The History Book Club discussion

This is a thread to discuss books (non fiction and historical fiction) about the CIA. On this thread, any events or people associated with the CIA may be discussed, etc.

Please also feel free to add any links to any CIA sites, etc.

Please remember that there are no ads or self promotion allowed on the History Book Club site.

This looks interesting.

by Robert Baer
In his explosive New York Times bestseller, top CIA operative Robert Baer paints a chilling picture of how terrorism works on the inside and provides startling evidence of how Washington politics sabotaged the CIA’s efforts to root out the world’s deadliest terrorists, allowing for the rise of Osama bin Laden and Al Qaeda and the continued entrenchment of Saddam Hussein in Iraq.

A veteran case officer in the CIA’s Directorate of Operations in the Middle East, Baer witnessed the rise of terrorism first hand and the CIA’s inadequate response to it, leading to the attacks of September 11, 2001. This riveting book is both an indictment of an agency that lost its way and an unprecedented look at the roots of modern terrorism, and includes a new afterword in which Baer speaks out about the American war on terrorism and its profound implications throughout the Middle East.

“Robert Baer was considered perhaps the best on-the-ground field
officer in the Middle East.”
–Seymour M. Hersh, The New Yorker

From The Preface
This book is a memoir of one foot soldier’s career in the other cold war, the one against terrorist networks. It’s a story about places most Americans will never travel to, about people many Americans would prefer to think we don’t need to do business with.

This memoir, I hope, will show the reader how spying is supposed to work, where the CIA lost its way, and how we can bring it back again. But I hope this book will accomplish one more purpose as well: I hope it will show why I am angry about what happened to the CIA. And I want to show why every American and everyone who cares about the preservation of this country should be angry and alarmed, too.

The CIA was systematically destroyed by political correctness, by petty Beltway wars, by careerism, and much more. At a time when terrorist threats were compounding globally, the agency that should have been monitoring them was being scrubbed clean instead. Americans were making too much money to bother. Life was good. The White House and the National Security Council became cathedrals of commerce where the interests of big business outweighed the interests of protecting American citizens at home and abroad. Defanged and dispirited, the CIA went along for the ride. And then on September 11, 2001, the reckoning for such vast carelessness was presented for all the world to see

This looks interesting Alisa. Thanks.

Alisa wrote: "This looks interesting.

by Robert Baer..."

Alisa, a terrific book, believe me!

This book's a fantastic history of the OSS, the group that basically turned into the CIA. It's really readable and has a ton of fun anecdotes, not CIA exactly but along the same lines.

Terrence wrote: "

This book's a fantastic history of the OSS, the group that basically turned into the CIA. It's really readable and has a ..."

Terrence, thanks for the recommendation!
I know these are your first few posts and thanks for adding the book cover, please also remember to add the author link.


by Joseph E. Persico

Oops shoot, I need to go back and do that a bunch - sorry!!

You'll get the hang of it. You've been a busy guy today! :-) Thanks so much!

Terrence wrote: "

This book's a fantastic history of the OSS, the group that basically turned into the CIA. It's really readable and has a ..."

Looks interesting, maybe I'll check it out.

The Triple Agent: The al-Qaeda Mole who Infiltrated the CIA by Joby Warrick

I ussually don't care too much about the blurbs, but here they're on spot:

"The Triple Agent is a page turner....It's a must-read for counterterrorism and spy junkies."
—Associated Press

"Warrick is a brilliant reporter and a fine writer.... This is as gripping a true-life spy saga as I've read in years."
—Bob Drogin, LA Times

"A riveting, heart-wrenching tale."
—The Washington Post

"[An] accessible and fast-paced debut....[Warrick] gives this story a cinematic feel with suspensful foreshadowing, rich character development...and a remarkable amount of heart."
—Publishers Weekly

"Warrick has pieced together a fast-paced and compelling narrative that reads like a Hollywood screenplay. He provides a rare look at the careers and personal lives of CIA officers, including the courageous women who played key roles....Spellbinding."
—The Philadelphia Inquirer

"Insightful and riveting.... Mr. Warrick adds a wealth of new detail to a narrative that reads like the best spy fiction."
—The Washington Times

"The Triple Agent is a spy thriller like no other. Never has such a giant intelligence debacle been chronicled this vividly, this intimately. Riveting and harrowing, laden with deception and duplicity, it is a remarkable, behind-the-curtain account of the CIA’s darkest day in Afghanistan."
—Rajiv Chandrasekaran, author of Imperial Life in the Emerald City

“Absolutely first-rate, breakthrough reporting.”
—Bob Woodward, author of Obama’s Wars

“The Triple Agent is a superlative piece of reporting and writing. Joby Warrick manages to take the reader inside the CIA, Jordanian intelligence, and al-Qaeda. His intimate portraits of intelligence officers and the terrorists they stalk are unforgettable. The Triple Agent is one of the best true-life spy stories I have ever read.”
—David Ignatius, columnist for the Washington Post and author of Bloodmoney

“A startling and memorable account of daring, treachery, and catastrophe in the CIA’s war against al-Qaeda. The deadly buzz of unmanned drones, the fanatical drive of a suicide bomber, and the desperate hopes of the intelligence agents at outpost Khost are drawn together in a powerful and fast-paced story of our time.”
—David E. Hoffman, Pulitzer Prize–winning author of The Dead Hand

“The Triple Agent is by turns harrowing and heartbreaking, fascinating and frightening. Joby Warrick takes the reader deep inside the CIA’s biggest disaster since September 11, a monumental blunder that allowed an al-Qaeda mole, carrying a thirty-pound bomb, into the agency’s highly secret, frontline outpost along the Afghan border with Pakistan. The blast left seven agency employees dead and many questions unanswered, questions that Warrick skillfully answers in a tale that reads like a thriller and stretches from the dusty back alleys of Waziristan to the plush executive floor at Langley.”
—James Bamford, author of the bestselling The Puzzle Palace, Body of Secrets, and The Shadow Factory

An upcoming release ~
by Brian Latell
CASTRO'S SECRETS is a riveting account of Cold War history and the U.S.'s historically troubled relationship with its island neighbor. Highly acclaimed author and intelligence expert Brian Latell offers a strikingly original view of Fidel Castro in his role as Cuba's supreme spymaster. Based on interviews with high level defectors from Cuba's powerful intelligence and security services, Latell exposes long-buried secrets of Fidel's nearly 50-year reign for the first time. They include numerous assassinations and attempted ones carried out on Castro's orders, some against foreign leaders. More than a dozen ranking Cuban secret agents embraced by the CIA and FBI speak in these pages; some have never told their stories on the record before. Latell also probes dispassionately into the CIA's most deplorable plots against Cuba - including previously obscure schemes to assassinate Castro - and presents shocking new conclusions about what Fidel actually knew of Lee Harvey Oswald prior to the assassination of John F. Kennedy.

Interesting, thanks for sharing this one.

A new book:

Hard Measures: How Aggressive CIA Actions After 9/11 Saved American Lives

(no image)Hard Measures: How Aggressive CIA Actions After 9/11 Saved American Lives by Jose A. Rodriguez Jr.

Synopsis

An explosive memoir about the creation and implementation of the controversial Enhanced Interrogation Techniques by the former Chief Operations Officer for the CIA's Counterterrorism Center.

Another:

The Art of Intelligence

by Henry A. Crumpton

Synopsis

A legendary CIA spy and counterterrorism expert tells the spellbinding story of his high-risk, action-packed career while illustrating the growing importance of America's intelligence officers and their secret missions

For a crucial period, Henry Crumpton led the CIA's global covert operations against America's terrorist enemies, including al Qaeda. In the days after 9/11, the CIA tasked Crumpton to organize and lead the Afghanistan campaign. With Crumpton's strategic initiative and bold leadership, from the battlefield to the Oval Office, U.S. and Afghan allies routed al Qaeda and the Taliban in less than ninety days after the Twin Towers fell. At the height of combat against the Taliban in late 2001, there were fewer than five hundred Americans on the ground in Afghanistan, a dynamic blend of CIA and Special Forces. The campaign changed the way America wages war. This book will change the way America views the CIA.

The Art of Intelligence draws from the full arc of Crumpton's espionage and covert action exploits to explain what America's spies do and why their service is more valuable than ever. From his early years in Africa, where he recruited and ran sources, from loathsome criminals to heroic warriors; to his liaison assignment at the FBI, the CIA's Counterterrorism Center, the development of the UAV Predator program, and the Afghanistan war; to his later work running all CIA clandestine operations inside the United States, he employs enthralling storytelling to teach important lessons about national security, but also about duty, honor, and love of country.

No book like The Art of Intelligence has ever been written-not with Crumpton's unique perspective, in a time when America faced such grave and uncertain risk. It is an epic, sure to be a classic in the annals of espionage and war.

Yes, I mentioned this on another thread. Did you watch the video from 60 minutes.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kdkoqe...

I haven't yet, but I will, thanks.

This looks interesting:

Safe for Democracy: The Secret Wars of the CIA

John Prados

Synopsis

rom its founding in the aftermath of World War II, the Central Intelligence Agency has been discovered in the midst of some of the most crucial—and most embarrassing—-episodes in United States relations with the world. Richard Nixon's 1969 presidential order that declared CIA covert operations necessary to the attainment of American foreign policy goals was an acknowledgment that secret warfare tools had a much wider application than just the cold war conflict with the Soviet Union. The question of what, exactly, these operations have contributed to U.S. policy has long been neglected in the rush to accuse the CIA of being a "rogue elephant" or merely listing its nefarious deeds. Safe for Democracy for the first time places the story of the CIA's covert operations squarely in the context of America's global quest for democratic values and institutions. National security historian John Prados offers a comprehensive history of the CIA's secret wars that is as close to a definitive account as is possible today. He draws on three decades of research to illuminate the men and women of the intelligence establishment, their resources and techniques, their triumphs and failures. In a dramatic and revealing narrative, Safe for Democracy not only relates the inside stories of covert operations but examines in meticulous detail the efforts of presidents and Congress to control the CIA and the specific choices made in the agency's secret wars. Along the way Mr. Prados offers eye-opening accounts of the covert actions themselves, from radically revised interpretations of classic operations like Iran, Guatemala, Chile, and the Bay of Pigs; to lesser-known projects like Tibet and Angola; to virtually unknown tales of the CIA in Guyana and Ghana. He supplies full accounts of Reagan-era operations in Nicaragua and Afghanistan, and brings the story up to date with accounts of more recent activities in Somalia, Bosnia, and Iraq, all the while keeping American foreign policy goals in view.

Richard Helms wrote a book:

A Look Over My Shoulder

Richard Helms

Synopsis

A Look over My Shoulder begins with President Nixon’s attempt to embroil the Central Intelligence Agency, of which Richard Helms was then the director, in the Watergate cover-up. Helms then recalls his education in Switzerland and Germany and at Williams College; his early career as a foreign correspondent in Berlin, during which he once lunched with Hitler; and his return to newspaper work in the United States. Helms served on the German desk at OSS headquarters in London; subsequently, he was assigned to Allen Dulles’s Berlin office in postwar Germany.

On his return to Washington, Helms assumed responsibility for the OSS carryover operations in Germany, Austria, and Eastern Europe. He remained in this post until the Central Intelligence Agency was formed in 1947. At CIA, Helms served in many positions, ultimately becoming the organization’s director from 1966 to 1973. He was appointed ambassador to Iran later that year and retired from government service in January 1977. It was often thought that Richard Helms, who served longer in the Central Intelligence Agency than anyone else, would never tell his story, but here it is–revealing, news-making, and with candid assessments of the controversies and triumphs of a remarkable career.

U.S. Covert Operations and Cold War Strategy

(no image)US Covert Operations and Cold War Strategy: Truman, Secret Warfare and the CIA, 1945-53 by Sarah-Ja Corke

Synopsis

Based on recently declassified documents, this book provides the first examination of the Truman Administration’s decision to employ covert operations in the Cold War.

Although covert operations were an integral part of America’s arsenal during the late 1940s and early 1950s, the majority of these operations were ill conceived, unrealistic and ultimately doomed to failure. In this volume, the author looks at three central questions: Why were these types of operations adopted? Why were they conducted in such a haphazard manner? And, why, once it became clear that they were not working, did the administration fail to abandon them?

The book argues that the Truman Administration was unable to reconcile policy, strategy and operations successfully, and to agree on a consistent course of action for waging the Cold War. This ensured that they wasted time and effort, money and manpower on covert operations designed to challenge Soviet hegemony, which had little or no real chance of success.

US Covert Operations and Cold War Strategy will be of great interest to students of US foreign policy, Cold War history, intelligence and international history in general.

The Agency: The Rise and Decline of the CIA

John Ranelagh

Synopsis (Review by Foreign Affairs)

Mr. Ranelagh, a British television producer, has written the best comprehensive history of the CIA. He is in control of the massive secondary literature, has used the Freedom of Information Act effectively, interviewed widely, and mined congressional sources. The tone is critical but detached, devoid of both the muckraking passion of the left and the self-congratulatory approach of the old-boy network. A fine book.

Honorable Men: My Life in the CIA

William E. Colby

Synopsis

The first half of this candid and revealing memoir recounts the author's career as a practitioner of covert action in World War II and afterward in Sweden, Italy and Vietnam. The operator's limited viewpoint may seem to some to color his judgments, especially of South Vietnamese leaders. This is the dedicated professional at work, with few second thoughts, much quiet heroism, and little sense of ambiguity or irony (as the very title suggests), in an era when his trade was generally accepted. The last half has vastly wider dimensions. As Colby moved to senior command in CIA, his first-class legal mind and training came increasingly into play at a time when they were most needed. His articulate and detailed account of the period after 1971 within the Agency, and of its stormy relations with Congress, the press and the public, does much to clarify a tangled story, and the author's evolving conduct and judgments, under enormous pressure from all sides, seem to this reviewer to have been essentially right and persuasive - certainly as compared to the stonewalling urged by many. While the element of self-justification can hardly be absent, the basic viewpoint is, more than in most such memoirs, tragic; Colby stresses the historical (and peculiarly American) context of the actions and misdeeds both of the Agency and of its latter-day critics. The result belongs alongside the Church Committee Report as to the past and present, and in the forefront of serious debate about the future role and structure of intelligence and covert operations in the American democratic system. One can argue with many of the author's conclusions, notably his continued bias toward covert operations; and his treatment of the central analysis function of intelligence is, by the same token, skimpy. But this is a big and important book. It deserves to be read whole, and carefully.

General Walter Bedell Smith as Director of Central Intelligence

Ludwell Lee Montague

Synopsis

This book continues the official history of the CIA begun in Arthur Darling's The Central Intelligence Agency.Ludwell Lee Montague's book is one of the first documents, along with Darling's history, to be declassified and made available under the CIA's Historical Review Program, launched in 1985. Montague was a leading government official who participated in the interdepartmental debate over the postwar organization of U.S. intelligence that occurred in 1945. He drafted many of the policies of the Joint Chiefs of Staff during this bureaucratic struggle, including JIC 239/5, the plan that was also the basis for the establishment of the Central Intelligence Group, the predecessor of the CIA. He served as General Smith's executive assistant when Smith was appointed Director of Central Intelligence in 1950.Montague contends that Smith is so important to the development of the intelligence community that the history of the community can legitimately be thought of as "pre-Smith and post-Smith." The book focuses on the initiatives that Smith implemented in order to reform the U.S. intelligence community, which was under heavy criticism at the time for a series of intelligence failure. The reorganization of the intelligence community described her contains, with just a few exceptions, the predecessors of the major organizational components of today's CIA.This book serves as an important companion to Arthur Darling's book in that it provides both background material and Montague's opinion concerning how Darling's study came into existence. Most of this work survived the declassification process relatively intact to give us a detailed analysis of a critical period in the development of the intelligence community.

Raiders of the China Coast

Frank Holober

Synopsis (AFIO Review)

An authentic lively and firsthand account of CIA operations to build a guerilla movement that would divert Communist Chinese troops from the Korean front. The author, a CIA Far East specialist and China scholar, served with the Quemoy partisans for ten months 1951-52, and took part in the clandestine partisan operations against the Chinese mainland. The narrative is anecdotal, an eyewitness account that lifts the veil of secrecy on special operations in a war that has slipped from public consciousness - even though as many Americans died in Korea as did in Vietnam. It can be read as a rousing story or as history, celebrating an exceptional cast of American characters involved in these clandestine operations, including more than 8,000 courageous Chinese guerilla fighters.

The CIA's Secret War in Tibet

Kenneth J. Conboy

Synopsis

Defiance against Chinese oppression has been a defining characteristic of Tibetan life for more than four decades, symbolized most visibly by the much revered Dalai Lama. But the story of Tibetan resistance weaves a far richer tapestry than anyone might have imagined.

Kenneth Conboy and James Morrison reveal how America's Central Intelligence Agency encouraged Tibet's revolt against China--and eventually came to control its fledgling resistance movement. They provide the first comprehensive, as well as most compelling account of this little known agency enterprise.

The CIA's Secret War in Tibet takes readers from training camps in the Colorado Rockies to the scene of clandestine operations in the Himalayas, chronicling the agency's help in securing the Dalai Lama's safe passage to India and subsequent initiation of one of the most remote covert campaigns of the Cold War. Conboy and Morrison provide previously unreported details about secret missions undertaken in extraordinarily harsh conditions. Their book greatly expands on previous memoirs by CIA officials by putting virtually every major agency participant on record with details of clandestine operations. It also calls as witnesses the people who managed and fought in the program--including Tibetan and Nepalese agents, Indian intelligence officers, and even mission aircrews.

Conboy and Morrison take pains to tell the story from all perspectives, particularly that of the former Tibetan guerrillas, many of whom have gone on record here for the first time. The authors also tell how Tibet led America and India to become secret partners over the course of several presidential administrations and cite dozens of Indian and Tibetan intelligence documents directly related to these covert operations.

As the movement for Tibetan liberation continues to attract international support, Tibet's status remains a contentious issue in both Washington and Beijing. This book takes readers inside a covert war fought with Tibetan blood and U.S. sponsorship and allows us to better understand the true nature of that controversy.

This book is part of the Modern War Studies series.

There's a bunch of titles on the Goodreads Listopia List
The Real CIA

(I'm not trying to "promote" the list or whatever, but there's almost 100 books on it)

And some from my to-read shelf:

by Ronald Kessler

by Stansfield Turner

by David Morehouse

by
Christopher Robbins

Daniel Robert Graham

by Dino Brugioni

by James E. Parker Jr.

by Nick Cullather

Thomas Leo Briggs

by James E. Parker Jr.

by Kenneth J. Conboy

by Ian Johnson

by Rhodri Jeffreys-Jones

by William M. Leary

by Allen Cates

by Evan Thomas

by Burton Hersh

by Jefferson Morley

by Steve Hendricks

by Joseph J. Trento

by Philip Taubman

by Catherine Collins

by Norman Polmar

by Thomas Laird

by Fabian Escalante

by Bradley Earl Ayers

by Warner Smith

by Joseph B. Kelly

by Andy Anderson

by Carole McGranahan

Bryan wrote: "This looks interesting:

Safe for Democracy: The Secret Wars of the CIA

John Prados

Synopsis

rom its founding in the aftermath of World ..."

"Safe for Democracy" was a great book, I finished it a few days ago.

Great list, Jerome. Just a couple of tweaks:

Need a title link for books without book covers:
(no image)The War That Never Was: An Insider's Account Of Cia Covert Operations Against Cuba by Bradley Earl Ayers

McGranahan's picture got turned around:
Carole McGranahan

This book looks kind of dumb.

by John Jacob Nutter.

The sources are outdated, people tell me, and it has lots of weird stories about the Agency stealing Jimmy Carter's briefing books and giving them to Reagan, things like that.

Maybe you guys might want to check it out, I don't.

This here is a remarkably detailed account of one of the Agency's more controversial covert-action programs, started under Bill Clinton and expanded under George Bush:

by Stephen Grey describes in meticulous detail the CIA's "rendition" program, where CIA-contracted planes ( a sort of new "Air America", now called Aero Contractors Ltd.), fly terrorist suspects to "black sites" in Central Asia and the Middle East to be interrogated, essentially "subcontracting" interrogation to other countries to avoid breaking US law.

It's fairly interesting, and is told in a narrative, neutral, just-the-facts style. This isn't a political rant, despite what the title may imply.

Here's an upcoming biography of William Colby, CIA director 1973-1976,to be released on November 15. He was also CIA station chief in Saigon during the war in Vietnam.

by Carl Colby

Thank you Jerome; you are getting a handle on the citations.

And you are making some good adds. You seem to be trying to follow the format that Bryan uses in for example post 23. It is always good to have some information about the book itself.

I saw a trailer for a film titled "Argo" (in theaters October 12), about the CIA and the Iran Hostage Crisis. It looked pretty good, and turns out that it's a book, too.

by Antonio Mendez

Synopsis

On November 4, 1979, Iranian militants stormed the American embassy in Tehran and captured dozens of American hostages, sparking a 444-day ordeal and a quake in global politics still reverberating today. But there is a little-known drama connected to the crisis: six Americans escaped. And a top-level CIA officer named Antonio Mendez devised an ingenious yet incredibly risky plan to rescue them before they were detected.Disguising himself as a Hollywood producer, and supported by a cast of expert forgers, deep cover CIA operatives, foreign agents, and Hollywood special effects artists, Mendez traveled to Tehran under the guise of scouting locations for a fake science fiction film called Argo. While pretending to find the perfect film backdrops, Mendez and a colleague succeeded in contacting the escapees, and smuggling them out of Iran.Antonio Mendez finally details the extraordinarily complex and dangerous operation he led more than three decades ago. A riveting story of secret identities and international intrigue, Argo is the gripping account of the history-making collusion between Hollywood and high-stakes espionage.

Related titles:

by Reza Kahlili

by Robert Wright

Jerome, now you have your citations and posts just like Bryan, way to go - that is the moderator's required format and you have mastered it and are using it. Terrific.

by Chris Pocock

by Frédéric Lert

Synopsis

Frederic Lert has supplemented technical information available in the U.S. with European sources and interviews with former CIA contract agents living abroad to present a unique and heavily illustrated portrait of Agency aerial operations from 1948 to the present.

Good job Jerome: there is only one addition that Bryan and the moderators add and that is the title at the top in bold - for example this is how the one above would look:

Wings of the CIA

by Frédéric Lert

Synopsis

Frederic Lert has supplemented technical information available in the U.S. with European sources and interviews with former CIA contract agents living abroad to present a unique and heavily illustrated portrait of Agency aerial operations from 1948 to the present.

Jerome also - normally we do one book per post; if you would like to emulate Bryan, etc.

'kay, thanks.

Imitation is the highest form of flattery, lol.

Yes, it is and rightly so (smile).

Ha!

Hmmm...I think someone in the CIA had an axe to grind:

David Petraeus resigns as CIA Director:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/n...

Bryan wrote: "Hmmm...I think someone in the CIA had an axe to grind:

David Petraeus resigns as CIA Director:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/n......"

Something other than the publicly stated reason is behind it, that's for sure. Should be interesting to see who replaces him.

I heard that the FBI discovered e-mails in Petraeus's computer with the woman involved. So why were they monitoring his e-mails? This whole issue is suspect.

I believe the FBI was investigating if a biographer had access to Petraeus' emails. He ended up having an affair with the biographer.

This article from The Seattle Times spells it out a bit further. What a mess.
http://seattletimes.com/html/nationwo...

This book was very good:

First In: An Insider's Account of How the CIA Spearheaded the War on Terror in Afghanistan

by Gary Schroen

Synopsis

While America held its breath in the days immediately following 9/11, a small but determined group of CIA agents covertly began to change history. This is the riveting first-person account of the treacherous top-secret mission inside Afghanistan to set the stage for the defeat of the Taliban and launch the war on terror.

As thrilling as any novel, First In is a uniquely intimate look at a mission that began the U.S. retaliation against terrorism–and reclaimed the country of Afghanistan for its people.

Great addition Jerome. Looks interesting, thanks for the post.

This sounds very interesting. Unfortunately we'll have to wait until April for it to come out:

The Shadow War: The CIA, a Secret Army, and the Pursuit of America's Enemies to the Ends of the Earth

by Mark Mazzetti

Synopsis

A Pulitzer Prize–winning reporter’s explosive account of the transformation of the CIA and America’s special forces into competing covert manhunting and killing operations—the new American way of war

Osama bin Laden’s demise was merely one sensational moment in the first decade of America’s shadow war, the transformation of the national security apparatus into a machine calibrated for manhunting operations. Beyond the “big wars” in Afghanistan and Iraq, America has pursued its enemies with killer robots and special operations troops; trained privateers for assassination missions and used them to set up clandestine spying networks; and relied on mercurial dictators, unreliable foreign intelligence services, and ragtag proxy armies. The shadow war has blurred the lines between soldiers and spies, lowered the bar for waging war around the globe, and changed for good how America fights its battles: This is the new way of war. A new military-intelligence complex has emerged.

The CIA, created as a Cold War espionage service, is now more than ever a paramilitary agency ordered by the White House to kill off America’s enemies: from the sustained bombing campaign in the mountains of Pakistan and the deserts of Yemen and North Africa to the simmering clan wars in Somalia. For its part, the Pentagon has turned into the CIA, dramatically expanding spying missions in the dark spaces of U.S. foreign policy, like Iran. The countries where radical groups have carved out wide, remote swaths of territory are often the very places most openly hostile to American intervention. Where the soldiers can’t go, the United States sends drones, proxies, and guns for hire.

Pulitzer Prize winner Mark Mazzetti examines these secret wars over the past decade, tracking key characters from the intelligence and military communities across the world. Among the characters we meet in The Shadow War are a young CIA officer dropped into the tribal areas to learn the hard way how the spy games in Pakistan are played, an Air Force test pilot who fired the first drone missile in the Nevada desert, a chain-smoking Pentagon official who ran an off-the-books spying operation in Afghanistan and Pakistan, a woman from the horse country of Virginia who became obsessed with Somalia and convinced the Pentagon to hire her to gather intelligence about al Qaeda operatives there. Gripping, newsbreaking, and powerfully told, The Shadow War reveals the true nature of American warfare in the twenty-first century—a model that is here to stay.

This comes out in April as well:

Shadow Warrior: William Egan Colby and the CIA

by Randall Bennett Woods

Synopsis

World War II commando, Cold War spy, and CIA director under presidents Nixon and Ford, William Egan Colby played a critical role in some of the most pivotal events of the twentieth century. A quintessential member of the greatest generation, Colby embodied the moral and strategic ambiguities of the postwar world, and first confronted many of the dilemmas about power and secrecy that America still grapples with today.

In Shadow Warrior, eminent historian Randall B. Woods presents a riveting biography of Colby, revealing that this crusader for global democracy was also drawn to the darker side of American power. Aiming to help reverse the spread of totalitarianism in Europe and Asia, Colby joined the U.S. Army in 1941, just as America entered World War II. He served with distinction in France and Norway, and at the end of the war transitioned into America’s first peacetime intelligence agency: the CIA. Fresh from the fight against fascism, Colby zealously redirected his efforts against international communism. He insisted on the importance of fighting communism on the ground, doggedly applying guerilla tactics for counterinsurgency, sabotage, surveillance, and information-gathering on the new battlefields of the Cold War. Over time, these strategies became increasingly ruthless; as head of the CIA’s Far East Division, Colby oversaw an endless succession of assassination attempts, coups, secret wars in Laos and Cambodia, and the Phoenix Program, in which 20,000 civilian supporters of the Vietcong were killed. Colby ultimately came clean about many of the CIA’s illegal activities, making public a set of internal reports—known as the family jewels”—that haunt the agency to this day. Ostracized from the intelligence community, he died under suspicious circumstances—a murky ending to a life lived in the shadows.

Drawing on multiple new sources, including interviews with members of Colby’s family, Woods has crafted a gripping biography of one of the most fascinating and controversial figures of the twentieth century.

Great additions, thanks Jerome.