Agency-securities Books

Written by an Israeli journalist with access to secret Mossad documents and insider knowledge about what has, is, and will be happening inside Iran. The author's painstaking research and attention to detail is very much in evidence. In an age when hack journalists and armchair generals give birth to 2 or 3 books a year off the tops of their heads in pretty much the same way that Zeus gave birth to Athena, it is reassuring to know that there are still a few writers like Bergman who have the integrity to do the job right. Bergman sets a standard for political analysis that others will find hard to follow. If you want to know how the Ayatollah and the mullahs came to power and what they intend to do with it, this book is a must read.

I am basically disappointed by this book. I am in no way to judge the sections that deal with the sabotage of the Iranian regime nuclear programs and I think in that regards his heart is in the right place. I am also concerned about the Iranian regime nukes. But I am knowledgeable enough to claim that author has failed so bad when it comes to history of Islamic revolution, names and places of events. For instance, author keeps calling Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps the "Iranian Republican Guard". Such entity does not exist in Iran. Republican guard was of an Iraqi origin and it belonged to Saddam Hussein of Iraq. Iran doesnt have a republican guard. Secondly, the author has used the name "Mohammed Reza Cyrus Pahlavi Shah". I dont know where he got the Cyrus from. The late Shah of Iran's name was HIM Muhammad Reza Shah Pahlavi. This Cyrus thing is a really silly thing. I have no clue where they got this fake thing from. Moreover, the author does tell story as if he thought the readers of his book will all be ignorant and uneducated when it comes to the Iranian history. Attacks made by the Iranian regime on western nations are very well known and it is no secret. Unfortunately, this book is not what I call an important read on Iran. It's an okay book. And again errors of this sort has made me to give this book only 2.5 stars out of 5.

Ronen Bergman's book is full of facts and events and is indeed a treasure chest if one is looking for this kind of information. But the glue that was to hold it together, the reason WHY Iran, Hezbullah, Hamas and Islamic Jihad are doing what they are doing is nowhere to be found. A Martian landing on planet Earth and reading the book would indeed have no clue, and would probably get more insight by just examining the meaning of the name of the organization Islamic Jihad than he would have gotten from the pages of this book.

In other words, Ronen Bergman who has interviewed 300 people, 200 of whom decided to remain anonymous, would have come up with a much more powerful work had he read the works of Ibn Warraq, Ibn Ishaq, Robert Spencer, Serge Trifkovic or Bat Ye'or and put everything in context. Alas, the myriad events depicted in the book are all hanging in the air. Factually true and interesting, but without a wider context their significance is wasted.


On top of this, some of his comments really turned me off. For instance, on page 242 he writes:" Accompanying the long struggle between Israel and its terrorist enemies has been a running debate about the morality of both sides. Israel's defenders cannot stand it when critics charge that each side is equally culpable in the cycle of violence. They insist that there is a crucial difference between targeting civilians, as terrorists often do, and targeting militants, notwithstanding any 'collateral damage` caused by strikes against Hezbullah or Hamas leaders. In practice, however, each side borrows methods from the other. Hezballah often targets the Israeli military. And in the case of the 1994 operation, Mossad killed a low-level brother in hope of luring Moughniyeh to a crowded funeral."


So here we have the comparing of the incomparable. On one side the assassination of the brother of the most wanted terrorist, wanted by both the US and Israel , the brother, who himself was a bodyguard of a Hezbullah official , with the countless deliberately targeted murders of Israeli civilians in pizzerias, shopping malls and buses. Only a leftist mind turned to mush is capable of making such a comparison.

One would be tempted to forgive the author and appreciate the enormous effort in gathering the data for this book. Perhaps the data itself will be compelling enough to convince the reader of the magnitude of the threat. Yet without explaining Ahmadinejad's eschatological beliefs it is a wasted effort.

20081214 DEPARTED AMAZON WITH OUTRAGE OVER THE MANIPULATION OF VOTES.

I was torn between three stars (the book is terribly flawed in the larger scheme of things) and four stars for the very interesting and well-presented details that while they are strictly from an Israeli perspective and the book is almost certainly an Israeli propaganda operation against the US public in general and US Congress and generals more specificially, are in and of themselves correct.

The author focuses exclusively on painting the Iranians in the worst possible light, while ignoring the Saudi Arabian and Egyptian misdeeds, and never mentioning the 42 of the 44 dictators that the US Government regards as its best pals because they pretend to support the Global War on Terror (GWOT) which is the ninth high level threat to mankind.

I settled for three because this book is completely out of context, grossly exaggerates the Iranian threat, and fails to demonstrate any semblance of the relative costs and benefits of waging peace. Just prior to sitting down with this book for a few hours I read a much shorter monograph (free online), "U.S. Counterterrorism in Sub-Saharan Africa: Understanding Costs, Cultures, and Conflicts" by Donovan C. Chau. His top-level premises are instructive, and condemn the book on Iran to three stars: Dr. Chau suggests that our three priorities for defeating sub-saharan terrorism must be:

1. Seizing and holding the moral high ground

2. Winning the stuggle for perceived legitimacy

3. Pursuing restrained counterterrorism responses

I will not belabor the point further--it is flat out NUTS for the USA to be spending $60 billion a year on the 4% it can steal with largely worthless technology and largely incompetent human spies; and $600-900 billion a year on a heavy metal military that is next to useless in 90% of the situations we face into the future.

Israel, the US neocons that were party to the 935 lies that led America to war in Iraq, now an occupation, and both of the political parties in the USA that share the spoils while looting the US taxpayers, have become cancers on humanity. In no way does this condone terrorism or excuse the terrible depravity and dereliction of the Arab regimes, but in the larger context, I see very clearly that the US and Israel are pursuing their own terrorist tactics "in our name," while completely abandoning the much more sensible and much more likely to succeed grand strategy (neither country has a strategy, only campaigns of tactics) of striving for a prosperous world at peace.

For the single stupidest book ever created by US Generals that totally agrees with this book:
Endgame: The Blueprint for Victory in the War on Terror

For additional information helpful to those who wish to be fully informed and not be held hostage to one point of view:
A More Secure World: Our Shared Responsibility--Report of the Secretary-General's High-level Panel on Threats, Challenges and Change [this book is free online search for title]
Election 2008: Lipstick on the Pig (Substance of Governance; Legitimate Grievances; Candidates on the Issues; Balanced Budget 101; Call to Arms: Fund We Not Them; Annotated Bibliography) [This book is free online search for title.]
The Search for Security: A U.S. Grand Strategy for the Twenty-First Century
The Lessons of History
Web of Deceit: The History of Western Complicity in Iraq, from Churchill to Kennedy to George W. Bush
Legacy of Ashes: The History of the CIA
The Looming Tower: Al Qaeda and the Road to 9/11 (Vintage)
The Lucifer Principle: A Scientific Expedition into the Forces of History
Sleeping with the Devil: How Washington Sold Our Soul for Saudi Crude

This is an extremely important book. It describes in a detailed, richly documented, and clearly - argued way the thirty year secret war between Iran and the West, primarily, the United States and Israel. It opens with a description of the twilight of the Iranian monarchy, and tells the story of Khomeini's coming to power. It shows the blindness of American Intelligence services, and their failure to have a full grasp of what was going on in Iran. The theme of the failure of Intelligence, both of U.S. and Israeli sources, and the element of denial in that failure is one central theme of the book.
The book also details operational decisions which at the time seemed a choice of the lesser of two - evils but in the long run proved critically wrong. One of these was the Israeli decision and this with American approval to arm Iran against the growing power of Saddam Hussein. This decision helped save the Islamic Republic from collapse. The book illuminates the whole Iran- contra affair and provides clear evidence of knowledge of the affair at the highest U.S. government levels.
If the mistakes of the U.S. and Israel are one central theme, the other is the determination, comprehensiveness, and ruthlessness of Iran's war of terror against the West. Bergman claims that time and again Iran and its surrogate Hizbollah outsmarted and dealt telling blows to Israel and the U.S. Successful terror bombings such as two in Beirut on the American Embassy in April 18, 1983, and on the Marine contingent at the Beirut Airport October 23, 1983- on the Israel intelligence service facility at Tyre in Southern Lebanon November 1982 , or the US. Army installation at Khobar in Saudi Arabia were devastating tactical and strategic successes. The terror drove the U.S. from Lebanon, and it put Israeli intelligence services into a process of denial which was no doubt part of the unpreparedness which led to the failures of the 2006 War with Hizbollah.
Bergman gives a lot of credit for Hizbollah's terror successes to one operative Imad Mougniyeh who was behind most of the spectacular operations. He was responsible for more American deaths than any terror force before 9/11. Another surprising revelation of this work is that despite the stereotypical conception of Shiite- Sunnite enmity in the matter of terror the Shiite operatives of Mougniyeh and the Sunni operatives of Al-Quaeda have trained and worked together.
This book traces how Hizbollah rose to power in Lebanon. It tells the story of how an Israeli arms- dealer and traitor supplied Nachum Manber supplied Iran with the basis for its chemical WMD. It tells the story of Iran's dealings with Russia in regard to acquiring technology for a nuclear weapon, and shows how it thwarted in that route found a way to the technology through Pakistani nuclear scientist Abdul Kadeer Khan. It gives convincing evidence as to how Iran has fooled the IAEA and the world and continued to progress towards nuclear weapons.
More than any book I have seen it traces through affair after affair the battle of wits and intelligences between the two sides, and shows how far too often the Iranians have had the upper hand.
It concludes with a description of the successful Israel operation against Iran's strongest state ally, Syria's nuclear facility. It also briefly describes the July 2008 assassination of Imad Moughniyeh, which came too late to save hundreds he had been responsible for the death of.
It concludes by connecting the failures of intelligence in the United States and Israel with larger social trends , including a loss of confidence in government. It suggests that Iran and Hizbollah have proven more sophisticated adversaries than the U.S. and Israel have ever known before in the Middle East. It points out that the failures of the 2006 war have led to a tightening of the Iranian- Syrian alliance. And it warns that Iran is not simply interested in protecting its own regime but is rather an aggressive exporter of its own revolution, determined to acquire nuclear weapons. He points to recent successes of the U.S. and Israel , the defection of General Askari, the Israeli stealth attack on the Syrian nuclear facility, the `mishap' at the VX gas facility at al- Safir as a sign of improvement in the functioning of Western intelligence. But Bergman points out also that the Iranians have in supporting terrorist forces in Iraq through the patronage of the Iranian revolutionary guards done great damage there. The Iranians and Syrians have rearmed Hizbollah and taught Hamas in Gaza its war tactics in anticipation of their next round with Israel.
This book shows how if there is one power in the world central to the campaign of terror being waged against the West, it is Iran. And the book concludes with Iran on the verge of attaining the nuclear capability which will increase exponentially its capacity for inflicting horror.
The book traces the historical record, and does not as it might have go into the possible scenarios which are to come in the war.
This book is solid, factual, the very best type of investigative journalism. I recommend it to anyone who really wants to know what has been going in the Middle East, or part of it, in the past thirty years.

Written by Jimmy Carter's CIA director, this book chronicles the history of the CIA through a unique perspective: the relationship between the president and the head of the CIA. Turner documents how the various presidents (Truman through GW Bush) have taken many different positions toward the CIA. While some like Eisenhower and Kennedy wanted to use the CIA to "make things happen" in foreign countries, some like Johnson and Clinton were distrustful of the agency. Nixon and Reagan took a more hands-off approach, while the two Bushes greatly appreciated the importance of intelligence.

Some CIA directors had constant contact with the president, most notably George Tenet under George W. Bush. Some had no contact at all, like James Woolsey under Clinton. But this book makes a bigger point: the relationship between the man in the Oval Office and the man leading the CIA directly correlates to the role of intelligence in the administrations policy-making process. This book is short, in no way a thorough history of the agency itself. But for what it is, it's a great study.

Admiral Stansfield Turner's 2005 tome is entitled `Burn Before Reading,' a tongue-in-cheek expose about the often tempestuous relationship between a DCI and his boss, the president, since the agency's creation as the main intelligence gathering agency for the executive branch.
Turner's book offers a realistic, yet sometimes humorous examination of how the DCI works for his president and tries to explain the often combative relationship between each DCI and their respective boss. He candidly reveals that many chief executives did not trust or even like their CIA chief which seems odd because the DCI is hired and works at the president's own behest.
He writes that Lyndon Johnson and Bill Clinton refused to see their DCI's on a regular basis and Richard Nixon had apparent contempt for his three DCI's whom he viewed as the enemy.
The Watergate debacle occurred on Nixon's watch yet the true role of the CIA in that political scandal have never been fully explained. But, with Gerald Ford taking over after Nixon's resignation, the agency was forced to disclose the `family jewels' of its worldwide covert operations and the nation was appalled at what was revealed.
The CIA was then blamed for all sorts of nefarious activities for the previous thirty years. Some were true, some were fanciful tales. Yet all put a negative light on those working in Langley.
Turner writes that his own time as DCI under the newly elected and CIA reform minded Jimmy Carter in 1977 was a unique challenge because of the many changes in intelligence gathering as required by the new laws enacted by the Congress at that time in an attempt to restore the agency's credibility that took place during his watch.
But he admits that while he was trying to make those changes he was in constant conflict with the military bureaucrats at the Pentagon who wanted matters done their particular way, even if it was to later prove detrimental to a president's specific policy.
Turner's greatest accomplishment as DCI took place during the 1979-80 crisis with Iran when the CIA was able to get six of America's embassy personnel out of Tehran through subterfuge after the rest had been detained by the invading student hostage takers who had overrun the U.S. Embassy.

A great book describing Presidential relationships with their respective DCIs and the Intelligence Community.

Hearing about the dynamics of these personal relationships and interactions beyond the shallow perceptions one gets from the media (printed, internet, television, talk shows) was very insightful and intriguing.

The book would also give the general public a little more of a pause before jumping to conclusions, as they do when watching television news and just reading only headline news. Then again, our short attention spans and selective memories probably wouldn't allow this to happen.

The book is a fast read and is worth your time.

From his position as Director of Central Intelligence during the Carter presidency Admiral Turner is able to present a view of the CIA from an inside that few of us have seen.

In this book he reviews the relationship between the agency and the president that they served. Sometimes the relationship has been cordial, sometimes you would use other words. Over the years there have been successes and failures, with the failures getting a lot more press.

While the main part of the book is a discussion of the relationship between each of the presidents since Truman and the agency, perhaps the most interesting part of the book is recommendations for strengthening the agency so that it provides more useful assistance to the Government.

His basic proposal is for more of the same. More authority for the director, more budget (of course) more control of the other agencies. There is also a suggestion to tie togeather the fifteen or so agencies that currently collect information. Needless to say, the other agencies have different opinions.

From an outsider point of view, the CIA has become very oriented to collecting intelligence from 'National Technical Means' that is satellites. This worked pretty well when the target was the Soviet Union. It has not worked so well against al Queda or Iraq. Changing the target, the procedures, the languages and perhaps some major changes in philosophy may be needed.

"Burn Before Reading" is comprised of twelve chapters, each covering relations between CIA directors (or equivalent) and their associated Presidents. Early on Admiral Turner makes the basic point that the relationship between the director and the President is crucial to good intelligence operation.

The "bad news" is that infighting over roles/relationships in U.S. intelligence-gathering and analysis has gone on from the days of FDR (Chapter One). The Armed Forces and FBI have been major opponents in this ongoing struggle, and they still are. Meanwhile, from time to time analysts (or the Director of Central Intelligence (DCI) periodically have chosen to go beyond reporting the facts to also making recommendations - making the whole effort subject to political attack.

Curiously, Eisenhower was in a particularly good position to recognize the value of a strong DCI (and did), but allowed the position to deteriorate during his administration because Allen Dulles was not personally interested in such direction.

We've gone from Pearl Harbor to 9/11 to India has the bomb (surprise!) to Pakistan has the bomb (surprise!), to WMD not in Iraq - has our intelligence gotten any better?

After the Russian Revolution of 1917, there were long-standing disagreements until the early 1940s; the Cold War was a bitter, usually non-military conflict for fifty years after WWII. It resumed in 1945, Korean War and Vietnam. As a result, the United States and Soviet Union were always "racing" for arms including nuclear weapons. In the '50s, a climate of fear causing internal instability in the U. S.

The roots of the Cold War lay deep in our past. Russia's miliary power grew and the Soviet Union was developed; consequently, communism was their religion. An uneasy stalemate lasted until 1933. The Great Depression in America caused enemies to become friends there for a time. Stalin vs. Hitler, U.S. Great Britain and Soviet Union formed the grand alliance. Americans believe in the principles of liberty, equality and opportunity. U. S. emerged from the war strong and secure, eager to spread its vision of freedom and economic opportunity around the world.

In 1950s, scientists created new thermonuclear weapons -- hydrogen bombs, which were much more powerful the atomic bomb. Russian Sputnik circled the globe in 1957. Margaret Chase Smith promoted a "Declaration of Conscience" in 1954 as she censured Joseph R. McCarthy's use of hate and character assassination. David Alman, novelist and playwright, promoted the Broadway play, 'The Crucible,' as a parable of McCarthyism. He felt it was "really about the Rosenbergs." McCarthy destroyed many careers and reputations, like Alger Hiss who was proven not guilty of any offence.

Russia's superpower status today comes from energy, not its military. Thhe world's top producer of crude oil is there. Seventy percent of its reserves are found in Western Siberia where they used to isolate their criminals. Their oil industry developoment in a place where severe winters last four months. Russia's new economy seems bright.

This is a highly nuanced work- a decouverture and denouement of the scams and schemes of one particular compartment of cultural intelligence work orchestrated by one organisation- by the compilers of a new generation. Its oft stilted prose and loaded language are quite similar to that employed by Nicholas Davidow in his character assassination portrayal of major league baseball player and OSS operator Moe Berg.

Anyone who has read Simone de Beauvoir's roman-a-clef "The New Mandarins", published nearly half a century ago can match the players who hang out in her novel's fictive "Bar Rouge" (The Ritz Hotel Bar in Paris) with the names Frances Stonor Saunders chooses to name in her work. Nothing really new here.

Stonor's process of contacting and interviewing family members of those who played some role in the "Congress for Cultural Freedom" deserves praise and projects the sense of an open society that, today, is far more open than those whose machinations created the CCF could have ever imagined, or, wanted, for that matter.

Although the Soviet Union, Great Britain, France, the "two Germanys" and the Vatican all conducted their own cultural operations, based on their own interests and requirements, Stonor focuses on the United States, where freedom of information laws are light years ahead of the other major players.

There's a much bigger picture to be painted here. Questions that could have been raised, that were not. For example, why did Conor Cruise O'Brien, someone with known links to the CCF argue that Albert Camus was a "grade B" writer and that he received the 1960 Nobel Prize for Literature only to counterpoise the "Communist" existentialist and acadamician Jean-Paul Sartre?

Then too, Stonor's focus on the CCF leaves out another key element of the U.S. "kulturkampf" strategy, namely, the issue of "journalistic cover." This is an area where an individual with Stonor's keen investigative talents could unearth a goldmine of information that would have relevance and demand accountability today.

With the velocity of information moving today exponentially faster than it did during the period being examined by Stonor, one wonders whether it is best to expend such outstanding investigative energy turning the old stones of the past, or to examine the new stones that are gathering no moss. As our global economy migrates toward the civic religion of democratic corporativism, this is the issue that Stonor and others should be examining.

As a reading experience, the narrative is oddly fascinating; as a source of obscure information, the material is richly rewarding; but as a history of the culture wars of the early cold war period, the book is mediocre at best. The narrative succeeds because the author keeps it moving nicely, providing biographical information when needed, but never as a drag. (Turns out that key shapers of early CIA were pedigeed establishment figures, lending weight to view of the Agency as an establishment - and not a populist - response to post-war world.) The intrigues lack the usual blood and guts of CIA operations, but are fascinating nonetheless, as intellectuals battle one another on both sides of the iron curtain. Saunders has done a service by providing information from research on this little known corner of the cold war. (Who among the general readership would otherwise know of the political intrigues that surrounded the promotion of non-representational art!) As a history of the culture war, the book doesn't work nearly as well, mainly because the events unfold without much historical context to illuminate them. For example, we learn very little of why various conferences were scheduled by the CIA's front organization, The Congress fo Cultural Freedom. Were they part of a larger propaganda offensive, perhaps in response to an aggressive Soviet move, or maybe to provide a paid holiday for penniless academics. etc. By and large, the adversarial Soviet Union, a key player in the drama, remains a very shadowy and unanalyzed presense throughout.

It's always tricky in a book about the Cold War to adopt a correct distance from the material. In this case, I believe Saunders succeeds admirably given the politically charged subject matter. She's largely non-judgemental toward the leading players, most of whom are none to sympathetic. Just as importantly, she is alert to the ironies of a Congress that preaches artistic freedom, yet whose publications refuse to include material critical of U.S. policy or objectives. In the final analysis, as she indicates on the last page, this was not a contest between virtue and evil, but between competing empires, one of which still stands with all its powers of deception still intact. The author has done a nice job of documenting one of those deceptive operations in action.

Most people are probably aware that the CIA sponsored a lot of activities, legal and extralegal, in the war against the Communist bloc known as the Cold War. But it is perhaps less well-known to what extent the CIA was involved in sponsoring, bribing and suborning writers, musicians, actors and intellectuals to agitate against the Soviet Union and its allies, as well as communism and Marxism in general. In particular the CIA-run organization "Congress for Cultural Freedom" and its flagship intellectual journal 'Encounter' had a great influence in the West in terms of effective propagandizing for the US point of view.

Frances Stonor Saunders, an independent film producer and writer for the New Statesman, has now produced an authoritative modern history of the CIA and the Congress, as well as related organizations, focusing both on the global political dimen. She focuses on the global politics, but also on the individuals involved on all sides, the many prominent writers and intellectuals in the organizations, and what it looked like from the CIA's perspective, for which she makes use of newly declassified documents. She shows convincingly that the "non-Communist Left" was by and large bribed or cajoled by the CIA, in so far as they didn't enthousiastically volunteer, into joining their propaganda front. She also shows that later denials by people such as Stephen Spender and Melvin Lasky of their knowledge of CIA involvement is extremely unrealistic and most likely just another lie.

That is not to say that this work is a polemic; far from it, Saunders writes very matter-of-factly and evenhandedly, and has little interest in discussing the merits of various political positions, though she does not fail to comment on the context of the Cold War at times, when she contrasts high-minded phrasery with the rather brutal and cynical realities of Vietnam, CIA activity in Latin America, the Soviet purges, the repression of Hungary, etc. The book is very extensive, making use of various sorts of sources, including interviews with important participants, in which they reflect remarkably often in a rather cynical way on their past activities. It's quite astounding how many famous writers, composers, intellectuals etc., from Nabokov's cousin to Stravinsky and from Russell to Stuart Hampshire, were involved in organized campaigns to attack and discredit their socialist colleagues. For that alone, this book is worth reading, that these crimes are not forgotten.

Eric Ehrman's review fully fails to explain the value of this book. First he says there's nothing new here because Simone de Beauvoir wrote a novel that touches on it. If he fails to understand the difference between a novel and history then he can't be taken seriously.

He also suggests that the question about why Conor Cruise O'Brien criticized Camus is a "bigger picture." What a mind-bogglingly stupid statement!

The point of this book is that after WWII, Western Europe was in danger of falling under the sway of the Soviet Union. Capitalism had been blamed for not only the worldwide depression, but both world wars, and socialism was seen by many as a more respectable alternative. As well, Russia had a respectable cultural heritage, while Americans were seen as gum-chewing cowboys. So keeping Western Europe in the free world was a huge task. If Ehrmann thinks a tiff between O'Brien and Camus is a bigger picture than this...well, words to describe the utter silliness of that escape me.

Of course the most important--and famous--policy towards that goal was the Marshall Plan. Keep Europeans from starving after the war, and rebuild their economies, and voila, they're on our side. But there was a cultural war as well, and this is Saunders' focus. The CIA of the time was an intriguing good old boy's club, very much in the manner of the British intelligence service at the time, filled with highly educated, cultured, and well-bred folks (read John Le Carre's novels and you'll get a sense of the type). These people understood that cultural issues were important--as blue-blood Yankees they had been raised with a sense of noblesse oblige, and many of them came from families that had created the great art museums for the very purpose of bringing culture to the masses. (Seems insufferably elitist today, but that's how it was.)

Notably, these early CIA folk had to fight against backwoods southern politicians who lacked their insight. While the politicians rejected the use of public funds to support anyone who was marginally to the left of the average southern reactionary, the CIA people recognized that including them in shows touring Europe served the purpose of boosting the U.S. over the Soviet Union.

First, avant garde work such as the abstract expressionists (condemned by one politician as being coded maps to such sensitive U.S. sites as Hoover Dam) contrasted well with the restricted formalism of socialist realism, highlighting America's cultural vitality. Second, by including left-leaning artists, it showed (perhaps not entirely truthfully) that America was big enough, strong enough, and free enough to allow dissidents to operate freely, also in strong contrast to the ideological restrictiveness of the Soviet Union.

I give the book 4 stars, rather than 5, because the one point where Ehrman is correct is in his criticism of Saunders' prose. She appears to be trying very hard to be an elegant and sophisticated writer, but it simply comes across as stilted and artificial. That's too bad, because the story she has to tell is fascinating and important. Maybe Ehrman missed the point because he couldn't wade through her turgid style.

For those interested in the history of the Bureau this book is certainly a must read. There is no doubt that DeLoach's professional relationship with Hoover and his first-hand knowledge of some of the major cases the FBI dealth with during his career is worth consideration.

Bear in mind however that DeLoach was also a loyal lieutenant to the Director and make no mistake that in this account of Bureau history, the author does attempt to wax eloquent Hoover and his achievements while passing over much of the damage and subsersive activity the FBI engaged in, notably with the civil rights movement as well as COINTELPRO initiatives. I'd recommend this book for those looking for some inside perspective and rationale behind Bureau activities during the Hoover era, but I'd look elsewhere for alternate viewpoints that have been long substantiated and buttress the claim that Hoover was indeed an individual who exercised more power than any bureaucrat is entitled to, before or since, and that in the process of building a first rate investigative agency many lives and reputations were destroyed.

The story being told by the author is fairly obvious (especially to those of us who were adults during much of that time and realized the truth), but it's one that must be told.

It's hard to believe that this book was published over 10 years ago, and still the media and the entertainment industry insist on portraying Hoover as a cross-dresser and one who spied capriciously on "law-abiding US citizens."

The violence inherent in the policies of the protestors of the 60s and 70s warranted keeping an eye on them ("burn down the cities; kill members of the establishment, etc." As I said, we who remember those things being advocated saw no reason why such violence-prone organizations should have went unwatched.)


And the fact that the Attornet General has to approve of wiretaps is something that Hoover's detractors always overlook. Especially since the Attorney General that approved the wire tap on Martin Luther King's phone was none other than Bobby Kennedy.


Nor is DeLoach afraid to show Hoover's warts along with his dedication. He points out his egocentric nature, his petty grudges and his biases. Sometimes the truth hurts, and the many truths contained in this book, though painful to some cultural icons, needed to see the light of day.

This book is by far the most accurate account of the Hoover years at the FBI. Mr. DeLoach not only gives the most accurate information on some of the most famous cases, but also gives the reader an inside account of the thinking behind some of Hoover's most important decisions of the time - Mississippi Burning, Monroe, LBJ, Nixon, etc. If you actually want to know the truth and not some plagerous expose with 1/2 truths, take a look at this book.

If you are a right-wing, ultra conservative member of the Christian Coalition then you will love this book.

According to DeLoach the FBI has never done anything wrong, Hoover never kept any secret files, and the sexual innuendos surrounding Hoover were unfounded. This may all be true as I am sure that the tales we hear of Hoover are exaggerated in order to generate interest in the man but it is other comments throughout the book that strike me as proof that the FBI can't and shouldn't police itself.

DeLoach discredits anyone who suggests that Hoover was gay but yet uses the same type of proof when detailing Martin Luther King's sexual escapades (why was the FBI investigating and wire-tapping is the better question?), that students in the 60's were wrong in their protest of the US Gov't because it could lead to communism or that homosexualtiy is thrust upon us by the media. He believes in the American way so long as its his American way.

Cartha DeLoach isn't an iconoclast or a sycophant; he simply writes through a spirit of determination to give credit when credit's due. As WASHINGTON POST columnist Jack Anderson has admitted, no-one alive today has DeLoach's knowledge of the FBI's workings during the Hoover era. After reading DeLoach it becomes increasingly hard to believe (a) that Hoover was a practising homosexual, (b) that he indulged in transvestitism (that particular allegation derives from the unsupported testimony of a convicted perjuror), (c) that Martin Luther King was the spotless saint in which America has increasingly come to believe, (d) that the CPUSA consisted of fey intellectuals concerned primarily with the Bill of Rights.

In a way, the very unpretentiousness of DeLoach's account is its strength. You come away from it, not liking Hoover, but respecting him.

Anyone who is willing to give some of the Bill of Rights to gain percieved security needs to read this book. It will help you to understand that the KGB wasn't the only organization to spy on and intimidate (or worse) it's own citizens. Not a quick read as Mr. Mackenzie wasn't a polished author. It does drag a little in some spots.

The background to MacKenzie's book is Harold Koh's "The National Security Constitution: Sharing Power after the Iran-Contra Affair". The National Security Constitution: Sharing Power after the Iran-Contra Affair (Yale Fastback Series) Koh identifies the tremendous swing of power to the Executive office that took place after a new power center was set up in the 1947 law authorizing a select body to coordinate military planning with foreign policy.
From the State Department's web site:
[...]
The Council itself included the President, Vice President, Secretary of State, Secretary of Defense, and other members (such as the Director of the Central Intelligence Agency), who met at the White House to discuss both long-term problems and more immediate national security crises. A small NSC staff was hired to coordinate foreign policy materials from other agencies for the President. Beginning in 1953 the President's Assistant for National Security Affairs directed this staff. Each President has accorded the NSC with different degrees of importance and has given the NSC staff varying levels of autonomy and influence over other agencies such as the Departments of State and Defense.
MacKenzie outlines how the language of the National Security act was used by powerful people in the CIA during the Vietnam war protest to censor, harass, imprison, and illegally gather intimate information on many American citizens. An excerpt from the Code itself:
SEC. 103. (50 U.S.C. 403-3]
"The Director shall prescribe appropriate security requirements for personnel appointed from the private sector as a condition of service on the Council, or as contractors of the Council or employees of such contractors, to ensure the protection of intelligence sources and methods while avoiding, wherever possible, unduly intrusive requirements which the Director considers to be unnecessary for this purpose. . .
(c) HEAD OF THE INTELLIGENCE COMMUNITY. - In the Director's capacity as head of the intelligence community, the Director shall -
protect intelligence sources and methods from unauthorized disclosure;
In another related book describing the CIA's control of the U. S. media The Assassinations: Probe Magazine on JFK, MLK, RFK, and Malcolm X the reader can learn how the CIA cultivates steady relations with major figures in the written and video media to ensure that the American body politic remains comatose about the burning issues of the day. The facts in this book again show how media figures, are controlled, influenced and otherwise directed by CIA sources that often wine and dine the reporters they want to sway into their camp.

The last thing I want to do is read some dissident's views. Activists generally don't like America and / or find fault with it. The author clearly falls into this camp. He speaks about a CIA that used-to-be for the protection of our liberty. The fact that this book got published is evidence of a new leftist-leaning agency. Sure, harassment exists today, but it is directed at patriots who couldn't get their real life stories of harassment published. I know because I am a target of it.

"Secrets: The CIA's War at Home" might strike a lot of people as whacked out conspiracy theory or anti-government propaganda but it is neither of those things. Using his own well-documented historical and journalistic research, Angus McKenzie demonstrates that for decades the CIA, FBI, DOD (Department of Defense) and other American intelligence organizations targeted American citizens for espionage, harassment, and slander in a manner that eroded their First Amendment rights but had practically nothing to do with national security.

American intelligence organizations frequently spied on and subverted their own people to prevent political opposition to the Vietnam War, to conceal illegal activities such as the Iran/Contra scandal, or simply to hide corruption and bureaucratic waste from the legislative branch of government and the American people. In one appalling example, a government appointed efficiency expert was not allowed to report wasteful Pentagon expenditures to his supervisors in congress because this information was considered classified. American intelligence agencies in fact retain the power to determine that any information is classified and they can use this mandate to fire or prosecute employees even for reporting trivial facts to the public such as the contents of a White House menu. Sadly enough America's intelligence agencies could not have made such a drastic legal and illegal assault on the First Amendment without the cooperation of the ACLU (American Civil Liberties Union), the media, and the legislative branch of government, all of whom were either duped or cowed into acquiescence.

The most frightening part of this book is its revelation that when American intelligence agencies ran out of excuses to justify their anti-First Amendment activities they raised the specter of terrorism. One can only imagine the further corruption, illegal activity, and constitutional abuses that American intelligence agencies will perpetuation against their own people now that terrorism is a legitimate threat. If history repeats it self, then these abuses will stem from the need to conceal corruption and criminal activity but will have little to do with combating terrorism.

Well the CIA does spy on USA citizens but the book failed to mention that a lot of the spying goes on in the Federal Prisons. One such important Federal Prisons is Butner FCI, Butner, NC. Its Prison, "which I read about" is the greatest in surveillence and misinformation and disinformation in the Prison-with false identification with individuals who reside there-claiming they did some "violation of the Federal law"-but in actuality it is nothing but a "front story for the agent" to figure out your case.If you were a inmate. Your surrounded by prisoners, who "claim they are", but really are working for the US Government to figure out your case.

an engaging well written spy story that you can read once sitting

A fascinating story by a REAL journalist

What an experience! Hard to believe it'a a true story. I'm amazed by the author's courage.

I left reading Powell's "Treason" wondering if his story was really worthy of a book. An meaty article in some highbrow magazine, surely, but a book?

Powell describes his involvement with bringing a Soviet turncoat, GRU Colonel Baranov, in from the cold. Baranov, disgruntled with the crumbling Soviet system, agreed to spy for the CIA. However, before he was able to do much of anything for the CIA, he was outed as a traitor. The book describes Baranov's career, and then Powell's efforts to bring the government into investigating the circumstances surrounding Baranov's arrest, almost certainly the work of a spy in the United States who betrayed Baranov to Moscow.

The main problem with the book is that it ends inconclusively. We never learn who betrayed Baranov. Furthermore, Baranov himself makes for a rather uninteresting subject of study when it comes to espionage, because his career as a traitor inside the GRU and agent for the CIA was over immediately after it began.

Readers will learn something about how spies like Baranov are recruited and operate - both into the intelligence services and then into betraying their countries. They will also learn a good bit about journalistic ethics and espionage (the book's high point). Another strong point is getting what is essentially a street level account of how badly the CIA can bungle seemingly routine tasks.

Overall, the book is well-written, and Baranov's story is a good one. I just don't think it was worth of a full-fledged book, even a short one like "Treason."

THis is an interesting read that raises questions about the lines a journalist should--or should not cross--when dealing with intelligence agents. I'm not sure that issue is addressed sufficiently here, in fact. Though the ending is a bit of a letdown, the story itself does draw the reader in and is unique enough to be of interest both to readers interested in spy stories as well as journalism. AN easy short read, so I recommend it.

This book covers the history and evolution of the FBI from 1908 to the present from an objective point of view. It has been well researched by these four scholars. The essays are well written and organized in ten chapters. Each chapter gives an in depth explanation of the origins of the FBI, its changes through the years, the relationship with other state and federal law enforcement agencies as well as its relationship with the President, Congress and the media. The reader not only learns about the history of the FBI, but also will learn about 20th century U.S. history. The chapters on Notable Cases and the FBI's influence on the American popular culture are very interesting. This book is very useful not only for the those who are interested in learn about the FBI but also for historians, sociologists, criminologists.

I'm doing a research project on J. Edgar Hoover and while I found this useful, easy to use and fact filled...its just amazing when you compare it to other reference materials on the same subjects. All the bad stuff has just been completely left out! In one case that I have found so far they have even gone so far as to outright lie! It's a good jumping off point for sure, but this has definitely been a lesson in checking facts for me, you really have to be careful what you believe.

"The FBI: A comprehensive reference guide" is a great book for information on FBI history and organization. I learned a lot about how the FBI carries out its mission by reading this book. This is a terrific reference.

When I first bought this book on amazon.com I really was not expecting the vast ammount of information the book containted! The title of a 'comprehensive reference guide' is not over rated!

There is 396 pages chock full of information about the bureau you never knew or could easily find on your own. It even has virtually every movie, show, etc, about the FBI or had an FBI character in it! Truely amazing!

If you are looking to work for the FBI, write about the FBI or have an interest in the FBI you'll love this book...it'll keep you occupied for hours if not days.

You'll learn everything from day-to-day activities to tons of information you can amaze your friends with like the name of the first blind typist with the FBI!

Fidelity - Bravery - Integrity

The FBI Comprehensive Reference Guide is a very good resource for background information on the FBI. I have never seen a better book on the history and workings of the agency. I would recommend it, along with "FBI Careers" (by Thomas Ackerman), to anyone who is seeking FBI employment.

This was a very misleading title. It could have been more aptly entitled "The OPC/CIA gave away huge amounts of the tax payer money during the Cold War." Period.
This funding was given to anti-Communist organizations and individuals both here and abroad to help spread anti-Communist propaganda as a part of the CIA's Psychological Warfare Ops.
Although the organizations listed were numerous, most of them had already been identified by previous authors. The same applies to the individuals involved to whom Mr. Wilford constantly refers to as the "intellectuals".
I must admit I have never read a book about the CIA that maintained such an obvious hands-off, distant approach to the Agency. His kid-glove treatment of the CIA seem to imply that the Agency was comprised solely of high-minded and noble intellectuals, patrons of the arts all, and whose only desire was to protect the American public from the Red Menace gathering at their doorstep. The book never actually gets into a discussion on what the CIA actually did or how they did it except to say they gave away money. There are no real in-depth discussions of the CIA at all.
The one area that Mr. Wilford does excel in was his detailed descriptions of the friction, disagreements, infighting, and at times petty squabbling amongst the non-CIA "intellectuals" in charge of these various organizations receiving the funding. If anything, this book was more like a "CIA Fund Recipients" gossip column.
Despite the acclaim this book has recieved from others, I found it to be a failure due to its' reluctance to actully enter into any honest discussion of the Central Intelligence Agency itself (as the title implies).
How Frank Wisner's Mighty Wurlitzer "played" America never became obvious.

This is a useful overview of CIA Cold War front operations. The most significant failings are that (1) it implies the CIA's covert apparatus for influencing public opinion was focused solely on the perceived Communist threat, and (2) that the Wurlitzer no longer plays to the world audience.

However, we know that the carefully cultivated array of "media assets" Frank Wisner began to assemble had other applications during the Cold War era that had nothing to do with Communism and "the Soviet threat." We can also see evidence that the same methods are currently being applied to managing public opinion about pivotal current events.

The author completely avoids any discussion of the CIA's extensive covert role in the UFO controversy, for example. When hundreds of thousands of "flying saucer" stories began to fill the nation's newspapers in the late 1940s and early 1950s, CIA officials, under direction of Dr. H.P. Robertson, used its Wurlitzer to calm public concerns about an invasion from outer space by covertly working to ridicule and debunk such reports. Top CIA officials also infiltrated key UFO-research groups such as NICAP, orchestrated anti-UFO propaganda programs via CBS TV and other news networks, and worked to squelch embarrassing leaks from airline pilots, military eyewitnesses, and others who knew too much. What is now becoming known is that the CIA's concerns stemmed partly from an alarming pattern of surveillance exhibited by the UFOs, particularly surveillance of our nuclear weapons facilities. In the mid-1960s and again in the mid-1970s, for example, UFOs hovered over and sometimes disabled many of our Minuteman nuclear-tipped missiles. We know this from regional press accounts, government documents, and former Minuteman personnel who have recently broken their silence about these astonishing events. (For further details, see Faded Giant, UFOs and the National Security State: Chronology of a Coverup, 1941-1973, UFOs and Nukes by Robert Hastings (ufohastings.com), and my own modest effort, The Missing Times.)

One academic study showed that upwards of a million articles about UFOs appeared in the nation's newspapers between 1947 and 1966 alone. Yet, this is unmentioned in nearly all contemporary American History books. Such is the power of Wisner's Wurlitzer!

In the wake of the events of 9-11, thousands of academics, government officials, eyewitnesses, architects, scientists, and engineers have called attention to the many serious problems with the official explanation. Public opinion polls also show widespread skepticism about what the Bush White House says took place. And yet, the American news media will never even discuss these facts. Most reporters today know that keeping their jobs depends on keeping their mouths shut about certain sensitive topics.

And the Mighty Wurlitzer plays on....

As a citizen, you SHOULD read this book. Over the years, I have read a lot of texts that speculated about the role the U.S. government played in certain events -- sometimes with hard facts, often with only anecdotal evidence. This book is well-researched and documents its claims.

It's a snapshot into the dangerous mix that fear and power often creates -- a message for all people, in all countries, at all times.

Hugh Wilford, previously of the University of Sheffield, now at California State University, Long Beach, has written an astonishing account of the CIA's front operations in the USA during the Cold War. In 1967, research by Ramparts magazine exposed this covert system, which broke the law banning CIA operations in the USA.

The CIA funded front organisations within trade unions, New York intellectuals, émigrés, writers, artists, musicians, Hollywood, the National Student Association, aid workers, civil rights activists, clergy, women, and black nationalist groups like the American Society of African Culture. For example, Harvard University got $456,000 in disguised subsidies from the CIA between 1960 and 1966. The CIA collaborated with the major news media, particularly the New York Times, the Reader's Digest, Columbia Broadcasting System and Time magazine.

The CIA backed and funded the American Committee for a United Europe, which backed the emerging EEC. The CIA had a secret alliance with US Catholicism, for instance, between 1959 and 1966 it funded the Family Rosary Crusade's operations in Europe, Latin America, the Middle East, Australasia and Africa.

Associations that accepted covert state patronage violated their own proclaimed principles of voluntary association. Many members of these organisations knew about the CIA's role, but many did not. Americans were systematically deceived by the state. And the CIA's undemocratic covert activities did not cease with the 1967 exposures, or with the end of the Cold War. Even now the CIA is `a growing force on campus', as the Wall Street Journal recently noted.

This book exposes the CIA's role in the USA and leaves one asking what it did and does in Britain.

How is it that many within the CIA were considered "liberal" by many within the FBI and their friends in the right-wing 'China Lobby' The answer is psychological warfare. Many within the CIA were affiliated with ostensibly liberal internationalist efforts, such as World Federalism, for which Agency media guru Cord Meyer showed enthusiasm.

The liberal label could be misleading, however, if the right meant that the CIA "liberals" were at odds with US Cold War foreign policy goals. Just the opposite was true. The CIA liberals had done their communications research howework, as Christopher Simpson has pointed out in his essential and skinny volume The Science of CoercionScience of Coercion: Communication Research and Psychological Warfare, 1945-1960. They realized that special publications would be needed to tame left-liberal dissent from US global ambitions.

And so publications like Encounter Magazine were created. Five of six articles would be left liberal, to win over this small BUT INFLUENCIAL group of tweedy professors and quasi-professionals who were capable of footnoting their bad moods. Once they thought that "this magazine is on our side' they would be more suceptible to the raison d'etre of the whole glossy: the monthly gatekeeping article that would keep this caffinated crew from openly opposing US Cold War Foreign Policy objectives.

Just so was the intention behind CIA subsidies for domestic front groups such as labor unions, art critics, and journalists within the US. The author deals skillfully with the individuals involved: many of the individuals did not know that their organizations were being supported by the CIA. Others did know and walked on eggshells to preserve their collegues' virgin curiosities.

The author is carefull to give people who cooperated with the Agency a fair shake. It is doubtful that Gloria Steinem could get a fairer shake than she does in this book; true she was young but a handshake or two with arch-conservative Psychological Warfare veterans like Time-Life CIA's C. D. Jackson should wake one up a bit.

The author points out that there were many times when the front group bahaved in ways contrary to the wishes of their CIA funders. In fact, one wonders if the point is not overemphasized. The point was never to turn the targetted audience into armchair McAthurs: rather it was to prevent theier becoming vocal critics of Greater Containment. A little slackening of the leash now and then would have been appropriate for these scientists of coercion.

In short, the CIA front groups, as is emphasized more strongly in Francis Stonor Saunders book (The Cultural Cold War: The CIA and the World of Arts and Letters ) were left-gatekeepers with rightist ends in mind. This point about the project could bear much stronger emphasis. On the other hand there is plenty of fresh detail in The Mighty Wurlitzer. The author openly acknowledges his debt to Saunders book but there is fresh information and detail in nearly every chapter. I recommend this book for everyone interested in post World War history and journalism.

One will never read The Nation in quite the same way!

Hillen does what few others have been willing to do; openly criticizing the UN for their meddlings in peacekeeping and peacemaking, and backs it up with facts and analysis of why these operations have been military, organizational, and political quagmires. He tells us why the US or any lead nation should have misgivings about committing to operating under the UN charter for military operations -- despite the popular perception that somehow a UNSCR makes it a better thing to do.

Have always considered this subject to be pertinent, but hardly found the source for materials.

Good ideas and insights bogged down by cumbersome writing. I found myself repeatedly flipping around to decipher the alphabet soup of acronyms. If you are serious about the subject of peacekeeping, this book is a useful reference, but otherwise you should pass on it.

Many books have been written on UN peace-keeping and peace-enforcement operations. This one is one more interesting, useful and well-written book, well-research and sound, well-written at all times. It offers more than many other books, in its analysis and views on the strategy of UN military operations from a 'strategic' point of view, thus offering some comparisons with the strategies that may be used by the adversaries or other forces, etc. It is a book of political science, but also military studies. A definite must for whoever is interested in either, since the former does - unfortunately - often involve the latter.

This book was written a few decades back but still has an allure to it. The book depicts most of the brutalities performed by the members of this infamous organization (the Gestapo that is). Also, the book brings alive the main characters of the Gestapo and other sister organizations (the SD for example) and paints a background that enables the reader to see the "forrest" in spite of the tall trees. The prose is beautiful and clear thus making the book highly readable. Trying to unravel the mind of the Germans, the author engages a bit into German bashing. This is a book that I am happy to own.

This is the first history of the Gestapo -- the Nazi instrument of terror used within Germany and beyond -- that I have seen. The Gestapo is traced back to the start of the reign of National Socialism in 1933 through the Final Solution until its collapse in 1945. Special attention is paid to the individuals of this instrument of tyranny, namely Hermann Goering, the one who first controlled the Gestapo right through to Reinhard Heydrich, Heinrich Himmler and Heinrich "Gestapo" Mueller, who became its rightful chief. The Crimes of the Reich Security Main Office, the branch of the SS that controlled the SD and the Gestapo, are revealed with the greatest of force, leaving individuals like Adolf Eichmann, Otto Ohlendorf, Christian Wirth, Rudolf Hoess and others with no chance to plea, seeming that they were some of the main perpetrators of this terrible crime against humanity. Edward Crankshaw's book, first published in 1956, has not yet shown signs of old age, seeming that he was one of the few historians that attempted to report on an elusive organization that all came to recognize as another word for mayhem.

If you are a person wanting to have ALL books about Gestapo buy it. Otherwise do no spend your money. The author does not hide what he thinks: "although a Nazi, Helldorf retained to the end a certain feeling of decency" in page 106 is part of a very long list of personal disqualifications. This kind of book is not history but rubbish.
Nevertheless, I was suprised to find that the members of the Gestapo were only 40,000. This is a rather small number for all Europe (1944). It is widely known that the USA-backed military regimes in Latin America (in the 60's and 70's) have more people in their security services for minor populations.
All the other facts mentioned in the book can be found in more serious texts about the same topic.

This book has very good information about the founding of the Gestapo and what it did. It also features in-depth descriptions of how people like Goering, Himmler, and Heydrich, among others, played a role in the Gestapo. The book is well researched,