Agency-securities Books

Schweizer has certainly done extensive and compelling research into the murky world of economic espionage. He raises some red flags that should not be ignored. However this book stops near its publication date of the mid-1990s, and that makes its content "dated". Are we doing better today? If I have to read about it from another book by Schweizer, I will probably pass on it. I found the presentation more like a textbook than a "page-turner" -- instead of saying "I could hardly put it down, I find myself recalling that I could hardly pick it up -- sometimes reading only a single page in a day.

Still, if you are interested in the clinical history of our "friends" stealing us blind for technolgical information, and bid-jumping -- hey give it a shot!

One hundred billion dollars annually is one White House estimate of the cost to U.S. businesses imposed by economic espionage carried out predominantly by our allies-France, Israel, Germany, South Korea, and Japan being among the top culprits. Peter Schweizer was the first to really put this issue on the table, and he deserves a lot of credit. Neither Congress nor the Administration are yet prepared to take this issue seriously, and this is a grave mistake, for in the 21st Century information is the seed corn of prosperity, and our allies are eating our seed corn.

I spotted this on the non-fiction shelf in my local library teen room and thought "Yeah, that's a book a teen boy would pick up." Being a few decades removed I can still tap into my inner teen boy. I picked it up without a seconds worth of hesitation.

But what a disappointment.

It's a smartly designed book, very contemporary graphics, layout and typeface, very much in step with what attracts a younger reader. It's also in keeping with the style of the International Spy Museum in Washington D.C. which is very interactive and modern as single-subject museums go.

After a brief intro about the long history of international spying we jump into chapters where spies are grouped by like: those who did it for the money, master spies, double agents, femmes fatales, and so on. Each of the spies get a full page photo or illustration and one-to-three pages about their lives as spies. And there are a lot of spies in this book. Easily half I've never heard of, most are single-page treatments (generally the non-Americans get short shrift) and they read like much longer entries that have been edited to within an inch of their lives. Many of the bios assume a large amount of understood history -- for example the bio of Allen Dulles, first civilian head of the CIA, assumes knowledge of The Bay of Pigs invasion and why it failed.

While the format of short bios on the subject of spying makes attractive reading for boys, and there's a lot of background stuffed into the pages, the book overall serves as little more than a jumping off point for further investigation in other books. Books, it should be noted, which aren't listed in the back of the book; the bibliography, such as it is, suggests books for further reading from which some of the information was drawn but it is woefully inadequate for a book that handles its information so loosely.

I've been to The International Spy Museum and they do a nifty thing where you pick up a dossier for a spy when you enter, follow their progress along the way through the exhibits, and in the end learn their ultimate fate. It ties the exhibits together, gives you a narrative to hold onto, makes you pay closer attention than you might if you were merely drifting through the space. It's too bad they couldn't bring some of that innovation to this book.

Very interesting and informative. Good for bathroom, car, or wherever you may need some quick stories to pass a few idle minutes or as a coffee table book to stimulate engaging conversation.

Each chapter (biographical profile) is 2-4 pages long and the book contains about 60 profiles.

"The Shallow Graves of Rwanda", Shaharyar Khan, 2000, I.B. Tauris, London, ISBN: 1-86064-616-6, HC 228 pgs., includes 1 map, 2 pgs. Acronyms, 16 Illust., 1 pg. Biblio., 8 pg. Index. 9 1/2" x 6 1/4"

Khan, retired Pakastani Muslim career deplomat, was give "onerous responsibility" to seek a peaceful settlement in Rwanda as Special Representative of UN Secretary-General after Tutsi Pres. Habyarimana's plane was shot down April 6, 1994. Arriving 3 mos. later, on July 4, 1994, the author learns a civil war &/or genocide had occurred with about 800,000-1,000,000 Rwandan's massacred, largely by Hutu majority wielding machetes in a planned mass-killing of the Tutsi minority. For reader's not familiar with Rwanda, the country is one of the smallest of the smallest countries in the world, less than the size of a small pea on a full Atlas-sized map page of Africa - it is surrounded on the W-N-E-S by Zaire, Uganda, Tanzania & Burundi.

Despite author's claim of his book as a diary, it is nothing of the sorts. He gives a brief synopsis of Rwandan's clash arising in the 1930's from colonists imposing Western values, intra-ethnic tensions, over-population, & that docile compliant mind-set of Rwandan peoples who are silently obedient to any authority. This is bizzare when put in context of the brutal killings which were barbaric, revengeful, & savagely carried out on men, Women, & children left to die slowly by hemorrhage, evisceration, limblessness, genitalia excisions, head bashings or smaller victims tossed into urinal pits to drown or suffocate in feces. It transcends by far anything reported in the Holocaust or Armenian Genocide.

The Author provides a list of 47 acronyms to distinguish & represent various Worldly, African, or United Nation offices, programs, organizations, plans, committees, missions, departments, coalitions, forces, etc. which are supposed to have helped Rwanda, but are herein documented to have been uniformly counter-productive, adversarial, overlapping & heavily endowed groups which spent millions if not billions of dollars in observing the situation, but not even pennies for rebuilding as roads, electric power, communications, etc. The author, despite his "onerous responsibility" was shown to have absolutely no power, & though he ussued decrees, demands, resolutions. suggestioons & reports, he discovered that no one really listened to him, or if they pretended to do so they readily changde their minds. We are informed that various organizations which should have been involved in peaceful measures were actually involved in the illegal & irrational importing of land mines, grenades, pistols, ammo & automatic weapons from Italy, Israel, Egypt, China, etc., instead of aid supplies.

We are informed about the insurgent military groups, RGF (Hutu) vs. the RPA (Tutsi) lead by 37-yr-old Tutsi leader Maj. Gen. Paul Kagame who quickly advanced from VP to Pres. of Rwanda. He was recently accused by French Magistrate Jean-Louis Bruguiere (Feb. 2007) as ordering the assassinations of April 6, 1944 & it was also alleged the U.S. and the U.N. quashed earlier inquiries since Paul Kagama was an ally of the U.S.

So, all in all, the book is not what it purports to be, is poorly written & poorly cllated,& it is highly repetitive of the miserable accountings of beastly killings that had already occurred before the impotent author had set foot in Kigali. If there was a "fall guy" for the U.N., it was the author. It is not a book about the Rwanda genocide, it is a book about power, politics, & money.

Although not quite perfect in its smallest detail, this is the most authoritative analysis yet available of the aid that the UN and the international community tried to provide to Rwanda after the genocide of 1994, concentrating on the period from the author's arrival in June of that year and tending to discuss UNAMIR's work at the operational rather than the tactical level - although it does cover, with dispassion and objectivity rather than overt emotion, a number of individual horror stories.

This must be regarded as a classic case study and, as one who worked under Ambassador Khan in Rwanda, I recommend it without reservation for students of the United Nations, those obliged to deal with this and other international organizations and, especially, those considering their resourcing.

The areas in which I would wish to assist Khan were he to revise his text for a future edition are: definition of the boundaries between Operation Homeward (which escapes mention under this name) and Operation Retour, and to give due credit due to Lt Col Tom Mullarkey for his formulation of Retour; Operation Hope and its role in the chronology of UNAMIR-RPF relations; Khan's somewhat rose-tinted view of UNAMIR's discipline and performance; and the captions of some photographs (Plate 5 is not of the medical centre in Kibeho but of a church somewhere else; Plate 6 is misdated - and definitely not of a scene in 1943; Plate 7 is of Kigali Prison rather than of Gikongoro's); amongst a full and mostly accurate coverage of the tragedy in Kibeho, correction of some minor flaws in the attribution of witness testimony.

In identifying these errors, this is not to say that I think this a poor book: I think it quite the opposite and believe that it deserves to be read very widely!

Kind of slow. I didn't realize that they were going to talk about his whole life. I thought it was going to start off with the start of his career with the FBI and when he began to spy until his arrest.

Feels to me like this was a rush job to be the first to get something on the market.Thank goodness I took this out from the library and didn't buy it. Even so, it was a waste of time to read. Havill is, above all, lazy - both intellectually and in the amount of research he did, and didn't do. On the two most potentially interesting facets of the story - Hanssen's personality and motivation, and the suspense of being a double agent and the catch - Havill all but takes a powder.

Havill digests a lot of communications between Hanssen and the KGB, which is at first, interesting - if for nothing more than the intersection between the spy craft and the mundane. However, these communications become the beef of the book, with no spine. Additionally, since these messages turn out to be so similar and poorly woven into events, their recitation become tedious.

Havill's attempts at piercing personality and motivation fall pathetically short. One is left with the picture of what appears to be a fairly average guy doing extraordinary things. But virtually no effort is made to explain, let alone even proffer a working motivational theory. We are left with just a load of poorly framed speculations. This is also a spy story with virtually no tension. Hard to believe there was virtually none when a senior FBI official spies over so many years. Havill's account is little more than, 'This FBI guy did some spying for the KGB and then he got caught.' Most writers could convey more tension than Havill describing a morning commute.

Cinching the case for this book being a dud is the extremely poor writing. It's littered with ungrammatical, ungainly and unreadable prose. It's like the guy wrote it driving to work, and his editor took a powder.

If you're interested in reading about this case, I strongly suggest you look for another book, if there is one. (If I recall correctly, there was a great NY Times Magazine piece on Hanssen that came out shortly after he got arrested.)

Havill, once again, has written an engrossing book. I will proclaim my own bias by pointing out something, though. On page 173, Havill mentions the Clinton years "begin with the shoot-outs at Ruby Ridge and Waco." Well, actually, no, George the first was president at the time of Ruby Ridge. And Havill's comment about "King William" make me wonder about his agenda when most of the spying going on is during the Reagan-Bush years. In books about policies or personalities you expect that: you know where the author is coming from and you digest the material accordingly. In a book that is SUPPOSED to be about Robert Hanson I find it telling that the only president he mentions in a derogatory manner is Clinton. Makes me wonder if there is other information he left out. . .Still, you can't fault the guy's talent for spinning a phrase. A worthy book.

Don't bother reading this book. It is the same thing over and over and over, so that it makes one want to scream. The movie "Breach" is not the true story either. It's Hollywood. Read David Wise's book, the best of the bunch written about spy Robert Hanssen. Hanssen was a brilliant if not troubled non agent who wanted to be the real deal. So instead of getting to be an FBI operative, he went to the dark side and made himself a name giving up our country's secrets that may never be recovered. It is enough to scare you to death and make you ill.

Riveting, like a good novel and very hard to put down! Cold Eyes

You can tell this is written from an outsider. No matter how much access he had to "secrets" he doesn't understand what he is talking about like someone who has done it as their career and written about it from the inside. The beginning of the book is very hard to follow and repeats information, often in random order. Names are thrown in so fast it is hard to keep track of who he is talking about or what the person's job is/was. It does settle out toward the middle and becomes pleasantly readable until the end.

Detailed look at the workings of the Agency and the influence of its Directors on work and morale; however, the author presented an uncritically positive characterization of Tenet and an equally rosy portrayal of President Bush's handling of foreign affairs. The author ignores lingering questions and concerns (e.g. where are the weapons of mass destruction, statements by the Administration linking Hussein and al Qaeda), frequently uses partisan language and soundbites to describe President Clinton, and, overall, comes off as an apologist for the current Bush Administration.

Instead of providing great insight into the "secret campaign against terror", the author decides to give a very pro-republican view of american leadership with respect to intelligence. The author keeps his train of thougt for about one page, then gives a page of background or set-up, then another page of his original thought, then another of background...you get the picture. While the book contains some interesting facts there are definitely much better books available about the CIA.

Ronald Kessler, a New York Times journalist and best-selling author, gained impressive access to the CIA and recorded interviews with many of its highest officers, past and present. The result is the CIA at War, a tantalising journey into the organization, its history, secrets, travails, and successes.

From a Cold War operation run by Ivy League East Coast insiders to an enormous apparatus of human and technological counterterrorism headed by a son of immigrants, the CIA has chalked up remarkable successes (identifying the installation of Soviet missiles in Cuba) and astonishing failures (being hoodwinked by a brace of double agents, many of whom continued in their ruinous ways after failing polygraph tests).

What emerges is a CIA that suffered long bouts of institutional atrophy, congressional hostility, and public lack of confidence, all of which made for staggering lapses in national security. A long period of patient reconstruction and success in the post-September 11 war on militant Islam has since followed. Kessler's access to contemporary officials, not least the media-shy George Tenet, makes by far for the book's greatest interest.

Allowing for Kessler's clear partisanship for Tenet, this book makes for a corrective to the view of the CIA as napping while dangers multiplied. The CIA's failure to preempt Al-Qaeda is located in a combination of Clinton administration uninterest, legal and technical shackles, and a prevailing mood of complacency in Washington.

Kessler offers teasing glimpses, interesting anecdotes, and occasionally absorbing testimony, but in the end, these fail to satisfy as the author ultimately is limited by his sources. Whether they have truly been forthcoming and whether he has given due weight to the variables involved are matters for judgment. Kessler's story is additionally fitful and riddled with digressions (for example, five pages on the CIA's public image immediately following the September 11 attacks).

I've read other books by Ronald Kessler, and I like his style enough to have bought this one. I'm glad I did. I wanted to learn more about intelligence and it's application in government and military decision making, and this book takes an inside look at just that.

The most striking element of the book is the well-reasoned and compelling justification for the war in Iraq. I've been military for over a quarter of a century, but didn't understand the argument for attacking Iraq until after reading Kessler's book. President Bush never made so cogent a presentation to the American people, but the logic and moral imperitives Kessler lays out may open the eyes of all but the most blindly critical reader. Before conservative/liberal loyalties comes survival as a nation, and Kessler makes it clear that such are the stakes on the table today.

A quick and extremely relevant read, this book is for anyone who has an interest in intelligence and the much-debated war on terror.

After reading the author's "Anatomy of Motive" and "Mind Hunter" books, I can tell you that he is a much better storyteller than a career book author. This is unfortunate and disappointing, because his other books are much better written than "Guide to Careers in the FBI." It appears that he tried to apply his storytelling style of writing to his career book, and it does not work.

"Guide to Careers in the FBI" has too many war stories and not enough of the advice you'll need in such a competitive arena. I was hoping for much more substance.

There is very little guidance in this book. Douglas spends more time telling stories than actually giving guidance. He gives no help about the interview process or any detail about the different phases of testing. I am sure his profiling career was exciting but I think the times have changed to much for him to give advice for present candidates.

John Douglas's Guide to Careers in the FBI is geared more toward curious middle school students than adults who want to work for a federal law enforcement agency. Besides, 100 percent of the content of the book is available from any criminal justice career counselor or professor at any college in America.

I bought this one, as well as Ackerman's book. If you're hoping for those little tidbits of inside information to give you a leg up, forget about it. These authors came from the same tight-lipped establishment you're trying to get into, and they're not about to offer any more than is offered on [line]. The Douglas book has no more than 12 pages dedicated to the application/selection process and it's straight from the FBI Web site. If you buy one, I suggest the Ackerman book as it assumes you're already past the "I'm in high school, so what's this FBI thingy" stage. It actually has some very interesting information on what to expect after applying, as well as outlines of the different organizations within, e.g. FBI Scuba Team.

The phrase "secret service" refers to a country's intelligence or counter-intelligence agency. The US Secret Service was used for counter-intelligence before FDR turned this over to Hoover's FBI in the 1930s. This book does not tell of counter-intelligence during the Civil War by Allan Pinkerton's Secret Service, and its useful anonymity. The issuance of Federal paper money, "greenbacks", meant new opportunities for counterfeiters. Lafayette C. Baker pursued them, and Confederate spies, with avenging fury. One of Lincoln's last actions was to create a permanent force to catch these "coney men" (p.10). They expanded to detect other frauds against the federal government (p.19). They also put an end to the Ku Klux Klan (p.20), and "toy money" (p.23).

Protection started with President Grover Cleveland (p.24), the first 25 presidents had no formal protection. The War with Spain saw presidential protection and counter-intelligence officially authorized (p.27). The prosecution of a senator and congressman for fraud led to funding cutbacks (p.32). Teddy Roosevelt transferred Secret Service agents to the Justice Dept. to investigate fraud, this became the nucleus for the FBI (p.33). As the Bureau concentrated on law enforcement, the SS kept to presidential protection and catching counterfeiters. World War I saw the SS involved in intelligence gathering, and counter-espionage (p.36). Does the plan for a German invasion of NJ sound like fiction (p.38)? Threatening a president became illegal in 1917 (p.39). The Secret Service investigation of Teapot Dome sent a cabinet officer to prison (p.41). This led to congressional restrictions on investigations, and the rise of the FBI. FDR ended the role of the SS in intelligence (p.44); he used the FBI to spy on his aides via wiretaps. Chapter 2 ends with the attack on VP Nixon at Caracas Venezuela in 1958. Secret Service men peacefully defended the Nixons (p.56). [I wonder how this all happened in a friendly country where Nelson Aldrich Rockefeller had influence?]

Chapter 3 tells of the tragic failure of 11-22-1963. The Treasury Dept. tried to hide information. [Melanson's claim that JFK's car slowed or stopped (p.60) is not in the Zapruder film that I saw.] Did JFK "flaunt" security or "flout" it (p.61)? Politics dominated over protection for this trip (p.63). The SS learned of the details of this trip at the last possible minute (p.66). The publicity about the route was to draw as big a crowd as possible. Did the SS agents in the Presidential detail say it was a conspiracy (p.87)? The aftermath led to an expanded and better trained Secret Service (p.91). The candidacy of George Wallace drew conservative votes away from Nixon; his elimination as an independent candidate gave Nixon a landslide victory in 1972.

This book has only two chapters on the history from 1865 to 1960, and skips the interesting decades of the early twentieth century. It is not well-balance. Note how Congress worried about a Praetorian Guard in the 19th century (pp.135-136). They did authorize "Doormen". Presidential protection was greatly enhanced during the Civil War (p.137). Chapter 7 tells about current operations. There are politics in protection (pp.200-201) The Secret Service operates under civil service rules, unlike the FBI 9p.195); their Director is promoted from the ranks. [But the SS does not usually investigate members of Congress.] President Nixon instructed the SS to allow a few hecklers in the crowd to provide drama (pp.214-215). JFK's personality charmed the SS, and they acceded to his request to stay off the running boards (p.285). Both Eisenhower and Kennedy were very fatalistic about assassinations (p.287). Ronald Reagan needed his 8 hours of sleep (p.289). LB Johnson was the toughest to guard (pp.290-292). Part Four ends the book, and covers the last decade. Counterfeiting could be used by terrorists (p.320). The authors argue against the dual-functions of the SS (pp.338-339). I think they are totally wrong. Protecting against fraud keeps the operatives in the Real World dealing with ordinary people; a protection only service limits their experiences.

The book mentions Burt Lancaster in "Mr. 880" but does not mention Sterling Hayden in "Suddenly".

This was the first book I read about the Secret Service, and I was very pleased with it. It is true that for some this may read like a dry textbook, but I was so interested in the material that it didn't matter. If you're looking for an entertaining read, like an action novel or something, you need to look elsewhere. You can read random chapters and still get what you need out of it if the dry reading is too much. Some have a problem with the level of detail, especially in regard to the Kennedy assassination, but I found all the details fascinating. (Can you really have enough details about a successful attempt on the president's life? Or too much second guessing ex post facto in order to facilitate better protection?) As for accuracy of some of the details, particularly gossip, I can't say whether or not it was accurate. I wouldn't rely on it as a sole source of information, but I would say that about most research materials. If you love history, if you're starting a personal reference library on the office of the President or the Secret Service, or if you just want to know a little more about the agency and how it works, this book is an excellent starting point. Do yourself a favor and pick up the updated edition if you can; if not this one has served me well.

I was tempted to toss this aside but eventually it became a game to find all of the errors. As mentioned before, there were many simple editing errors, and small sections of text are repeated throughout. I found a number of fact errors as well. Here's an example: a section describing weapons includes the Uzi, the M-16, and the "Agent K-MPS". That should have been the "H & K MP 5". Also, the "author" uses "quotes" many times on each "page" to make his "points" about "facts". Really annoying. But I did learn a thing or two about the service so I guess it wasn't a total loss.

This book is a brief and cursory review of the history of the Secret Service (330+ pages simply cannot do this agency justice), but that's not what I'm choosing to focus on with this review. Instead, I'd like to comment on the absolutely terrible writing and editing of this book. I found it nearly impossible to read at times, due to overly complex grammatical choices by the author, absolutely terrible editing, and even some sections where the same sentences and paragraphs have been cut and pasted into multiple pages. The author overuses quotes, referencing them multiple times in completely different chapters, relating them to entirely different topics. The last chapter is a commentary and set of recommendations for the Service which (in my opinion) has no place in a historical re-telling of the Service's history. Who appointed the author to the head of the Secret Service restructuring committee?

Although you may (like me) be interested in learning more about the Secret Service, please, do yourself a favor and skip this book. There are far better texts on the topic, and frankly, this one is a waste of your time and money. It certainly was mine.

The spirit was willing, but...

The idea: write a concise, frank, engaging history of the US Secret Service.

The obvious barriers: well, it's secret. Research might be a wee problem. Getting "the truth" a huge issue...

Less obvious: having a weak or incompetent editorial/fact checking staff. The editing here is just awful: typos, internal inconsistencies, needless repetition that slows down the narrative pace.

Frustrating: this could be an endlessly fascinating story, but you hit speed bumps. I kept envisioning all the agents standing on the running boards of the presidential limo getting pitched off when...

This is a great book, however with the amount of information presented, you may have to do as I did and read it several times to fully grasp what you just read. The only beef that I have with the author is that many of his claims in the book are not supported by facts or rather he does not support the information. But that was with only one or two passages that I came across. All in all, this is a great read and well worth the money.

this book is well written, with few typographical, grammatical, or logical errors. the content is consistent with things that i have previously read. the author writes in a relatively engaging style. the reader is generally drawn into the storylines. while the author describes various events that occurred in east germany, vietnam, south america, and the u.s.a., i wish that he would have (or perhaps had been able to) discuss the factors that entered into the executive decisions that impacted those events. once in a while i found myself lost in a swamp of names that were difficult to disentangle. the author built suspense quite effectively. even in these cases, however, i wish that the author had provided the reader with greater character analysis. i also wish that many other elements had been covered, especially cooperation with foreign intelligence agencies (especially israel), cooperation / limitations in working with other american intelligence agencies, information on internal and external terrorism ... overall, i found that this was a very good weekend read. it is well worth the price, especially used, for anyone with an interest in this topic.

I like a good book but NOT when the author does nothing but write about one side of the story without announcing it in the title!! I bought this book thinking i would get a good overall view of the CIA and some of the good and the bad...well so much for the good!

Would not recommend this book to anyone unless you are looking for the "dirt" on the CIA and even then i would have to question it as it is so lop sided. Sorely disappointed in this book and am irritated i wasted my money on this book.

Wake up and understand that power unchecked as Mr. Trento points out is dangerous. As someone once said knowledge is power; so what damaged can unchecked knowledge bring...? Oh, for one the lobotomy.

The author presents enough information that has become public that many claims can be verified. Considering the amount of information presented in the book, it is cohesive and reads like a novel, excuse the inhibiting influence of two dimensional space. Having been around intelligence all of my life, studying security, human nature, and business this is a must read. And please ask yourself questions while you are reading- are so many mistakes actually flagrant mistakes or is there a pattern or ulterior motives at work, who benefits from this, is there anything that the author is not telling us?
THINK, please.

To correct one of the reviews, I will not mention names but he mentions something about the highest U.S. ideals, there were three major sources and only one requested that his material not be used until ten years after his death. This was James Angleton, former cheif of CIA Conterinteligence, himself a victim of his collegues' modus operandi. There were a few people interviewed that requested their name not to be used. When reading the circumstances around the questions and the nature of the subject it is easy to understand their reason for the request. I think that most people understand that a lot of people request anonymity when talking to reporters. If you are going to criticize a peer at least try to be accurate and try not to put a negative spin on the work and then supporting it with a common characteristic of the field.

K.L.B.

I am a retired CIA careerist, having served 30 years including five in Germany during the mid 60s, including a tour in Berlin. The author writes a one-sided "tale" of the agency, full of rumor, innuendo, and distorted history. He projects the purported colorful stories of several former employees and Berlin Base activities onto 20,000 other employees worldwide. I knew and worked with many of the named and respected persons in the book. He shows a lack of unserstanding of the intelligence process, chain of command, Agency mission and successes. He concentrates on tales of failure and penetrations, some of which are true, to the exclusion of the many productive operations. He does severe discredit to the thousands of agency employees who had dedicated careers often at great sacrifice to themselves and their famiies. He should have been working for the KGB who had similar goals during the cold war--destroy the CIA. Don't waste your money.

As a very avid reader of Dr. Richelson's works, I would have to echo the rest of the statements that this book doesn't quite live up to its title. Yeah, it describes the "wizards of langley" and how they like to build organization charts and hierarchies - who the heck is building the cool toys? Why "Q" of course!

While I'm a fan of org charts and organizational histories, my biggest draw to this book was the reference to "MISTY" - this is one of a small number of sources (internet, print, magazine) that attempt to describe what MISTY is/might be... I may not know what it is, but Richelson's book has given me a clue.

If you're a MISTY hunter too, this book might be of some value. If you've got Richelson's books displayed alphabetically on your bookshelf (like I do), it needs to be included. If you want James Bond spy toys, go to Hollywood Video and rent one of the Bond movies.

Richelson has written a very complete, documented, book on the Directorate of Science and Technology. However, unless you are looking for how government organizations function, or don't function, there isn't much new information on the technological accomplisments of the CIA that hasn't been written about elsewhere. I found the detailed reporting on who hated who, and how the defense department fought with the CIA for control of programs only slightly interesting. The technological achievements of the CIA were really interesting but sometimes amounted to a half page of good stuff, then back to the petty infighting within the government. I don't recommend this book unless you are doing a research paper.

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.

If you go into reading this book with the idea that you are going to be learning about amazing gadgets and strange experiments you might finish the book disappointed. If you go into reading this book hoping to learn about the bureaucracy of the CIA than you'll probably leave satisfied. While Richelson does spend a portion of the book talking about technical wizardry such as spy satellites, spy planes, and other James Bond fare, much of the book is spent talking about directorate organization and hierarchy, and the political infighting that comes along with it.

This wouldn't be a problem if the book were billed as such. However, the book's back cover and description lead you to believe otherwise. The crazy directorate experiments using hallucinogens and telepathy are mentioned in the description but they take up less than a chapter in the book.

The book is incredibly well researched and can at times be an enjoyable read. However, a disproportionate amount of book space is taken up talking about organizational structure and agency politics. Two subjects that I find little interest in. If this book had stressed wizardry over policy it would be a five star selection, as the technical talk is incredibly interesting, well done and enlightening. However, this book focuses is on bureaucracy and suffers because of it.

If I had read Andrew S. Rogers's review of this book (see below), "The Wizards of Langley" would have moved to the back of the queue of unread volumes on my bookself. While Richelson does an excellent job researching and documenting the organizational history of the CIA's Directorate of Science & Technology (DST), he drags the reader through a morass of details regarding the bureaucratic battles among various organizations within the U.S. Intelligence Community.

When Richelson manages to take a break from the tedium of bureaucratic infighting, he spends most of his time describing the development of reconnaissance aircraft (such as the U-2) and various signals intelligence (SIGINT) activities, with a focus on satellite programs. For a much more captivating history of SIGINT programs, I (like Rogers) would recommend James Bamford's "Body of Secrets".

One of the more interesting anecdotes in "Wizards" occurs toward the end of Chapter 7, where Richelson describes how Antonio Mendez orchestrated the escape of six American diplomats out of Iran after the fall of the Shah. Although Richelson only devotes three pages to this story, he succeeded in piquing my interest enough to purchase Mendez's own book, "Master of Disguise".

If it wasn't for Richelson's excellence as a journalist and historian, I would have given this book a lower rating. If you are writing a research paper on the history of the DST, look no further. However, if you seek enthralling tales of technological wizardry or derring-do, you would be better served elsewhere.

I've now read all five of Larry Millett's Sherlock Holmes mysteries. I've enjoyed all of them. I rate "and the Secret Alliance" as number two right behind "Ice Palace Murders" which is my favorite of Millett's Sherlock Holmes series. Millett introduced Shadwell Rafferty in another book and he has become the main character in this one. He's almost as good as Sherlock. This is a great read for any Sherlock fan.

Yes, some critics here are right in claiming that Sherlock and the good doctor do not really play a decisive role in this very entertaining historical yarn! Still the local characters and their detection skills are a nice added feature! We have some troublesome anarchists, saloon proprietors, mill magnates, a gay attorney with sympathies for the little guy, a colorful mayor who can outmaneuver about anyone, and rough and tumble Pinkertons woven in and out with Watson's notes on the situation. A gruesome naked body is hanging from the tree of an aging flour mill owner's rundown property. The sleuths and their companions must determine not only whodunnit, but also who exactly was the dead man, and who was he loyal to. More than enough action and humor here, not to mention interesting historical footnotes on the the origins and history of the Twin City area..The game may take a while to get afoot, but this tale is easily worth a few yours of your valuable time!

Bring us more Shadwell Rafferty and George Washington Thomas. This dynamic duo has captured my imagination. I found myself torn between reading the footnotes and reading the story. I finally gave up and read all the footnotes through from beginning to end, even when I didn't know what they related to in the story. The history in this book is fascinating and I admire Millett's ability to turn his in-depth factual knowledge of the Twin Cities into a highly entertaining and deftly plotted mystery. There are surprising twists that I never saw coming, thorough characterizations, and--pleasingly--the emotional quality of the characters shines through without the restraints of Holmes' and Watson's prescripted personalities. Their minor involvement felt just right--enough to thread this book in with the series, but also enough to bring in the worldly knowledge that Rafferty wouldn't have. Highly entertaining. Millett has found the perfect heroes for the Gilded Age. Please give us more!

This can not be a true review as I have not yet been able to finish the book. I loved the 1st 3 books of this series and highly recommend them. In those books, Mr. Millett captured the "real" voice of Dr. Watson (as created by Doyle.) This book is all over the place with different points of view -- a street person who catches rats, Shadwell Rafferty, an axiliary character, the author and when we hear about Holmes it's in the awful form of journal entries with initials and ampersands that slow the reading. I intent to try again to finish the book, but think I'll find the next one at the library rather than buying it as I did the first 4, just in case Millett has truly abandoned Holmes in favor of Raffety and is tired of writing in that beloved voice that he was clever enough to re-create when he chose to.

The true secret alliance is between the publisher and the author, as they attempt to con and bamboozle the innocent public into thinking that this is a "Sherlock Holmes" story. It is not. Not even close. Oh, sure, we're given some badly written "diary entries" by Watson, but those are filled with Holmes and Watson pining for Minnesota. Funny how Conan Doyle missed Holmes' deep love for the Midwest.

The bulk of the novel is taken up with Millet's own creation, Shadwell Rafferty. Tragically, if this were a "Shadwell Rafferty" book, it wouldn't be all that bad. Rafferty is an interesting enough fellow, and the narrative voice used for him is light, but gets the job done. But, then, "Shadwell Rafferty and the Secret Alliance" wouldn't sell books, would it?