As the Cold War reached Thailand, America had a choice: Should it, as Thompson believed, help other nations build democracies from their traditional cultures or, as his ex-OSS friend Willis Bird argued, remake the world through deception and self-serving alliances? In a story rich with insights and intrigue, this book explores a key Cold War episode that is still playing out today.Highlights a pivotal moment in Cold War history that set a course for American foreign policy that is still being followed todayExplores the dynamics that put Thailand at the center of the Cold War and the fighting in neighboring Laos that escalated from sideshow to the largest covert operation America had ever engaged inDraws on personal recollections and includes atmospheric details that bring the people, events—and the Thailand of the time—to lifeWritten by a journalist with extensive experience in Asian affairs who has spent years investigating every aspect of this story, including Thompson's tragic disappearance

    Yet the CIA is a closed and secretive world-impenetrable to generations of journalists-and few Americans know what really goes on among the spy masters who plot America's worldwide campaign against terrorists.Only Ronald Kessler, an award-winning former Washington Post and Wall Street Journal investigative reporter, could have gained the unprecedented access to tell the story. Kessler interviewed fifty current CIA officers, including all the agency's top officials, and toured areas of the CIA the media has never seen. The agency actively encouraged retired CIA officers and officials to talk with him as well. In six years as director, George J. Tenet has never appeared on TV shows and has given only a handful of print interviews, all before 9/11, but Tenet agreed to be interviewed by Kessler for this book. He spoke candidly and passionately about the events of 9/11, the war on terror, the agency's intelligence on Iraq, and the controversies surrounding the agency.The CIA at War tells the inside story of how Tenet, a son of Greek immigrants, turned around the CIA from a pathetic, risk averse outfit to one that has rolled up 3,000 terrorists since 9/11, was critically important to winning in Afghanistan and Iraq, and now kills terrorists with its Predator drone aircraft.The book portrays Tenet as a true American hero, one who overcame every kind of Washington obstacle and the destructive actions of previous director John Deutch to make the agency a success. As Tenet said in a recent speech, "Nowhere in the world could the son of an immigrant stand before you as the director of Central Intelligence. This is simply the greatest country on the face of the earth."The CIA at War discloses highly sensitive information about the CIA's unorthodox methods and its stunning successes and shocking failures. The book explores whether the CIA can be trusted, whether its intelligence is politicized, and whether it is capable of winning the war on terror. In doing so, the book weaves in the history of the CIA and how it really works. It is the definitive account of the agency.From the CIA's intelligence failure of 9/11 to its critical role in preventing further attacks, The CIA at War tells a riveting, unique story about a secretive, powerful agency and its confrontation with global terrorism.

    From spy in the field to the top ranks of the Company's career agents, he experienced it all as well as seven different presidential administrations. While Paseman's account of his long service has enough real-life derring-do to keep the reader engaged, of even greater interest, however, are Paseman's observation on politics and the CIA, especially how change of presidential administrations could bring sweeping, and often negative changes to the agency.- Johnson - declined to run for a second full term, broken by Vietnam- Nixon - resigned in disgrace after ending Vietnam and opening relations with China- Ford - never elected caretaker - Carter - hoist on the petard of fundamentalist Islam in Iran- Reagan - first full, two-term president since Eisenhower and declared war on the evil empire and brought the USSR to its knees with the threat of a still fanciful Star Wars- Bush the father - "won" the Cold War as the Soviet Union collapsed and "coalitioned" Saddam out of Iraq- Clinton - leader of the new world order, peace in our time, and dead Rangers in the streets of Mogadishu- Bush the son - 9/11, Afghanistan, and IraqIn March 1967 author Paseman joined the CIA following successful service as an army armor officer in Germany. Highly trained in the Chinese language, most of his service was in the far east. Paseman served as chief of the East Asia division at Langley and was also station chief Germany, considered the agency's toughest Cold War field posting.About the AuthorFloyd L. Paseman retired from the Central Intelligence Agency in January 2001 after a thirty-five year career in operations. He now lives in southern Virginia outside Williamsburg where he works as an international security consultant.

    In American Spy, one of the key figures in postwar international and political espionage tells all. Former OSS and CIA operative and White House staffer E. Howard Hunt takes you into the covert designs of Presidents Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson, and Nixon:His involvement in the CIA coup in Guatemala in 1954, the Bay of Pigs invasion, and moreHis work with CIA officials such as Allen Dulles and Richard HelmsHis friendship with William F. Buckley Jr., whom Hunt brought into the CIAThe amazing steps the CIA took to manipulate the media in America and abroadThe motives behind the break-in at Daniel Ellsberg's psychiatrist's officeWhy the White House "plumbers" were formed and what they accomplishedThe truth behind Operation Gemstone, a series of planned black ops activities against Nixon's political enemiesA minute-by-minute account of the Watergate break-inPreviously unreleased details of the post-Watergate cover-upComplete with documentation from audiotape transcripts, handwritten notes, and official documents, American Spy is must reading for anyone who is fascinated by real-life spy tales, high-stakes politics, and, of course, Watergate.

    Lilley spent much of his childhood in China and after a Yale professor took him aside and suggested a career in intelligence, it became clear that he would spend his adult life returning to China again and again. Lilley served for twenty-five years in the CIA in Laos, Tokyo, Hong Kong, and Taiwan before moving to the State Department in the early 1980s to begin a distinguished career as the U.S.'s top-ranking diplomat in Taiwan, ambassador to South Korea, and finally, ambassador to China. From helping Laotian insurgent forces assist the American efforts in Vietnam to his posting in Beijing during the Tiananmen Square crackdown, he was in a remarkable number of crucial places during challenging times as he spent his life tending to America's interests in Asia. In China Hands, he includes three generations of stories from an American family in the Far East, all of them absorbing, some of them exciting, and one, the loss of Lilley's much loved and admired brother, Frank, unremittingly tragic.China Hands is a fascinating memoir of America in Asia, Asia itself, and one especially capable American's personal history.

    Wilderness guide Hart Davis reluctantly agrees to a booking: seven rough-looking men who don't look like they need any pointers on killing things. Little does Hart know that an innocent, long-ago favor—a package stashed away and forgotten—has become something worth killing for. Alone, with only the clothes on his back, Hart must survive not only being hunted by ruthless mercenaries and the local authorities, but also the onset of winter in the Strawberry Mountains. He has only one advantage: he knows this wilderness like the back of his hand. Somehow, he has to survive long enough to get the message out—a message that could topple a government.

    He underwent intensive training to prepare for insertion into hostile areas, including High Altitude Low Opening (HALO) parachuting and weapons instruction. In the course of his first mission (to East and West Germany, Turkey, Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan, India, Bulgaria, Romania, and Austria), he assassinated several international drug dealers. On his return, he was thrown into an Iranian prison, where he was physically and psychologically tortured. Over the next thirty years, he served the agency on an as-needed basis, engaging in such activities as hunting down and eliminating members of the Red Army Faction and extracting Soviet Spetsnaz officers from East Germany. His cover jobs included being a part owner of an Oakland health club, which brought him into close contact with steroid abuse in professional athletics, drug abuse in general, and the Hell’s Angels, whom he believes tried to have him killed. He also served in Germany as site commander for the Conventional Forces in Europe weapons treaty. His most recent cover was as the deputy director of intelligence in the U.S. Army Reserve Command, which involved him with the Guantanamo detention facility.A true story that pulls no punches, Enter the Past Tense also chronicles Haas’s descent into, and recovery from, alcoholism that resulted from the stress of this extraordinary life. It is an eye-opening look at the dark, but many would argue necessary, side of intelligence work—and one that readers won’t soon forget.

    Award-winning journalist Peter Lance explains how an elusive al Qaeda mastermind defeated the entire American security system in what the author calls "the greatest failure of intelligence since the Trojan Horse." Threading the stories of FBI agent Nancy Floyd, FDNY fire marshal Ronnie Bucca, and bomb-maker Ramzi Yousef, Lance uncovers the years of behind-the-scenes intrigue that put these three strangers on a collision course. An unparalleled work of investigative reporting and masterful storytelling, 1000 Years for Revenge will change forever the way we look at the FBI and the war on terror in the twenty-first century.

     It was fought in clandestine operations and through the daring acts of spies and saboteurs from both Allied and Axis forces. Ladislas Farago, a former US intelligence chief, uncovers the lengths that the various nations went to in order to win the war. Looking at each nation individually, from Britain with MI.5 to Germany and its division called Abwehr under Wilhelm Canaris, America with the O.S.S. to France’s Deuxième Bureau, Farago exposes how sophisticated and successful their intelligence services were. Burn After Reading explains how espionage and counter-intelligence was operated throughout the war, providing details on a number of missions that were undertaken. Farago, through a number of vivid biographical sketches, details how it was not just intelligence services that shaped espionage during World War Two, but also how individuals, military and civilian, made their impact. This fascinating work is essential reading for anyone interested in what Farago described as “a kind of Fourth Estate of war.” Ladislas Farago was a chief of research and planning in the U.S. Navy’s Special Warfare Branch before becoming an author. He wrote a number of best-selling books on history and espionage and a number of his works were made into films. Burn After Reading was first published in 1961 and he died in 1980.

    Read all about these fantastic facts--and dozens of others--in this fun-to-read book.Did you know that some pioneers took a "shortcut" to Oregon that took them perilously close to Antarctica? Or that ferryboat operators on the Oregon Trail could earn nearly $2,000 per day? Or that many pioneers found ice in the middle of the blazing hot desert? It's all true! An entertaining read for young people or anyone interested in the great western journey.

    Led by President Dwight D. Eisenhower, they invented the U-2 and SR-71 spy planes and the first reconnaissance satellites that revolutionized spying, proved that the missile gap was a myth, and protected the United States from Soviet surprise nuclear attack. They also made possible the space-based mapping, communications, and targeting systems used in the Gulf War, Afghanistan, and Iraq. Veteran New York Times reporter and editor Philip Taubman interviewed dozens of participants and mined thousands of previously classified documents to tell this hidden, far-reaching story. He reconstructs the crucial meetings, conversations, and decisions that inspired and guided the development of the spy plane and satellite projects during one of the most perilous periods in our history, a time when, as President Eisenhower said, the world seemed to be "racing toward catastrophe." This is the story of these secret heroes, told in full for the first time.

    A quintessential member of the greatest generation, Colby embodied the moral and strategic ambiguities of the postwar world, and first confronted many of the dilemmas about power and secrecy that America still grapples with today.In Shadow Warrior, eminent historian Randall B. Woods presents a riveting biography of Colby, revealing that this crusader for global democracy was also drawn to the darker side of American power. Aiming to help reverse the spread of totalitarianism in Europe and Asia, Colby joined the U.S. Army in 1941, just as America entered World War II. He served with distinction in France and Norway, and at the end of the war transitioned into America's first peacetime intelligence agency: the CIA. Fresh from the fight against fascism, Colby zealously redirected his efforts against international communism. He insisted on the importance of fighting communism on the ground, doggedly applying guerilla tactics for counterinsurgency, sabotage, surveillance, and information-gathering on the new battlefields of the Cold War. Over time, these strategies became increasingly ruthless; as head of the CIA's Far East Division, Colby oversaw an endless succession of assassination attempts, coups, secret wars in Laos and Cambodia, and the Phoenix Program, in which 20,000 civilian supporters of the Vietcong were killed. Colby ultimately came clean about many of the CIA's illegal activities, making public a set of internal reports—known as the “family jewels”—that haunt the agency to this day. Ostracized from the intelligence community, he died under suspicious circumstances—a murky ending to a life lived in the shadows.Drawing on multiple new sources, including interviews with members of Colby's family, Woods has crafted a gripping biography of one of the most fascinating and controversial figures of the twentieth century.

    Haskell is one of the most moving, and honest accounts of battle ever written. Gettysburg: A Lovely Summer Morning is a compilation of vintage civil war photos, Lincoln's Gettysburg Address, and a letter written by Franklin Aretas Haskell, Aide-de-camp to General John Gibbon. Haskell's letter was first published in 1898 as a book entitled The Battle of Gettysburg. Haskell wrote the letter to his brother shortly after his participation in the Battle of Gettysburg. He did not intend for it to be published commercially.

    In this book he tells stories of shadowy successes, ghastly failures, and, more often, gripping uncertainties. They range from the CIA's long cold war struggle with its Russian adversary to debates about the use of secret intelligence in a democratic society, and urgent contemporary issues such as whether the CIA and the FBI can defend America against terrorism.

    They are spy satellites--the means by which the super-pwers keep tabs on each other in the deep black of space. Excellent . . . Highly recommended!--Booklist.