Spymaster: My Life in the CIA
Lively and informative . . . It is also a good story of how an operative actually works in the field. — Military The death of CIA operative Theodore G. "Ted" Shackley in December 2002 triggered an avalanche of obituaries from all over the world, some of them condemnatory. Pundits used such expressions as "heroin trafficking," "training terrorists," "attempts to assassinate Castro," and "Mob connections." More specifically, they charged him with having played a major role in the Chilean military coup of 1973. But who was the real Ted Shackley? In Spymaster , he has told the story of his entire remarkable career for the first time. With the assistance of fellow former CIA officer Richard A. Finney, he discusses the consequential posts he held in Berlin, Miami, Laos, Vietnam, and Washington, where he was intimately involved in some of the key intelligence operations of the Cold War. During his long career, Shackley ran part of the inter-agency program to overthrow Castro, was chief of station in Vientiane during the CIA's "secret war" against North Vietnam and the Pathet Lao, and was chief of station in Saigon. After his retirement, he remained a controversial figure. In the early eighties, he was falsely charged with complicity in the Iran-Contra scandal. Ted Shackley's comments on CIA operations in Europe, Cuba, Chile, and Southeast Asia and on the life of a high-stakes spymaster will be the subject of intense scrutiny by all concerned with the fields of intelligence, foreign policy, and postwar U.S. history.
336 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2005
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November 14, 2021
Excellent, well-written but overlooked personal memoir of the CIA's most secret operations
Spymaster is a pretty darn good operational memoir by the CIA's legendary but largely unknown operative, Ted Shackley. Shackley spent 30 years in the intelligence field, from being a fresh-faced Army Counterintelligence soldier at the close of WWII to Assistant Director of Operations in the late 70s. His strong work ethic and total commitment to his craft meant that he was the key CIA manager at virtually every flashpoint of the 1960s: Miami's Cuba Operations, Berlin, Laos and Saigon to name a few. He survived the Church congressional witch hunt that took down more well-known figures like William Colby but got caught up in the Iran-Contra, Libyan gun-running mess because of his personal and professional relationship with people like Ed Wilson after leaving the Agency. Shackley was nicknamed "the Blonde Ghost" for his physical appearance and behind the scenes escapades. There is a pretty great biography of Shackley entitled "Blonde Ghost" by David Corn. I actually read Spymaster because, although I liked Corn's book, his anti-establishment attitude toward his subject was revealed in the sub-title which includes the phrase "CIA's Crusades." It also meant Corn drew some incorrect conclusions about the life work of Ted Shackley.
In Spymaster, Shackley writes a memoir not so much about himself as of his experiences in these CIA hotspots. It's his side of the story and was meant to correct many of Corn's daft conclusions and the completely bizarre attacks on his character by Daniel Sheehan's Christic Institute (Shackley successfully sued them in 1986). David Corn disliked the intelligence proverb that people only hear of intelligence failures and cannot, due to secrecy, often hear of their successes, and determined that Shackley's life was wasted tilting toward windmills. As a former intelligence officer myself, I can tell you that Corn was mistaken. The proverb is true and Shackley was determined to share many CIA successes in this memoir. On balance, I believe he does a credible job. He also spends a good deal of time correcting popular misconceptions about things like the Phoenix program (most people get their history on that from movies like Apocalypse Now or leftist anti-war screeds by people like Sheehan) and drug running in Laos. On the latter matter Shackley makes a great point overlooked by conspiracists: The CIA was not in the counter-narcotics game in Laos and was forced by circumstances to work with many who were connected to the opium business. That the money and power involved in such connections may have corrupted people is undeniable. That it was a CIA practice to smuggle drugs to pay for "secret wars" is ridiculous. Who ever benefitted from "secret wars?" Only criminals. Not the average CIA operative who generally risked his or her life at the behest of the Executive Branch for entirely career or patriotic reasons.
This book does have it's flaws. There is little personal history here. We know nothing of the pre-CIA Shackley from this book. But Shackley came from a broken home and left his first wife in the late 50s. He never felt sorry for himself and probably chose to avoid these private, painful episodes to focus on his personal passion: Intelligence Work. Shackley was, after all, a technocrat and entirely devoted to his career.
The concluding chapter is also a weak moment. We are told it was written in the early 90s and it feels like it. But Spymaster wasn't published until 2004. It's Shackley's thoughts as to the future of the CIA. Had it been published in 1992 it would have been an important and prescient statement. But here it just feels dated. I believe it was added to the book after Shackley's passing in 2002 to give the book some extra heft.
Now how do we judge a memoir? Because this is a great book and, as it was written very late in Shackley's life, was not meant to white-wash his entire career. It was meant to celebrate the skills and abilities of the CIA's unsung Cold War heroes like the great Bill Harvey, Shackley's personal mentor. It's often a warts-and-all assessment of the CIA.
I believe this is a pretty cool book. If you are a student of intelligence operations I would call it a must-read book. If you are interested in Cold War, Southeast Asia or CIA history, this is also a must-read. But you need to know your Cold War history to really appreciate it's nuances.
So ignore negative reviews of this book by left-wing and right-wing conspiracists, or "I was there" know-it-alls who disliked Shackley personally or the CIA as a whole or whose experiences in Vietnam were completely different from the world inhabited by Ted Shackley.
Consider and accept the flaws of a personal memoir, one man's perspective, and accept the idea that Shackley wrote what he knew or remembered about a complicated, controversial period in American history.
Spymaster is recommended. Highly.
Spymaster is a pretty darn good operational memoir by the CIA's legendary but largely unknown operative, Ted Shackley. Shackley spent 30 years in the intelligence field, from being a fresh-faced Army Counterintelligence soldier at the close of WWII to Assistant Director of Operations in the late 70s. His strong work ethic and total commitment to his craft meant that he was the key CIA manager at virtually every flashpoint of the 1960s: Miami's Cuba Operations, Berlin, Laos and Saigon to name a few. He survived the Church congressional witch hunt that took down more well-known figures like William Colby but got caught up in the Iran-Contra, Libyan gun-running mess because of his personal and professional relationship with people like Ed Wilson after leaving the Agency. Shackley was nicknamed "the Blonde Ghost" for his physical appearance and behind the scenes escapades. There is a pretty great biography of Shackley entitled "Blonde Ghost" by David Corn. I actually read Spymaster because, although I liked Corn's book, his anti-establishment attitude toward his subject was revealed in the sub-title which includes the phrase "CIA's Crusades." It also meant Corn drew some incorrect conclusions about the life work of Ted Shackley.
In Spymaster, Shackley writes a memoir not so much about himself as of his experiences in these CIA hotspots. It's his side of the story and was meant to correct many of Corn's daft conclusions and the completely bizarre attacks on his character by Daniel Sheehan's Christic Institute (Shackley successfully sued them in 1986). David Corn disliked the intelligence proverb that people only hear of intelligence failures and cannot, due to secrecy, often hear of their successes, and determined that Shackley's life was wasted tilting toward windmills. As a former intelligence officer myself, I can tell you that Corn was mistaken. The proverb is true and Shackley was determined to share many CIA successes in this memoir. On balance, I believe he does a credible job. He also spends a good deal of time correcting popular misconceptions about things like the Phoenix program (most people get their history on that from movies like Apocalypse Now or leftist anti-war screeds by people like Sheehan) and drug running in Laos. On the latter matter Shackley makes a great point overlooked by conspiracists: The CIA was not in the counter-narcotics game in Laos and was forced by circumstances to work with many who were connected to the opium business. That the money and power involved in such connections may have corrupted people is undeniable. That it was a CIA practice to smuggle drugs to pay for "secret wars" is ridiculous. Who ever benefitted from "secret wars?" Only criminals. Not the average CIA operative who generally risked his or her life at the behest of the Executive Branch for entirely career or patriotic reasons.
This book does have it's flaws. There is little personal history here. We know nothing of the pre-CIA Shackley from this book. But Shackley came from a broken home and left his first wife in the late 50s. He never felt sorry for himself and probably chose to avoid these private, painful episodes to focus on his personal passion: Intelligence Work. Shackley was, after all, a technocrat and entirely devoted to his career.
The concluding chapter is also a weak moment. We are told it was written in the early 90s and it feels like it. But Spymaster wasn't published until 2004. It's Shackley's thoughts as to the future of the CIA. Had it been published in 1992 it would have been an important and prescient statement. But here it just feels dated. I believe it was added to the book after Shackley's passing in 2002 to give the book some extra heft.
Now how do we judge a memoir? Because this is a great book and, as it was written very late in Shackley's life, was not meant to white-wash his entire career. It was meant to celebrate the skills and abilities of the CIA's unsung Cold War heroes like the great Bill Harvey, Shackley's personal mentor. It's often a warts-and-all assessment of the CIA.
I believe this is a pretty cool book. If you are a student of intelligence operations I would call it a must-read book. If you are interested in Cold War, Southeast Asia or CIA history, this is also a must-read. But you need to know your Cold War history to really appreciate it's nuances.
So ignore negative reviews of this book by left-wing and right-wing conspiracists, or "I was there" know-it-alls who disliked Shackley personally or the CIA as a whole or whose experiences in Vietnam were completely different from the world inhabited by Ted Shackley.
Consider and accept the flaws of a personal memoir, one man's perspective, and accept the idea that Shackley wrote what he knew or remembered about a complicated, controversial period in American history.
Spymaster is recommended. Highly.
January 10, 2025
A blow by blow account on what Ted did for the CIA and his country. It's interesting that the two authors who wrote the book died within 2 years of each other, and then the book was published in 2005. Wonders never cease in their world. Joe F.
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