Download or read book Mission Man Life Lessons from a CIA Operative written by B.D. Foley and published by Cedar Fort Publishing & Media. This book was released on 2023-02-02 with total page 238 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Retired CIA operative B. D. Foley has learned a thing or two about being a man, especially a better man—mostly from great ideas gone wrong. Through these stories filled with humor and intrigue from the field, discover how to gain self-control and inner grit, use spy techniques to get a girlfriend, and sleep without being swallowed by a python! Let Mission: Man commence!
Download or read book Clarity in Crisis written by Marc E. Polymeropoulos and published by HarperCollins Leadership. This book was released on 2021-06-08 with total page 208 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Meet your next crisis head on and get through it stronger than ever by using the hard-earned strategies and core principles from Marc Polymeropoulos, a highly decorated, 26-year operations officer with the CIA. Marc Polymeropoulos has had to live with the consequences of decisions made under the most high-stress circumstances you can imagine as a senior intelligence officer in the CIA, retiring from his 26 years of service as one of the CIA’s most decorated field officers. Though your crisis situations may not entail international counter terrorism as Marc’s did, in our age of social media and a 24-hour news cycle, the consequences of mishandling a crisis can escalate quickly, leaving irreparable damage to a company’s reputation and bottom line in its wake. In Clarity in Crisis, Marc shares how true leaders need to lead in and through times of crisis and thrive under conditions of ambiguity, rather than message their way out or duck from hard decisions. This book provides proven strategies and core principles that leaders can apply to meet any crisis head on and lead through it, including: The critical elements to managing crisis, such as knowing who you can always count on to execute under high-stress situations. An understanding of the importance of following and stressing key fundamentals and avoiding shortcuts that often do more harm than good. Implementation guidance from the “Mad Minute” section at the end of each chapter that summarizes key points and action items you can begin applying right away. How to gain confidence that you are ready for the next crisis and embrace any situation with no fear. Far from mere theory, Clarity in Crisis outlines the unique mindset and strategies Marc himself practiced and honed throughout his remarkable career. The core principles outlined in these pages will help you find unshakeable clarity in crisis and lead when others want to flee.
Download or read book Breaking Cover written by Michele Rigby Assad and published by NavPress. This book was released on 2018-02-06 with total page 272 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A real-life, can’t-put-down spy memoir. The CIA is looking for walking contradictions. Recruiters seek out potential agents who can keep a secret yet pull classified information out of others; who love their country but are willing to leave it behind for dangerous places; who live double lives, but can be trusted with some of the nation’s most highly sensitive tasks. Michele Rigby Assad was one of those people. As a CIA agent and a counterterrorism expert, Michele soon found that working undercover was an all-encompassing job. The threats were real; the assignments perilous. Michele spent over a decade in the agency—a woman leading some of the most highly skilled operatives on the planet, secretly serving in some of the most treacherous areas of the Middle East, and at risk as a target for ISIS. But deep inside, Michele wondered: Could she really do this job? Had she misunderstood what she thought was God’s calling on her life? Did she have what it would take to survive? The answer came when Michele faced her ultimate mission, one with others’ lives on the line—and it turned out to have been the plan for her all along. In Breaking Cover, Michele has at last been cleared to drop cover and tell her story: one of life-or-death stakes; of defeating incredible odds; and most of all, of discovering a faith greater than all her fears.
Download or read book The Mission The Men and Me written by Pete Blaber and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2010-09-07 with total page 338 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “A book about the complexities of combat that's just as applicable for dealing with the complexities of business and our personal lives.”—Kevin Sharer, chairman and CEO, Amgen As a commander of Delta Force-the most elite counter—terrorist organization in the world—Pete Blaber took part in some of the most dangerous, controversial, and significant military and political events of our time. Now he takes his intimate knowledge of warfare—and the heart, mind, and spirit it takes to win—and moves his focus from the combat zone to civilian life. In this book, you will learn the same lessons he learned, while experiencing what the life of a Delta Force Operator is like—from the extreme physical and psychological training to the darkest of shadow ops all around the world. From each mission, Pete Blaber has taken a life lesson back with him. You will learn these enlightening lessons as you gain insights into never-before-revealed missions executed around the globe. And when the smoke clears, you will emerge wiser, more capable, and better prepared to succeed in life than you ever thought possible.
Download or read book First Casualty written by Toby Harnden and published by Little, Brown. This book was released on 2021-09-07 with total page 480 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An award-winning journalist reveals the dramatic true story of the CIA's Team Alpha, the first Americans to be dropped behind enemy lines in Afghanistan after 9/11. America is reeling; Al-Qaeda has struck and thousands are dead. The country scrambles to respond, but the Pentagon has no plan for Afghanistan—where Osama bin Laden masterminded the attack and is protected by the Taliban. Instead, the CIA steps forward to spearhead the war. Eight CIA officers are dropped into the mountains of northern Afghanistan on October 17, 2001. They are Team Alpha, an eclectic band of linguists, tribal experts, and elite warriors: the first Americans to operate inside Taliban territory. Their covert mission is to track down Al- Qaeda and stop the terrorists from infiltrating the United States again. First Casualty places you with Team Alpha as the CIA rides into battle on horseback alongside the warlord Abdul Rashid Dostum. In Washington, DC, few trust that the CIA men, the Green Berets, and the Americans’ outnumbered Afghan allies can prevail before winter sets in. On the ground, Team Alpha is undeterred. The Taliban is routed but hatches a plot with Al-Qaeda to hit back. Hundreds of suicidal fighters, many hiding weapons, fake a surrender and are transported to Qala-i Jangi—the “Fort of War.” Team Alpha’s Mike Spann, an ex-Marine, and David Tyson, a polyglot former Central Asian studies academic, seize America’s initial opportunity to extract intelligence from men trained by bin Laden—among them a young Muslim convert from California. The prisoners revolt and one CIA officer falls—the first casualty in America’s longest war, which will last two decades. The other CIA man shoots dead the Al-Qaeda jihadists attacking his comrade. To survive, he must fight his way out against overwhelming odds. Award-winning author Toby Harnden gained unprecedented access to all living Team Alpha members and every level of the CIA. Superbly researched, First Casualty draws on extensive interviews, secret documents, and deep reporting inside Afghanistan. As gripping as any adventure novel, yet intimate and profoundly moving, it tells how America found a winning strategy only to abandon it. Harnden reveals that the lessons of early victory and the haunting foretelling it contained—unreliable allies, ethnic rivalries, suicide attacks, and errant US bombs—were ignored, tragically fueling a twenty-year conflict. "Masterful, complex, and heartfelt, from the deeply personal to the critically strategic. Captures many lessons on many levels." —Ambassador Hank Crumpton, former senior CIA officer
Download or read book Spy Secrets that Can Save Your Life written by Jason Hanson and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2015 with total page 274 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "When Jason Hanson joined the CIA in 2003, he never imagined that the same tactics he used as a CIA officer for counter intelligence, surveillance, and protecting agency personnel would prove to be essential in every day civilian life. In addition to escaping handcuffs, picking locks, and spotting when someone is telling a lie, he can improvise a self-defense weapon, pack a perfect emergency kit, and disappear off the grid if necessary. He has also honed his "positive awareness" - a heightened sense of his surroundings that allows him to spot suspicious and potentially dangerous behavior - on the street, in a taxi, at the airport, when dining out, or in any other situation."--Provided by publisher.
Download or read book The Manchurian Candidate written by Richard Condon and published by RosettaBooks. This book was released on 2013-11-25 with total page 312 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The classic thriller about a hostile foreign power infiltrating American politics: “Brilliant . . . wild and exhilarating.” —The New Yorker A war hero and the recipient of the Congressional Medal of Honor, Sgt. Raymond Shaw is keeping a deadly secret—even from himself. During his time as a prisoner of war in North Korea, he was brainwashed by his Communist captors and transformed into a deadly weapon—a sleeper assassin, programmed to kill without question or mercy at his captors’ signal. Now he’s been returned to the United States with a covert mission: to kill a candidate running for US president . . . This “shocking, tense” and sharply satirical novel has become a modern classic, and was the basis for two film adaptations (San Francisco Chronicle). “Crammed with suspense.” —Chicago Tribune “Condon is wickedly skillful.” —Time
Download or read book Company Man written by John Rizzo and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2014-01-07 with total page 336 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: At the intersection of politics, law and national security--from "protect us at all costs" to "what the hell have you guys been up to, anyway?"--A lawyer's life in the CIA. Under seven presidents and 11 different CIA directors, Rizzo rose to become the CIA's most powerful career attorney. Given the agency's dangerous and secret mission, spotting and deterring possible abuses of law, offering guidance and protecting personnel from legal jeopardy was, and remains, no easy task. The author accumulated more than 30 years of war stories, and he tells most of them.
Download or read book My Twenty Years as a CIA Officer written by Steven Ruth and published by Createspace Independent Pub. This book was released on 2011 with total page 388 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book details the author's experiences, both good and bad, while working as a Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) Officer for over twenty years. The book begins with how the author was hired by the CIA to include the grueling polygraph test. Details on the author's first day at the CIA transports the reader's mind into what it must be like to walk through the halls of the world's premier intelligence agency and one of the most secretive buildings in the world. Insights about living in a foreign country abound throughout the book, as are reflections on what it's like living and working "under cover" and having to lie to friends and family about the true nature of his work. The inner workings of the CIA are detailed from an insider point of view and no punches are pulled in the chapters "Victims of Power" "Leadership (or lack of it)" and "Diversity (or lack of it)". The chapter "Gulf War I – 1991" (Persian Gulf War) finds the author less than a year and a half after being hired immersed in war efforts and becoming a victim of an exploding landmine. In 2003 the author again finds himself in the Middle East in the midst of Gulf War II. Chapter "9/11" details what occurred at the CIA on September 11, 2001 and how the CIA reacted to these terrible events. Poignant stories of the death of friends and colleagues in the chapter "Death Happens" provides an understanding to the reader that being a CIA Officer is oftentimes dangerous and can be deadly. The chapter "Special Project", which was heavily redacted by the CIA, provides the reader an insight into covert operations.Humorous aspects of living overseas, interacting with people of different cultures and eating exotic foods are interspersed throughout the book's twenty-eight chapters. Most other books written by former CIA Officers detail one or two specific events; this book is different in that the author provides insight into a whole career, from hiring to retirement, from the mundane to the exciting, to give the reader the full experience of what it's like to be a CIA Officer.
Download or read book The Good Spy written by Kai Bird and published by Crown. This book was released on 2014-05-20 with total page 467 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Good Spy is Pulitzer Prize-winning biographer Kai Bird’s compelling portrait of the remarkable life and death of one of the most important operatives in CIA history – a man who, had he lived, might have helped heal the rift between Arabs and the West. On April 18, 1983, a bomb exploded outside the American Embassy in Beirut, killing 63 people. The attack was a geopolitical turning point. It marked the beginning of Hezbollah as a political force, but even more important, it eliminated America’s most influential and effective intelligence officer in the Middle East – CIA operative Robert Ames. What set Ames apart from his peers was his extraordinary ability to form deep, meaningful connections with key Arab intelligence figures. Some operatives relied on threats and subterfuge, but Ames worked by building friendships and emphasizing shared values – never more notably than with Yasir Arafat’s charismatic intelligence chief and heir apparent Ali Hassan Salameh (aka “The Red Prince”). Ames’ deepening relationship with Salameh held the potential for a lasting peace. Within a few years, though, both men were killed by assassins, and America’s relations with the Arab world began heading down a path that culminated in 9/11, the War on Terror, and the current fog of mistrust. Bird, who as a child lived in the Beirut Embassy and knew Ames as a neighbor when he was twelve years old, spent years researching The Good Spy. Not only does the book draw on hours of interviews with Ames’ widow, and quotes from hundreds of Ames’ private letters, it’s woven from interviews with scores of current and former American, Israeli, and Palestinian intelligence officers as well as other players in the Middle East “Great Game.” What emerges is a masterpiece-level narrative of the making of a CIA officer, a uniquely insightful history of twentieth-century conflict in the Middle East, and an absorbing hour-by-hour account of the Beirut Embassy bombing. Even more impressive, Bird draws on his reporter’s skills to deliver a full dossier on the bombers and expose the shocking truth of where the attack’s mastermind resides today.
Download or read book The Art of Intelligence written by Henry A. Crumpton and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2012-05-14 with total page 389 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “A lively account . . . combines the derring-do of old-fashioned spycraft with thoughtful meditations on the future of warfare and intelligence work. It deserves to be read.” —The Washington Post “Offer[s] an exceptionally deep glimpse into the CIA’s counterterrorism operations in the last decade of the twentieth century.” —Harper’s A legendary CIA spy and counterterrorism expert tells the spellbinding story of his high-risk, action-packed career Revelatory and groundbreaking, The Art of Intelligence will change the way people view the CIA, domestic and foreign intelligence, and international terrorism. Henry A. “Hank” Crumpton, a twenty-four-year veteran of the CIA’s Clandestine Service, offers a thrilling account that delivers profound lessons about what it means to serve as an honorable spy. From CIA recruiting missions in Africa to pioneering new programs like the UAV Predator, from running post–9/11 missions in Afghanistan to heading up all clandestine CIA operations in the United States, Crumpton chronicles his role—in the battlefield and in the Oval Office—in transforming the way America wages war and sheds light on issues of domestic espionage.
Download or read book Undaunted written by John O. Brennan and published by Celadon Books. This book was released on 2020-10-06 with total page 329 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: **THE INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER** "John Brennan is one of the hardest-working, most patriotic public servants I've ever seen, and our country is better off for it. As president, he was one of my closest advisors and a great friend. And in his memoir, Undaunted, you'll see why. I hope you'll read it." —President Barack Obama A powerful and revelatory memoir from former CIA director John Brennan, spanning his more than thirty years in government. Friday, January 6, 2017: On that day, as always, John Brennan’s alarm clock was set to go off at 4:15 a.m. But nothing else about that day would be routine. That day marked his first and only security briefing with President-elect Donald Trump. And it was also the day John Brennan said his final farewell to Owen Brennan, his father, the man who had taught him the lessons of goodness, integrity, and honor that had shaped the course of an unparalleled career serving his country from within the intelligence community. In this brutally honest memoir, Brennan, the son of an Irish immigrant who settled in New Jersey, describes the life that took him from being a young CIA recruit enamored with the mystique of spy work, secretly defiant enough to drive a motorcycle and sport a diamond earring, and invigorated by his travels in the Middle East to being the most powerful individual in American intelligence. He details his experiences with very different presidents and what it’s been like to bear responsibility for some of the nation’s most crucial and polarizing national security decisions. He pulls back the curtain on the inner workings of the Agency, describing the selfless, patriotic, and invisible work of the women and men involved in national security. He also examines the insularity, arrogance, and myopia that have, at times, undermined its reputation in the eyes of the American people and of members of other branches of government. Through topics ranging from George W. Bush’s intervention in Iraq to his thoughts on the CIA’s controversial use of enhanced interrogation techniques to his eye-opening account of the planning of the raid that resulted in Bin Laden’s death to his realization that Russia had interfered with the 2016 election, Brennan brings the reader behind the scenes of some of the most crucial moments in recent U.S. history. He also candidly discusses the times he has failed to live up to his own high standards and the very public fallouts that have resulted. With its behind-the-scenes look at how major U.S. national security policies and actions unfolded during his long and distinguished career—especially during his eight years in the Obama administration—John Brennan’s memoir is a work of history with strong implications for the future of America and our country’s relationships with other world powers. Undaunted: My Fight Against America’s Enemies, at Home and Abroad offers a rare and insightful look at the often-obscured world of national security, the intelligence profession, and Washington’s chaotic political environment. But more than that, it is a portrait of a man striving for integrity; for himself, for the CIA, and for his country.
Download or read book The Moscow Rules written by Antonio J. Mendez and published by PublicAffairs. This book was released on 2019-05-21 with total page 272 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From the spymaster and inspiration for the movie Argo, discover the "real-life spy thriller" of the brilliant but under-supported CIA operatives who developed breakthrough spy tactics that helped turn the tide of the Cold War (Malcolm Nance). Antonio Mendez and his future wife Jonna were CIA operatives working to spy on Moscow in the late 1970s, at one of the most dangerous moments in the Cold War. Soviets kept files on all foreigners, studied their patterns, and tapped their phones. Intelligence work was effectively impossible. The Soviet threat loomed larger than ever. The Moscow Rules tells the story of the intelligence breakthroughs that turned the odds in America's favor. As experts in disguise, Antonio and Jonna were instrumental in developing a series of tactics -- Hollywood-inspired identity swaps, ingenious evasion techniques, and an armory of James Bond-style gadgets -- that allowed CIA officers to outmaneuver the KGB. As Russia again rises in opposition to America, this remarkable story is a tribute to those who risked everything for their country, and to the ingenuity that allowed them to succeed.
Download or read book Survive Like a Spy written by Jason Hanson and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2020-09-08 with total page 257 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Follow-up to the New York Times bestseller Spy Secrets That Can Save Your Life--revealing high-stakes techniques and survival secrets from real intelligence officers in life-or-death situations around the world Everyone loves a good spy story, but most of the ones we hear are fictional. That's because the most dangerous and important spycraft is done in secret, often hidden in plain sight. In this powerful new book, bestselling author and former CIA officer Jason Hanson takes the reader deep inside the world of espionage, revealing true stories and expert tactics from real agents engaged in life-threatening missions around the world. With breathtaking accounts of spy missions in Eastern Europe, the Middle East, Asia, and elsewhere, the book reveals how to: * Achieve mental sharpness to be ready for anything * Escape if taken hostage * Set up a perfect safe site * Assume a fake identity * Master the "Weapons of Mass Influence" to recruit others, build rapport, and make allies when you need them most With real-life spy drama that reads like a novel paired with expert practical techniques, Survive Like a Spy will keep you on the edge of your seat – and help you stay safe when you need it most.
Download or read book The Book of Honor written by Ted Gup and published by Anchor. This book was released on 2001-05-01 with total page 434 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A national bestseller, this extraordinary work of investigative reporting uncovers the identities, and the remarkable stories, of the CIA secret agents who died anonymously in the service of their country. In the entrance of the CIA headquarters looms a huge marble wall into which seventy-one stars are carved-each representing an agent who has died in the line of duty. Official CIA records only name thirty-five of them, however. Undeterred by claims that revealing the identities of these "nameless stars" might compromise national security, Ted Gup sorted through thousands of documents and interviewed over 400 CIA officers in his attempt to bring their long-hidden stories to light. The result of this extraordinary work of investigation is a surprising glimpse at the real lives of secret agents, and an unprecedented history of the most compelling—and controversial—department of the US government.
Download or read book A Spy s Journey written by Floyd Paseman and published by Zenith Press. This book was released on 2010-11-10 with total page 320 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In 1967 Floyd Paseman joined the Central Intelligence Agency following successful service as an army officer in Germany. He was first stationed in the Far East, where he became fluent in Chinese language and culture, and then in Germany, at what was largely considered the agency’s toughest Cold War field posting. Over the years he rose from field spy to division chief and ultimately the top ranks in the Operations Directorate of the CIA. Paseman details the behind-the-scenes intelligence gathering during the major events of eight presidential administrations from Lyndon B. Johnson through George W. Bush.
Download or read book Life Undercover written by Amaryllis Fox and published by Vintage. This book was released on 2019-10-15 with total page 203 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER “Fast and thrilling . . . Life Undercover reads as if a John le Carré character landed in Eat Pray Love." —The New York Times Amaryllis Fox's riveting memoir tells the story of her ten years in the most elite clandestine ops unit of the CIA, hunting the world's most dangerous terrorists in sixteen countries while marrying and giving birth to a daughter Amaryllis Fox was in her last year as an undergraduate at Oxford studying theology and international law when her writing mentor Daniel Pearl was captured and beheaded. Galvanized by this brutality, Fox applied to a master's program in conflict and terrorism at Georgetown's School of Foreign Service, where she created an algorithm that predicted, with uncanny certainty, the likelihood of a terrorist cell arising in any village around the world. At twenty-one, she was recruited by the CIA. Her first assignment was reading and analyzing hundreds of classified cables a day from foreign governments and synthesizing them into daily briefs for the president. Her next assignment was at the Iraq desk in the Counterterrorism center. At twenty-two, she was fast-tracked into advanced operations training, sent from Langley to "the Farm," where she lived for six months in a simulated world learning how to use a Glock, how to get out of flexicuffs while locked in the trunk of a car, how to withstand torture, and the best ways to commit suicide in case of captivity. At the end of this training she was deployed as a spy under non-official cover--the most difficult and coveted job in the field as an art dealer specializing in tribal and indigenous art and sent to infiltrate terrorist networks in remote areas of the Middle East and Asia. Life Undercover is exhilarating, intimate, fiercely intelligent--an impossible to put down record of an extraordinary life, and of Amaryllis Fox's astonishing courage and passion.
