What do you think?
Rate this book
Spytime: The Undoing of James Jesus Angleton
James Jesus Angleton was an enigma, a secretive man whose power was at its peak during the height of the Cold War. Founder of U.S. counter-intelligence, hunter of moles and foes of America, his name has become synonymous with skulduggery and subterfuge. Angleton pursued his enemies, real and imagined, with a cool, calculating intelligence. Eventually convinced that there was a turncoat within the highest reaches of the U.S. government, Angleton turned all of his considerable skills to finding and exposing him. The result was a near-victory for U.S. Intelligence-and total defeat for himself. A brilliant re-creation of a world that included Soviet defectors, the infamous traitors Burgess, MacLean, and Philby, and American presidents from Truman to Carter, Spytime traces the making-and unmaking-of a man without a peer and, at the end, a man without a country to serve.
330 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2000
2 people are currently reading
182 people want to read
About the author
William F. Buckley Jr.
183 books340 followersWilliam Frank Buckley, Jr. was an American author and conservative commentator. He founded the political magazine National Review in 1955, hosted 1,429 episodes of the television show Firing Line from 1966 until 1999, and was a nationally syndicated newspaper columnist. His writing style was famed for its erudition, wit, and use of uncommon words.
Buckley was "arguably the most important public intellectual in the United States in the past half century," according to George H. Nash, a historian of the modern American conservative movement. "For an entire generation he was the preeminent voice of American conservatism and its first great ecumenical figure." Buckley's primary intellectual achievement was to fuse traditional American political conservatism with economic libertarianism and anti-communism, laying the groundwork for the modern American conservatism of US Presidential candidate Barry Goldwater and US President Ronald Reagan.
Buckley came on the public scene with his critical book God and Man at Yale (1951); among over fifty further books on writing, speaking, history, politics and sailing, were a series of novels featuring CIA agent Blackford Oakes. Buckley referred to himself "on and off" as either libertarian or conservative. He resided in New York City and Stamford, Connecticut, and often signed his name as "WFB." He was a practicing Catholic, regularly attending the traditional Latin Mass in Connecticut.
Buckley was "arguably the most important public intellectual in the United States in the past half century," according to George H. Nash, a historian of the modern American conservative movement. "For an entire generation he was the preeminent voice of American conservatism and its first great ecumenical figure." Buckley's primary intellectual achievement was to fuse traditional American political conservatism with economic libertarianism and anti-communism, laying the groundwork for the modern American conservatism of US Presidential candidate Barry Goldwater and US President Ronald Reagan.
Buckley came on the public scene with his critical book God and Man at Yale (1951); among over fifty further books on writing, speaking, history, politics and sailing, were a series of novels featuring CIA agent Blackford Oakes. Buckley referred to himself "on and off" as either libertarian or conservative. He resided in New York City and Stamford, Connecticut, and often signed his name as "WFB." He was a practicing Catholic, regularly attending the traditional Latin Mass in Connecticut.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 21 of 21 reviews
April 26, 2020
Spytime by William F. Buckley
This book is basically about James Angleton an actual person and a spy.was the master-a legend in the time of spies.
He was the founder of the U.S. counterintelligence after WWII, ended.
Within that arena, he is “at home” underhanded or unscrupulous, as well as intellectual intrigue.
This book/novel – is not long and a pretty short read if you just sit down and read it. I read it over lunch, a few pages at a time. It is fictional account of the spymaster's life. Angleton was involved in WWII through the end of the Cold War, when he was unmasked.
The book re-creates Angleton, his world which included the CIA, Soviet turncoats nd other traitors to the U.S.
Of particular interest to me was the clear access to declassified material that was sprinkled through the book.
Revealed in this book – not for the first time – was the plot to assassinate Fidel Castro, which was hatched by mafia. That was in retaliation for Castro closing all the gambling in Havana, etc.
Eventually the CIA got involved and worked with the mafia in the effort to snuff Castro. Overtime the CIA advised the Eisenhower administration; though there is no proof that Eisenhower ever approved the assassination of Castro. The final straw was when Bobby Kennedy went after the mafia. That ramped things up quickly.
Moreover, back in the early 70’s as a manager of a branch office in Michigan, I had a contact with the attorney general’s office. We talked and on an irregular basis, met for lunch. Early on he told me that he had been on a part of the Warren Commission investigation the JFK assassination. He told me that most investigators were isolated in their work, did not talk nor share among themselves. They were bound by NDA’s. To the point – he told me way back then that Kennedy had been taken out by the mafia and Castro, both with different motives. And that Bobby Kennedy knew that he had a direct hand in what happened to his brother. As little things have come to light regarding the assassination, my source’s details have been confirmed.
This book is basically about James Angleton an actual person and a spy.was the master-a legend in the time of spies.
He was the founder of the U.S. counterintelligence after WWII, ended.
Within that arena, he is “at home” underhanded or unscrupulous, as well as intellectual intrigue.
This book/novel – is not long and a pretty short read if you just sit down and read it. I read it over lunch, a few pages at a time. It is fictional account of the spymaster's life. Angleton was involved in WWII through the end of the Cold War, when he was unmasked.
The book re-creates Angleton, his world which included the CIA, Soviet turncoats nd other traitors to the U.S.
Of particular interest to me was the clear access to declassified material that was sprinkled through the book.
Revealed in this book – not for the first time – was the plot to assassinate Fidel Castro, which was hatched by mafia. That was in retaliation for Castro closing all the gambling in Havana, etc.
Eventually the CIA got involved and worked with the mafia in the effort to snuff Castro. Overtime the CIA advised the Eisenhower administration; though there is no proof that Eisenhower ever approved the assassination of Castro. The final straw was when Bobby Kennedy went after the mafia. That ramped things up quickly.
Moreover, back in the early 70’s as a manager of a branch office in Michigan, I had a contact with the attorney general’s office. We talked and on an irregular basis, met for lunch. Early on he told me that he had been on a part of the Warren Commission investigation the JFK assassination. He told me that most investigators were isolated in their work, did not talk nor share among themselves. They were bound by NDA’s. To the point – he told me way back then that Kennedy had been taken out by the mafia and Castro, both with different motives. And that Bobby Kennedy knew that he had a direct hand in what happened to his brother. As little things have come to light regarding the assassination, my source’s details have been confirmed.
July 21, 2008
Readable. Buckley's spy books never really blew my skirt up. But they're not terrible. This is a hagiography of Angleton. I'm undecided on that score, though I lean to the view that Angleton was a good man who meant well, in over his head, maybe. Buckley's conclusion is that Bill Colby was a KGB agent. If that spoils the book for you, tough shit, you should have read it when it came out 25 years ago.
September 6, 2017
James Jesus Angleton is one of those enigmas that could only have come out of the Cold War era. The long-time head of the CIA's counter-intelligence wing after serving with the agency's precursor organization during World War II, few figures could claim to have had as much of an effect on the secret wars that marked the Cold War as he did. He was a man who remains highly controversial due to his methods, claims of massive Soviet infiltration of Western intelligence agencies, and dozens within the CIA who had their careers affected by his molehunt.
It's no surprise then that writers have used Angleton as the basis for fictional looks into the CIA. Those doing so include Norman Mailer (with his novel Harlot's Ghost) and Eric Roth (who scripted the 2006 film The Good Shepherd). Another author was William F. Buckley, the conservative pundit who not only served for a time within the CIA but wrote a series of novels about the agency, who took on Angleton with his 2000 novel Spytime.
Given the length of Angleton's career, any writer tackling him has their work cut out for them. Buckley's novel covers the width and breadth of it from his work undercover in Italy as an agent of the OSS to his firing from the CIA three decades later. Along the way, the novel takes in a who's who of Cold War era intelligence and political figures including three different CIA directors, the Kennedy brothers, Soviet defector Anatoliy Golitsyn, and the infamous British traitor Kim Philby. It's also a multi-national affair that takes readers from the CIA's Langley headquarters to Beirut and across the United States. Combined with Buckley's previous ventures into the genre, Spytime then has all the ingredients of a first class spy tale based firmly in reality.
Which makes actually reading something of a frustrating experience. Buckley seems not to know how to handle the sheer scale on Angleton's story as the novel drifts back and forth through time. Other writers in the genre have done so (John le Carre among them with some of his best works) but Buckley never makes it feel either organic nor organized enough for it not to be jarring. The novel also seems to go off on numerous tangents that never seem to amount to much in the long run such as the subplot about one of Angleton's proteges. There's also the matter of the book's sometimes liberal altering of historical events to suit the needs of the narrative, something that is at times forgivable given that this is a work of fiction but which comes across as distracting. All of that plays into the rather rushed ending that plays up the novel's subtitle but with a particularly absurd claim that makes one wonder if Buckley was trying to capture the paranoid visions of his protagonist but failed to get it across sufficiently. All of which leaves Spytime feeling unfocused, to put it mildly.
The novel does have its pluses though. Angleton makes for an interesting protagonist and there are times when Buckley wonderfully illustrates both the man and the thinking that made him the most (in)famous mole hunter in the history of American intelligence. The portions of the novel covering Angleton's tradecraft, particularly in his dealings with Golitsyn, make for some nice reading as well. Yet these are nuggets in a proverbial wasteland which brighten up the novel but ultimately aren't able to save it.
Spytime then falls into the category of interesting concepts given perhaps less than worthy executions. Buckley tries to do so much in right around 300 pages that it leaves the whole endeavour to feel loosely bound around an intriguing protagonist rather than a tightly woven tale of Cold War intrigue. Instead of perhaps being the definitive fictional take on Angleton (something Buckley was in a prime position to accomplish), it instead leaves the reader wanting something more.
And not in a good way either...
It's no surprise then that writers have used Angleton as the basis for fictional looks into the CIA. Those doing so include Norman Mailer (with his novel Harlot's Ghost) and Eric Roth (who scripted the 2006 film The Good Shepherd). Another author was William F. Buckley, the conservative pundit who not only served for a time within the CIA but wrote a series of novels about the agency, who took on Angleton with his 2000 novel Spytime.
Given the length of Angleton's career, any writer tackling him has their work cut out for them. Buckley's novel covers the width and breadth of it from his work undercover in Italy as an agent of the OSS to his firing from the CIA three decades later. Along the way, the novel takes in a who's who of Cold War era intelligence and political figures including three different CIA directors, the Kennedy brothers, Soviet defector Anatoliy Golitsyn, and the infamous British traitor Kim Philby. It's also a multi-national affair that takes readers from the CIA's Langley headquarters to Beirut and across the United States. Combined with Buckley's previous ventures into the genre, Spytime then has all the ingredients of a first class spy tale based firmly in reality.
Which makes actually reading something of a frustrating experience. Buckley seems not to know how to handle the sheer scale on Angleton's story as the novel drifts back and forth through time. Other writers in the genre have done so (John le Carre among them with some of his best works) but Buckley never makes it feel either organic nor organized enough for it not to be jarring. The novel also seems to go off on numerous tangents that never seem to amount to much in the long run such as the subplot about one of Angleton's proteges. There's also the matter of the book's sometimes liberal altering of historical events to suit the needs of the narrative, something that is at times forgivable given that this is a work of fiction but which comes across as distracting. All of that plays into the rather rushed ending that plays up the novel's subtitle but with a particularly absurd claim that makes one wonder if Buckley was trying to capture the paranoid visions of his protagonist but failed to get it across sufficiently. All of which leaves Spytime feeling unfocused, to put it mildly.
The novel does have its pluses though. Angleton makes for an interesting protagonist and there are times when Buckley wonderfully illustrates both the man and the thinking that made him the most (in)famous mole hunter in the history of American intelligence. The portions of the novel covering Angleton's tradecraft, particularly in his dealings with Golitsyn, make for some nice reading as well. Yet these are nuggets in a proverbial wasteland which brighten up the novel but ultimately aren't able to save it.
Spytime then falls into the category of interesting concepts given perhaps less than worthy executions. Buckley tries to do so much in right around 300 pages that it leaves the whole endeavour to feel loosely bound around an intriguing protagonist rather than a tightly woven tale of Cold War intrigue. Instead of perhaps being the definitive fictional take on Angleton (something Buckley was in a prime position to accomplish), it instead leaves the reader wanting something more.
And not in a good way either...
September 25, 2018
I'm a huge fan of James Jesus Angleton, and have used his famous mirror quote in my third book of the Shadow series (not yet published). For a book that reads more like a fly sitting on the wall listening into conversations and recording events during the sixties and seventies, this book riveted me each night. I definitely had trouble putting it down. Most of what is in this book rings too true. It has the believablity factor down cold, like the war at that time, that resonated with me. I suspect there is more truth in this book than a fictive story.
As I still have questions about that time period, and the question of who the Fifth Man was, I enjoy reading everything I can get my hands on about that period. Think of it. Many Soviet defectors to the west were executed. The Cambridge Five. We lost a president to an assasin's bullet. Terrorist groups rose up in the US and abroad, and these groups disintegrating under the weight of their own particular hubris: SDS, Weathermen, Black Panthers, and other groups, all had their origins during the early sixties upheaval and into the seventies. We owe the extremists our present warped view of what fascism and socialism is. It's not right or left, but two sides of the same coin. One works purely on disinformation and causing chaos, while the other uses violence to wrest control of the world. James Jesus Angleton, although blinded by those around him who appeared immensely loyal to him, but were double agents, loyal to no one but themselves, he managed to define what counterintelligence was, and built an intelligence network that reached around the globe.
Although he was destroyed by his own suspicions, we would do well to revisit Angleton's way of looking at the west's freedom, that is to regard and covet it as our most precious resource. The Fifth Man was free after Angleton's eventual removal from the CIA. His admission that the tendency of an agency willing to disregard oversight and the direct commands by someone outside the agency, are, by nature, a law unto themselves. Eisenhower believed we should disband the CIA because of their deliberative separateness, avoiding the light shed through oversight. Angleton's admission is an echo of Eisenhower. And the psyops continue.
As I still have questions about that time period, and the question of who the Fifth Man was, I enjoy reading everything I can get my hands on about that period. Think of it. Many Soviet defectors to the west were executed. The Cambridge Five. We lost a president to an assasin's bullet. Terrorist groups rose up in the US and abroad, and these groups disintegrating under the weight of their own particular hubris: SDS, Weathermen, Black Panthers, and other groups, all had their origins during the early sixties upheaval and into the seventies. We owe the extremists our present warped view of what fascism and socialism is. It's not right or left, but two sides of the same coin. One works purely on disinformation and causing chaos, while the other uses violence to wrest control of the world. James Jesus Angleton, although blinded by those around him who appeared immensely loyal to him, but were double agents, loyal to no one but themselves, he managed to define what counterintelligence was, and built an intelligence network that reached around the globe.
Although he was destroyed by his own suspicions, we would do well to revisit Angleton's way of looking at the west's freedom, that is to regard and covet it as our most precious resource. The Fifth Man was free after Angleton's eventual removal from the CIA. His admission that the tendency of an agency willing to disregard oversight and the direct commands by someone outside the agency, are, by nature, a law unto themselves. Eisenhower believed we should disband the CIA because of their deliberative separateness, avoiding the light shed through oversight. Angleton's admission is an echo of Eisenhower. And the psyops continue.
December 24, 2022
This book was an absolute disaster. It was my first time to read something by Buckley, though his son Christopher is one of my favorite novelists. James Jesus Angleton is the gift that keeps giving--and Buckley captured something about the man--but as a novel it was trying to do too much. And it read like narrative nonfiction, without a clear story concept. It was all over the place, left massive lacunae--his wife? kids? It did not read well at all.
Another reviewer here said he should have stuck with Philby in Beirut. I could not agree more. Now that would have made a great novel... but even there he was at most sketching things. Still, it gets four stars because...
Another reviewer here said he should have stuck with Philby in Beirut. I could not agree more. Now that would have made a great novel... but even there he was at most sketching things. Still, it gets four stars because...
October 4, 2017
Dark secrets of al level,.....everywhere ....yesteryears....today's
Comintern alive and work in overtime!
Thanks for a study,
Laszlo
Comintern alive and work in overtime!
Thanks for a study,
Laszlo
June 13, 2018
Unfortunately, this is not one of WFB`s best works. Angleton comes off as a minor character. I was hoping for more detail about the man and his methods. It was a good story but not about Angleton.
December 22, 2020
A bit confusing.
July 30, 2012
I was pretty disappointed in this book. Angleton is such an interesting figure throughout the history of the CIA, but this book is pretty bland overall. Not much detail about his counter-intelligence efforts within the Agency other than a random conclusion on the last page that seems to come out of nowhere. The only part I remotely enjoyed was the brief story about Tony Crespi in Beirut - perhaps Buckley should've just written a novel about that character. If you're looking for a good CIA novel involving Angleton, go read The Company.
April 3, 2011
This was my first book by William F Buckley, Jr. knowing the history of Jesus Angleton of th CIA I thought this was more than just a Spy Novel it was a minute by minute account of what happened. If it did not happen this way, it should have. I have been a Fan of WFB,Jr. in high school when I used to stay up late to watch Firing Line....what an articulate man....I wish I had his vocabulary.
September 4, 2008
I wish I enjoyed it more because many of the parts were excellent spy novel stuff, but the third (and longest) section seemed to go so far afield that the final (and shortest) section struggled to bring things back to the central character study. Really intriguing individual moments, though.
June 24, 2014
Buckley gave an interesting view of Angelton. It's as if he were there ....if he could have been. I think some fore-knowledge of James Jesus Angleton is needed to really enjoy this fictionalized view of his story. Knowing that I found this an interesting shot at the Angleton story.
August 15, 2016
An excellent yarn that "reveal" William Colby as Angleton's famous 5th man, based on a fictitious note from Kim Philby saying, "Give up, Jim, you'll never find him." Angleton uses the son, Tony, of a wartime Italian acquaintance who shot Mussolini.
June 26, 2009
I don't think I have ever read a Buckley novel that I did not like. For me this book was really interesting because many of the events were key battles in the Cold War.
February 21, 2011
I don't enjoy fiction, but I am hooked on Buckley's series of Blackford Oake's novels. "Spytime" is the last installment of the eleven-book series about a Cold War spy and his travails.
December 17, 2013
Would prefer well written non-fiction.
June 26, 2014
Not as good as his Blackford Oakes series, but decent espionage fiction.
November 22, 2014
An intellectual spy novel: Interesting.
April 12, 2016
Very good! It's based on a true story that is just at the edge of things like this that I remember. Makes me want research a bit. Like Bridge of Spies movie did.
December 3, 2010
An entertaining read. I always enjoy Buckley's style.
Displaying 1 - 21 of 21 reviews