Agencies

The author served in the NKVD/KGB in various capacities for 30 years before heading to the West. Unlike many defectors who left for ideological reasons, Dzirkvelov left because he felt he had been given a raw deal at his last posting in Geneva, Switzerland, in 1980 (while serving as a correspondent for the Soviet News Agency, TASS).
The strong points of the work are Dzirkvelov's accounts of his "wet work" operations in the Soviet Caucausus region, Iran, and Turkey. There are not many first hand accounts of Soviet kidnappings, assassinations and other high risk operations available in open source literature. Dzirkvelov's accounts are all the more interesting because he is unrepentant about his work and pro-Stalinist views. His discussions of relations between Russians and other Soviet nationalities (Dzirkvelov being a Georgian) are also of interest.
The book is less interesting as Dzirkvelov leaves the KGB (after threatening a well connected hoodlum in a bar with a gun) and begins to work for the Central Committee of the CPSU. Perhaps this is because descriptions of working in the propaganda arm of the Party as opposed to the action arm is by nature not as exciting. But parts of the story seem incomplete or rushed. Dzirkvelov does provide a fair amount of examples of the shameless corruption and hypocrisy at the upper Party level, but this is certainly not new ground.
Also, while Dzirkvelov's hardline views are frank and interesting, subsequent events and information have proven many of them wrong. Clearly, his defenses of Stalin's policies do not hold up. Neither does his prediction that if given a choice, the various republics of the Soviet Union would stay put and reject independence (even the Baltic states, no less!). He comes off as terribly deluded from reality by his own ideological beliefs.
In conclusion, I can strongly recommend the work for students of Soviet State Security operations and Soviet nationality questions. Others will find the work of less use.

before reading/reviewing the book i can only say one thing that by the name itself looks like it has all the necessary contents.

This was a confusing subject but with the teacher we had we learned quit a bit about agency. This book was very interesting and I would recommend that people read it before they buy or sell a house. I have learn alot and I am glad that I did read the book it will help me when I buy my house.

If you just want a quick, broad overview of cryptography in the American Revolution then this book should suffice. It was compiled by the Army Signal Corps in 1945 so obviously there is nothing discovered after that included here. Also, as stated in the foreword, there was no original research done in the preparation of this book; it is based on other works, 3 of which appear in the 3 appendixes. Serious Revolutionary War cryptography scholars should turn their attention to the Ralph Weber book, "American Diplomatic Codes" for a much more in-depth analysis.

Given the massive changes in airline policies and security since 9/11, the vast majority of the advice in this book is no longer applicable. Greenberg focuses so much on flying - almost 240 of the book's 375 or so pages of content - that you'd think there was nothing more to travel than the flight. There's also a bizarre jump from an abbreviated pet-friendly lodging section (a whopping two paragraphs) smack into the middle of a discussion on how to get the best deal on a hotel room. Clearly, whoever edited this cut a big chunk out, and deprived the reader of who-knows-how-much information. There are some useful tips and hints in here, but not enough to justify owning it.

One thing that stuck me is the bad timing. I'm sure he would not have written the book with such a smug tone especially regarding security issues after 9/11. He suggests having another unknown passenger carry your extra carry on bags (you are not allow to bring on) and that security will not be an issue if you are going on the same plane--HOW DO THEY KNOW THAT FOR SURE!
He has such a smart-ass tone to the book it becomes increasingly annoying and ruins much of the little value in has. I expected so much more about cruises. The well-traveled person would get very little out of this book. He spends page upon page speaking of things like confusion of airport codes when he does not cover other actual important areas well or at all. I am more than half way through the book and for the first time in my life I want to stop reading as I beginning to dislike this author. I have nothing to do with the travel industry other than being a frequent traveler. Others may have some retribution in mind for this man but I just don't like the book. We is a bragger that seems to take so much enjoyment he gets out of publicly sticking it to companies that may deserve it but not in such a joyful manner. He smugly tells of how he used to book loads of seats in his youth to make certain he could get on the plane as a standby passenger. He has already referred to the "Star Wars" bar scene three or four times, I guess he has little depth in movies or that is the only one he owns. His arrogance comes out loud and clear and what could have been an average book based on the value and information in it now just is annoying and hardly worth the extra star I gave it. Buyer beware.

I'm mostly impressed with Peter Greenberg's "The Travel Detective", but first I'll get my gripe out of the way: The back cover provides a bulleted list of insider secrets you'll learn from reading this book. While these "secrets" are all covered in the book, a couple are given such an incomplete treatment that you might not find what you're looking for:
· Which coach seats on which planes are better than first class: Some airplane types on about half a dozen airlines are covered. However, I'm an Alaska Airlines frequent flier and could not find my airline nor the planes I fly on.
· Which cruise-ship brochures lie: This is not even close to an all-inclusive list.
Also, Greenberg does not cover train or bus travel.

There IS a lot of useful information, but it's intermixed with anecdotes, many of them Greenberg's humorous tales of grievances with airlines, hotels (like the one who charged him for receiving a FedEx package), and rental car companies. Some reviewers complain about Greenberg's sardonic writing style, but I find Greenberg's tales of his predicaments both outrageously funny and informative.

While every reader will have a different level of travel knowledge and savvy, there's so much information in the book that I think the vast majority of readers would learn something useful and money saving. In addition to the topics on the back cover, Greenberg covers the hazards of putting dogs and cats in a plane's cargo section, airport scams, things to look for when choosing a hotel room, the most economical way to make phone calls from a hotel, rental car rip-offs, helpful travel and weather related websites, and much more. I found the back-to-back ticket concept especially ingenious, but Greenberg cautions the reader that this strategy can result in being bumped from your flight if the airline finds out about it.

Some complain that the information in the book is dated since September 11, 2001. At a September 2002, Seattle-area book lecture, Greenberg said everything in the book still applies. Well, almost everything applies, even in the air travel section, although Greenberg's comments on the safest place to sit on the plane in the event of a hijacking sound awfully flip, and of course the packing tips for carry-on bags need updating. Also, some airlines will no longer allow you board a plane for for no extra charge later in the day if you miss your flight.

If you don't mind a smart-allecky writing style, there's a lot of useful travel information in "The Travel Detective".

This book was a somewhat dissappointing read (worse books have been written) due to shallow content, an unusual timeline progression, and the ramblings of an overly partisan author. There isn't much depth in terms of actions and events that are referenced. Rather, much of the book contains generalizations about policy and personalities.

The book's timeline jumps around too much for my taste. A paragraph explaing the CIA's role in the 1990's will be followed by a section that deals with the CIA during the Cold War. And this will repeat throughout the book a bit abruptly, with no clear links.

The author discounts the value of former CIA officers like Robert Baer, dimissing him as a "cowboy" and making little mention of him beyond that. Yet a prominent point throughout this book - that the CIA needed to regain it's Human Intell. capabilities post Cold-War - is the same seniment offered by Robert Baer in his book, See No Evil (a MUCH better read.)

Unlike Baer, who criticizes both Republican and Democtratic administrations' handling of the intelligent community, Kessler is overly partisan in his writing of the same administrations. A more objective persective would have greatly helped Kessler's credibility. The end of the book especially, dealing with the Iraq War, reads like a Republican commentator on the Fox News Channel.

I wouldn't recommend this book. Buy Robert Baer's "See No Evil" instead.

First of all, don't be misled by the book's title. There is very little written about the CIA at war. In fact, if you have read Kessler's previous book "Inside the CIA," you will undoubtedly be amazed at the sheer amount of regurtiation that goes on in this book. I'd like to personally congratulate Mr. Kessler on fooling me into buying what is roughly the same book twice. Thanks, you hack. When the current book does venture into new grounds, it quickly becomes nothing more than a shrine of words to glorify George Tenet. Regardless of your partisan views or personal feelings of the man, it's pretty clear that the author loves him and goes to great extent to make the second half of this book a giant Tenetfest. There is nothing written in this book that could be confused with an exclusive story or a good investigative journalist's work. There is no analysis or even a hint of information that one wouldn't get by simply keeping up with general news and current events since 9/11. Kessler fails with this one...unless the publication was written with the sole financial purpose of adding a new room to his house or perhaps a second home right next door to his current love, George Tenet. Do yourself a big favor and don't bother with this book. It just isn't worth it.

Anyone interested in learning how the CIA operates (and for Americans that should be all of us) will find this book fascinating. Choc-a-bloc with anecdotes and infomation that is both scary and amusing, it's hard to put down. Did you know that former CIA director John Deutch place l7,00, that's right, THOUSAND, CIA files, some of which were classified as top secret on his unclassified home computer? Did you know that since 9/11 certain Arab countries such as Yemen have actively cooperated with the CIA in its' war against al Qaeda? Do you want to know what the CIA is doing to try to insure there is never another 9/11? Do you (as I do) question whether we should have invaded Iraq? Read Kessler's analysis of the information amassed by the CIA demonstrating that Sadam Hussein was concealing a program dedicated to developing weapons of mass destruction and then decide what you think about the decision. Clearly a fan of George Tenet, whose achievements are impressive by any standard, Kessler is nonetheless critical of the CIA in many respects, as well he should be. Don't criticize the CIA without understanding something about it. This book will help you do just that.

I must agree with previous reviewer comments. This book attempts to describe the Directorate of Science and Technology, yet it focuses on the bureaucracy of upper management and has little discussion regarding the programs and technologies created by the DS&T. This organization has played a cricial role in shaping modern history, yet the book is dull and uninteresting to read.

The CIA's Directorate of Science and Technology far out distanced the traditional "spooks" during the cold war by inventing truly incredible machines -- a variety of reconnaissance satellites, to take one example -- for so-called technical collection. It's triumphs were often extraordinary, yet the pervasive requirement for secrecy kept most of them in the dark. Now Jeffrey T. Richelson -- unquestionably the best in the world at what he does -- has finally given public recognition to men and women who could not do so for themselves. Their crucial role in winning wars, both hot and cold, has finally been told. All citizens of this country should read this book.

Dr. Richelson, who is a senior fellow at the National Security Archives, gives a highly recommendable interpretation of the Directorate of Science and Technology, at the CIA. His book is based mostly on declassified documents, making its stories highly believable and interesting.

I read this book for class, and hated it. Poorly written, and the ideas were elementary. I wouldn't recommend this book if you're working on a paper on government. There are much better sources in the conservative realm.

I have never written an on-line review of a book ever. But after reading this, I had to sign on to do so. Not much thought went into the scholarship and the writing is basic. Not good. Not bad. But basic.

The ideas, while valid, have been published and expounded elsewhere. I got nothing from this book. It seems to me that the Reason Foundation needed some press, sent these two guys out on the road to do some "research" and came back with ideas my kid had when he was five or six.

Sorry. But I had to say this.

This book is a fine example of why not just anyone should sit in front of their computer and scribble for no reason other than because they feel like it. It's easy to support the idea of downsizing government because we all know the duplicity that is inherent in most, if not all, government entities. The real downsizing should have been concentrated on this book. Knowing that Mr. Eggers spent time working for the state government in Austin, Texas as well as having read this book, I question the validity of the other reviews on this book. But, don't listen to me. Read for yourself and let your conscience be your guide.

This could have been a brilliant book - the subject certainly has spectacular prospects - but it was not to be. Fifty years on there are few survivors of the legions of the Kempeitai, and even fewer survivors of their victims. It could have been a timely piece of scholarship. Instead we are treated a poor collection of anecdotes which lack suffcient breadth and analysis to be evidence of anything other than the incidents they describe, not the Kempeitai as a whole, nor their operations. More disappointing is the author's unconcealed antipathy towards his subject, as a result of his father's wartime experiences. If you need a book on the subject then consider buying it, but otherwise look elsewhere.

I'm all in favor of books like this. As time goes on and memories fade, more and more Americans have come to regard the Japanese as victims of World War II. Sure, they bombed Pearl Harbor, but was that any reason we should have dropped an atomic bomb on them?

In fact, Imperial Japan and especially the Imperial Japanese Army (it's worthwhile to distinguish between the two) ran a killing and torture machine that in many respects was the equal of Hitler's Germany. The Kempeitai did much of this work. Officially, it was only the army's police force, but it was feared by Japanese civilians, by the captive populations of Asia, and especially by prisoners of war.

Unfortunately, Lamont-Brown is a professional writer of books, with 50-odd to his credit in a bit more than 30 years--a British Martin Caidin, if you like. Nobody can turn out books at that rate and spend the necessary time in research. As a result, this is mostly a collection of anecdotes and unrelated themes--whatever Lamont-Brown turned up, he shaped the book around that, or so it seems. So it fails both as a serious history of the Kempeitai and as an indictment of the Japanese way of making war.

But it's the only one we have, and therefore worth reading. However, if your interest lies mostly with the fate of Anglo-American prisoners of war, then a better book to start with is Gavan Daws, Prisoners of the Japanese.

The author talks more about atrocities than the counter intelligence role that the organization played. The only intelligence type stuff they discuss is the Ricard Sorge(Soviet Master Spy in Germanys Tokyo Embassy) capture and interogation. The author does catelouge the atrocities committed by this organization well though(Hence the title Japan's dreaded military police). The author explains the disgusting things that this organization did like make sex slaves out of Korean and other Western Women captured by them during the war, decapitating allied airmen, biological experiments on POW's, stuffing prisoners in Bambooe baskets and liteing them on fire. He also explains the sickining fact that many in this organization went unpunished.

With the title of this book, I was under the wrong impression that I could find a rich source of information, however, this book can be described to be sketchy at best with it' details. Though the author provides some details( which are like drops in a ocean), I would not recommend it to anyone.

This book wallows on a lot of stuff, but stops short of giving detailed info on any particular subject. Spend ur money somewhere else!

Good book with information about all types of espionage for a number of different countries. Includes weapons and gear used by spies (which I thought was the best part). Has missions, people, gear, and agencies.