This is the book the CIA does not want you to read. For over sixty years, the CIA has maintained a formidable reputation in spite of its terrible record, never disclosing its blunders to the American public. It spun its own truth to the nation while reality lay buried in classified archives. Now, Pulitzer Prize–winning New York Times reporter Tim Weiner offers a stunning indictment of the CIA, a deeply flawed organization that has never deserved

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"The New York Times bestselling author of Code Girls reveals the untold story of how women at the CIA ushered in the modern intelligence age, a sweeping story of a "sisterhood" of women spies spanning three generations who broke the glass ceiling, helped transform spycraft, and tracked down Osama Bin Laden. Upon its creation in 1947, the Central Intelligence Agency instantly became one of the most important spy services in the world. Like every male-dominated...

In 1960, President Eisenhower was focused on Laos, a tiny Southeast Asian nation few Americans had ever heard of. Washington feared the country would fall to communism, triggering a domino effect in the rest of Southeast Asia. So in January 1961, Eisenhower approved the CIA's Operation Momentum, a plan to create a proxy army of ethnic Hmong to fight communist forces in Laos. While remaining largely hidden from the American public and most of Congress,...

As powerful and riveting as a John Le Carre thriller, The Man Nobody Knew uncovers the hidden life of legendary CIA spymaster William Colby. The consummate American soldier-spy, Colby took on the government's dirtiest assignments without question, until the day he defied presidential orders and revealed to Congress the CIA's 'family jewels' - their darkest, deepest secrets. Told by his son Carl Colby, William Colby's story unmasks the lies, truths,...

December, 1981--the CIA learns that the Polish government has cut telephone communications with the West and closed the Polish border. The agency's leaders quickly inform President Ronald Reagan at Camp David. Within hours, Prime Minister Wojciech Jaruzelski has appeared on Polish national television to announce the establishment of martial law. A new era in Cold War politics has begun: Washington and Moscow are on a collision course. In this gripping...

Drawing on newly declassified files, this is the story of how a book forbidden in the Soviet Union became a secret CIA weapon in the ideological battle between East and West. In May 1956, an Italian publishing scout paid a visit to Russia's greatest living poet, Boris Pasternak. He left carrying the manuscript of Pasternak's first and only novel, entrusted to him with these words: "This is Doctor Zhivago. May it make its way around the world." Pasternak...

"An account of the Cold War spies whose survival depended on carefully orchestrated deceptions as they fought in the shadows to help avert global nuclear war and, in so doing, changed the global landscape in ways that are still felt today"-- Provided by publisher.

Now in its third edition, Rhodri Jeffreys-Jones's comprehensive history of the Central Intelligence Agency is widely acclaimed for its thorough and even-handed analysis. A renowned U.S. intelligence expert, Jeffreys-Jones chronicles the evolution of the agency from its beginning in 1947 to the present day. With clarity and acuity, he examines the CIA's activities during some of the most dramatic episodes in American history, from McCarthyism to the...

"Stockholm, 1968. A thousand American deserters and draft-resisters are arriving to escape the war in Vietnam. They're young, they're radical, and they want to start a revolution. Some of them even want to take the fight to America. The Swedes treat them like pop stars--but the CIA is determined to stop all that. It's a job for the deep-cover men of Operation Chaos and their allies--agents who know how to infiltrate organizations and destroy them...