Download or read book The Agency The Rise and Decline of the CIA Book Two written by John Ranelagh and published by Plunkett Lake Press. This book was released on 2024-08-08 with total page 831 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In 2000 the Washington Post listed The Agency as one of the ten best books on Intelligence in the twentieth century, calling it “An encyclopedic and fair-minded overview of the agency into the 1980s.” A history of the CIA from its intrepid early days to becoming a mature bureaucracy riddled with scandal and scrutiny. During World War II “Wild Bill” Donovan started the Office of Special Services (OSS) and gave the CIA its original image: dashing, Ivy League, and Eastern Establishment. Successive CIA Directors covered in the book were Allen Dulles, Richard Helms, William Colby and William Casey. “The Agency is the first comprehensive history of the CIA, a book designed, in its author’s words, to get away from ‘contemporary demonology’ and to place the CIA firmly within the context of its time... a dazzling, panoramic overview of the CIA’s history. [Ranelagh] mixes keen insights into the organization and the people who ran it with superb accounts of specific crises and operations. This brilliant book is so rich both in detail and generalization that even a reader unfamiliar with the history of the CIA will find it hard to put down... the book pursues many... themes, such as organizational changes within the agency and shifts in its sense of mission, its relationship with presidents and their advisers and other intelligence agencies, the history of specific projects and operations, and the general mood within both the CIA and the government and nation at large. The result is a complex tapestry, full of new information and fresh generalizations.” — Reviews in American History “A massive history of the CIA... Ranelagh... has a good feel for the murky world of intelligence, and has constructed quite a readable work... [he] conducted scores of interviews with insiders and studied more than 7,000 pages of classified and formerly classified documents... Great reading and a valuable reference for students of government bureaucracy and intelligence work.” — Kirkus “Ranelagh... provides here a major overview of the Central Intelligence Agency from its founding in 1947 to [1987]. Based largely on hundreds of interviews, the book examines the personality and policies of each director in the context of the times.” — Publishers Weekly “[A] comprehensive examination of the CIA... Unlike most books on the nearly 40-year-old spy organization, The Agency is not a diary of old war stories or a flashy expose; it is a thoughtful analysis of the CIA from gestation to middle age... An important difference between The Agency and many other scholarly treatments of intelligence gathering is the extensive use of quotes from both on-the-record and unattributed sources, as well as documents obtained under the Freedom of Information Act.” — The New York Times “A thoughtful analysis of the CIA from its beginnings, arguing that dependence on technology has crippled American intelligence.” — The New York Times “Mr. Ranelagh, a British television producer, has written the best comprehensive history of the CIA. He is in control of the massive secondary literature, has used the Freedom of Information Act effectively, interviewed widely, and mined congressional sources. The tone is critical but detached, devoid of both the muckraking passion of the left and the self-congratulatory approach of the old-boy network. A fine book.” — Foreign Affairs “The Agency is without a doubt the finest, best-documented, and most entertainingly written study of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) of which I know. It traces the agency from its first gleam in the eye of Wild Bill Donavan through the first term of William Casey on behalf of President Reagan... a genuine literary and stylistic accomplishment.” — Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science
Download or read book Beyond Repair written by Charles Faddis and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2011-10-04 with total page 194 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: NOW IN PAPERBACK—with a new preface by the author An insider’s account of why the CIA is ill-prepared to protect America, and why it must be replaced without delay * “A devastating portrait of the agency’s culture—with details that only an insider would know.” —David Ignatius, Washington Post columnist and author of Body of Lies “Faddis, a career CIA operations officer, pulls no punches in this provocative critique of the iconic and dysfunctional spy agency. . . . In a world where threats are multiplying and becoming more complex, [his] bleak assessment of the CIA should be required reading.” —Publishers Weekly (starred review) In Beyond Repair, one of the Central Intelligence Agency’s most respected former operatives mounts a scathing critique of the preparedness of today’s CIA—and, specifically, the Directorate of Operations at its core—to defend America against the dizzying dangers of the twenty-first century. In a compelling blend of analysis and fascinating true-life stories, Charles S. Faddis argues that the CIA has devolved into a low-risk or, often, no-risk bureaucracy of careerists whose mantra might be summed up thus: “Don’t fall.” He discusses the birth of the CIA, how the agency works from the inside out, why things have gone awry—and how to build a new entity that will maintain the midnight watch, so Americans can sleep well at night.
Download or read book CIA written by John Ranelagh and published by . This book was released on 1992 with total page 268 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book The Quiet Americans written by Scott Anderson and published by Anchor. This book was released on 2020-09-01 with total page 722 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From the bestselling author of Lawrence in Arabia—the gripping story of four CIA agents during the early days of the Cold War—and how the United States, at the very pinnacle of its power, managed to permanently damage its moral standing in the world. “Enthralling … captivating reading.” —The New York Times Book Review At the end of World War II, the United States was considered the victor over tyranny and a champion of freedom. But it was clear—to some—that the Soviet Union was already seeking to expand and foment revolution around the world, and the American government’s strategy in response relied on the secret efforts of a newly formed CIA. Chronicling the fascinating lives of four agents, Scott Anderson follows the exploits of four spies: Michael Burke, who organized parachute commandos from an Italian villa; Frank Wisner, an ingenious spymaster who directed actions around the world; Peter Sichel, a German Jew who outwitted the ruthless KGB in Berlin; and Edward Lansdale, a mastermind of psychological warfare in the Far East. But despite their lofty ambitions, time and again their efforts went awry, thwarted by a combination of ham-fisted politicking and ideological rigidity at the highest levels of the government.
Download or read book Uncompromised written by Nada Prouty and published by Macmillan + ORM. This book was released on 2011-11-08 with total page 331 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Nada Prouty served her country loyally, with distinction, and, as universally acknowledged by her colleagues, with great personal courage as a CIA covert officer. This tale of rampant trampling of citizen's rights is a vivid reminder of the responsibility of citizens to be vigilant against unaccountable government overreach if we hope to keep a strong democracy, where the rule of law prevails and where a citizen is presumed innocent until proven guilty." -Valerie Plame, author of Fair Game When Nada Prouty came to the United States as a young woman, she fell in love with the democracy and freedom of her new home. After a childhood in war-torn Lebanon with an abusive father and facing the prospect of an arranged marriage, she jumped at the chance to forge her own path in America-a path that led to exciting undercover work in the FBI, then the CIA. As a leading agent widely lauded by her colleagues, she worked on the most high-profile terrorism cases in recent history, including the hunt for Saddam Hussein and the bombing of the USS Cole, often putting her life on the line and usually getting her man. But all this changed in the wake of 9/11, at the height of anti-Arab fervor, when federal investigators charged Prouty with passing intelligence to Hezbollah. Lacking sufficient evidence to make their case in court, prosecutors went to the media, suggesting that she had committed treason. Prouty, dubbed "Jihad Jane" by the New York Post, was quickly cast as a terrorist mastermind by the relentless 24-hour news cycle, and a scandal-hungry public ate it up. Though the CIA and federal judge eventually exonerated Prouty of all charges, she was dismissed from the agency and stripped of her citizenship. In Uncompromised, Prouty tells her whole story in a bid to restore her name and reputation in the country that she loves. Beyond a thrilling story of espionage and betrayal, this is a sobering commentary on cultural alienation, the power of fear, and what it means to truly love America.
Download or read book The Way of the Knife written by Mark Mazzetti and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2013-04-09 with total page 352 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “The new American way of war is here, but the debate about it has only just begun. In The Way of the Knife, Mr Mazzetti has made a valuable contribution to it.” —The Economist A Pulitzer Prize–winning reporter’s riveting account of the transformation of the CIA and America’s special operations forces into man-hunting and killing machines in the world’s dark spaces: the new American way of war The most momentous change in American warfare over the past decade has taken place away from the battlefields of Afghanistan and Iraq, in the corners of the world where large armies can’t go. The Way of the Knife is the untold story of that shadow war: a campaign that has blurred the lines between soldiers and spies and lowered the bar for waging war across the globe. America has pursued its enemies with killer drones and special operations troops; trained privateers for assassination missions and used them to set up clandestine spying networks; and relied on mercurial dictators, untrustworthy foreign intelligence services, and proxy armies. This new approach to war has been embraced by Washington as a lower risk, lower cost alternative to the messy wars of occupation and has been championed as a clean and surgical way of conflict. But the knife has created enemies just as it has killed them. It has fomented resentments among allies, fueled instability, and created new weapons unbound by the normal rules of accountability during wartime. Mark Mazzetti tracks an astonishing cast of characters on the ground in the shadow war, from a CIA officer dropped into the tribal areas to learn the hard way how the spy games in Pakistan are played to the chain-smoking Pentagon official running an off-the-books spy operation, from a Virginia socialite whom the Pentagon hired to gather intelligence about militants in Somalia to a CIA contractor imprisoned in Lahore after going off the leash. At the heart of the book is the story of two proud and rival entities, the CIA and the American military, elbowing each other for supremacy. Sometimes, as with the raid that killed Osama bin Laden, their efforts have been perfectly coordinated. Other times, including the failed operations disclosed here for the first time, they have not. For better or worse, their struggles will define American national security in the years to come.
Download or read book Tom Clancy s Net Force State of War written by Tom Clancy and published by National Geographic Books. This book was released on 2003-03-04 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From the #1 New York Times bestselling creators of Op-Center comes a different kind of law enforcement. In the year 2010, computers are the new superpowers. Those who control them control the world. To enforce the Net Laws, Congress creates the ultimate computer security agency within the FBI: Net Force®. Minor viruses are eating away at the Net Force computers. The e-mail shut-downs and flickering monitors are hardly emergencies—but they’ve been keeping the tech department hopping. Same with the sudden rash of time-consuming lawsuits. No one in Net Force has a moment to spare, which is exactly the way Mitchell Townsend Ames wants it. Because when the shadowy mastermind launches his master plan, he wants Net Force to be looking the other way…
Download or read book The 2030 Spike written by Colin Mason and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2013-06-17 with total page 256 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The clock is relentlessly ticking! Our world teeters on a knife-edge between a peaceful and prosperous future for all, and a dark winter of death and destruction that threatens to smother the light of civilization. Within 30 years, in the 2030 decade, six powerful 'drivers' will converge with unprecedented force in a statistical spike that could tear humanity apart and plunge the world into a new Dark Age. Depleted fuel supplies, massive population growth, poverty, global climate change, famine, growing water shortages and international lawlessness are on a crash course with potentially catastrophic consequences. In the face of both doomsaying and denial over the state of our world, Colin Mason cuts through the rhetoric and reams of conflicting data to muster the evidence to illustrate a broad picture of the world as it is, and our possible futures. Ultimately his message is clear; we must act decisively, collectively and immediately to alter the trajectory of humanity away from catastrophe. Offering over 100 priorities for immediate action, The 2030 Spike serves as a guidebook for humanity through the treacherous minefields and wastelands ahead to a bright, peaceful and prosperous future in which all humans have the opportunity to thrive and build a better civilization. This book is powerful and essential reading for all people concerned with the future of humanity and planet earth.
Download or read book The World s Wasted Wealth 2 written by J. W. Smith and published by Instittute for Economic Dem, Press. This book was released on 1994 with total page 580 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Following the footsteps of Thorstein Veblen, Stuart Chase, Ralph Borsodi, and others, JW Smith demonstrates the wasted labor within the American Economy at fully 50%. Eliminate the monopolization and wars which engenders that waste, share the remaining productive jobs, and each employable person need work outside the home only 2 to 3 days per week."--Publisher description.
Download or read book Inside CIA written by Sharad Chauhan and published by APH Publishing. This book was released on 2004 with total page 604 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A Compilation Of Articles From Various Sources-Relating To The Success And Failures Of Cia In Field Of Intelligence. The Study Is Divided Under 60 Headings Relating To This Sensitive Subject.
Download or read book Killing Hope written by William Blum and published by . This book was released on 2003 with total page 469 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Is the United States a force for democracy? From 1940s China to Guatemala today, Blum presents a study of American covert and overt interference in the internal affairs of other countries. Each chapter of the book covers a year in which the author takes one particular country case and tells the story.
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 A Short History of Ireland written by John O'Beirne Ranelagh and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2012-10-11 with total page 449 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This third edition of John O'Beirne Ranelagh's classic history of Ireland incorporates contemporary political and economic events as well as the latest archaeological and DNA discoveries. Comprehensively revised and updated throughout, it considers Irish history from the earliest times through the Celts, Cromwell, plantations, famine, Independence, the Omagh bomb, peace initiatives, and financial collapse. It profiles the key players in Irish history from Diarmuid MacMurrough to Gerry Adams and casts new light on the events, North and South, that have shaped Ireland today. Ireland's place in the modern world and its relationship with Britain, the USA and Europe is also examined with a fresh and original eye. Worldwide interest in Ireland continues to increase, but whereas it once focused on violence in Northern Ireland, the tumultuous financial events in the South have opened fresh debates and drawn fresh interest. This is a new history for a new era.
Download or read book Studies in Intelligence written by and published by . This book was released on 1995 with total page 148 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book The Adam and Eve Story written by Chan Thomas and published by . This book was released on 1993 with total page 232 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This is the Book of the Century! At LAST someone - this time a basic research scientist - has come forth with proof of cataclysms, which are worldwide supersonic inundations such as Noah's flood. They were discovered by great men such as Andre DeLuc, Baron Georges Cuvier and Guy de Dolomieu, and have remained unsolved mysteries ever since. Now the author takes you through thrilling solutions of finding the process of catclysms, their timetable, and the derivation of trigger, a 20-year search. Truly, CATACLYSMS LEAVE NO ONE UNTOUCHED! He describes the next cataclysm in awesome detail plus the deterioration of civilization and the escalation of crime before the next cataclysm. It just so happens that the author's scientific prediction of the next cataclysm agrees with clairvoyants Nostradamus', Cayce's, and Scallion's predictions. Never before have facts been presented in such a spine-tingling, inspiring fashion; and never have so many secrets been unlocked in one book. This is the most stirring subject, written in the most intriguing, engrossing, and exciting style ever. You will remember this exceptional book for years! Available from: Bengal Tiger Press, Drawer 1212, South Chatham, MA 02659; Tel: 800-431-4590; FAX: 508-432-0697.
Download or read book The Agency written by John Ranelagh and published by Touchstone. This book was released on 1987 with total page 892 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Masterful and investigative reporting penetrates the shroud of mystery and secrecy to reveal the facts about the CIA as never before in this compelling book filled with the same intrigue and political adventures found in the best espionage novels.
Download or read book Disciples written by Douglas Waller and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2015 with total page 592 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "The author of the critically acclaimed bestseller Wild Bill Donovan, tells the story of four OSS warriors of World War II. All four later led the CIA. They are the most famous and controversial directors the CIA has ever had-- Allen Dulles, Richard Helms, William Colby, and William Casey. Disciples is the story of these dynamic agents and their daring espionage and sabotage in wartime Europe under OSS Director Bill Donovan. Allen Dulles ran the OSS's most successful spy operation against the Axis. Bill Casey organized dangerous missions to penetrate Nazi Germany. Bill Colby led OSS commando raids behind the lines in occupied France and Norway. Richard Helms mounted risky intelligence programs against the Russians in the ruin of Berlin after the German surrender. Four very different men, they later led (or misled) the successor CIA. Dulles launched the calamitous operation to land CIA-trained, anti-Castro guerrillas at Cuba's Bay of Pigs. Helms was convicted of lying to Congress over the CIA's role in the coup that ousted Chile's president. Colby would become a pariah for releasing to Congress what became known as the 'Family Jewels' report on CIA misdeeds during the 1950s, sixties and early seventies. Casey would nearly bring down the CIA-- and Ronald Reagan's presidency-- from a scheme that secretly supplied Nicaragua's contras with money raked off from the sale of arms to Iran for American hostages in Beirut. Mining thousands of once-secret World War II documents and interviewing scores of family members and CIA colleagues, Waller has written a brilliant successor to Wild Bill Donovan"--
