Secret Book of CIA Humor, The

Secret Book of CIA Humor, The
Author: Ed Mickolus
Publisher: Pelican Publishing Company, Inc.
Total Pages: 244
Release: 2011-09-02
Genre: Humor
ISBN: 9781589809048

This compilation of espionage humor is based on the author's thirty-three years with the CIA as an analyst, operations officer, and manager. Practical jokes, comical essays, poems, bloopers from performance-appraisal reports, and more are all included.

Company Man

Company Man
Author: John Rizzo
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
Total Pages: 336
Release: 2014-01-07
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 1451673930

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.

The Ghost

The Ghost
Author: Jefferson Morley
Publisher: St. Martin's Press
Total Pages: 337
Release: 2017-10-24
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 1250139104

"The best book ever written about the strangest CIA chief who ever lived." - Tim Weiner, National Book Award-winning author of Legacy of Ashes A revelatory new biography of the sinister, powerful, and paranoid man at the heart of the CIA for more than three tumultuous decades. CIA spymaster James Jesus Angleton was one of the most powerful unelected officials in the United States government in the mid-20th century, a ghost of American power. From World War II to the Cold War, Angleton operated beyond the view of the public, Congress, and even the president. He unwittingly shared intelligence secrets with Soviet spy Kim Philby, a member of the notorious Cambridge spy ring. He launched mass surveillance by opening the mail of hundreds of thousands of Americans. He abetted a scheme to aid Israel’s own nuclear efforts, disregarding U.S. security. He committed perjury and obstructed the JFK assassination investigation. He oversaw a massive spying operation on the antiwar and black nationalist movements and he initiated an obsessive search for communist moles that nearly destroyed the Agency. In The Ghost, investigative reporter Jefferson Morley tells Angleton’s dramatic story, from his friendship with the poet Ezra Pound through the underground gay milieu of mid-century Washington to the Kennedy assassination to the Watergate scandal. From the agency’s MKULTRA mind-control experiments to the wars of the Mideast, Angleton wielded far more power than anyone knew. Yet during his seemingly lawless reign in the CIA, he also proved himself to be a formidable adversary to our nation’s enemies, acquiring a mythic stature within the CIA that continues to this day.

American Spy

American Spy
Author: E. Howard Hunt
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
Total Pages: 356
Release: 2007-02-26
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 0471789828

Startling revelations from the OSS, the CIA, and the Nixon White house Think you know everything there is to know about the OSS, the Cold War, the CIA, and Watergate? Think again. 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 more His work with CIA officials such as Allen Dulles and Richard Helms His friendship with William F. Buckley Jr., whom Hunt brought into the CIA The amazing steps the CIA took to manipulate the media in America and abroad The motives behind the break-in at Daniel Ellsberg's psychiatrist's office Why the White House "plumbers" were formed and what they accomplished The truth behind Operation Gemstone, a series of planned black ops activities against Nixon's political enemies A minute-by-minute account of the Watergate break-in Previously unreleased details of the post-Watergate cover-up Complete 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.

Breaking Cover

Breaking Cover
Author: Michele Rigby Assad
Publisher: NavPress
Total Pages: 272
Release: 2018-02-06
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 1496419634

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.

The Unexpected Spy

The Unexpected Spy
Author: Tracy Walder
Publisher: St. Martin's Press
Total Pages: 174
Release: 2020-02-25
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 1250230993

A highly entertaining account of a young woman who went straight from her college sorority to the CIA, where she hunted terrorists and WMDs "Reads like the show bible for Homeland only her story is real." —Alison Stewart, WNYC "A thrilling tale...Walder’s fast-paced and intense narrative opens a window into life in two of America’s major intelligence agencies" —Publishers Weekly (starred review) When Tracy Walder enrolled at the University of Southern California, she never thought that one day she would offer her pink beanbag chair in the Delta Gamma house to a CIA recruiter, or that she’d fly to the Middle East under an alias identity. The Unexpected Spy is the riveting story of Walder's tenure in the CIA and, later, the FBI. In high-security, steel-walled rooms in Virginia, Walder watched al-Qaeda members with drones as President Bush looked over her shoulder and CIA Director George Tenet brought her donuts. She tracked chemical terrorists and searched the world for Weapons of Mass Destruction. She created a chemical terror chart that someone in the White House altered to convey information she did not have or believe, leading to the Iraq invasion. Driven to stop terrorism, Walder debriefed terrorists—men who swore they’d never speak to a woman—until they gave her leads. She followed trails through North Africa, Europe, and the Middle East, shutting down multiple chemical attacks. Then Walder moved to the FBI, where she worked in counterintelligence. In a single year, she helped take down one of the most notorious foreign spies ever caught on American soil. Catching the bad guys wasn’t a problem in the FBI, but rampant sexism was. Walder left the FBI to teach young women, encouraging them to find a place in the FBI, CIA, State Department or the Senate—and thus change the world.

Intelligence

Intelligence
Author: Susan Hasler
Publisher: Macmillan
Total Pages: 321
Release: 2010-06-22
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 1429921293

A team of Intelligence agents try to prevent an impending terrorist attack, but are thwarted by bureaucratic hurdles in this darkly humorous debut written by a former CIA agent Maddie James and her colleagues are terrorism experts working in a crumbling intelligence agency. They are certain another big terrorist attack is coming, but in a post-9/11 election year the Administration is stressing its victories in the War on Terror—and few want to hear the team’s warnings. Reluctantly, Maddie’s given a team of five analysts to focus on the impending threat. The crew labors through bureaucratic obstacles, personal problems, and a blossoming romance between its senior members, Doc and Fran. They come heartbreakingly close to stopping the attack, but fail to predict a surprising twist in the terrorists’ plot. In the wake of tragedy, the Administration pins blame on Iran despite lack of evidence—so Maddie and her team try to investigate. With dark humor and a razor-sharp tone, they fight back against office politics, government cover-ups and blackmail in order to set the record straight. A keenly crafted debut that could only be written by an ex-CIA agent, Intelligence will please fans of Wag the Dog and Primary Colors. Susan Hasler is featured in the HBO documentary "MANHUNT" about the female analysts who worked so hard to capture Bin Ladin.

Barry and 'the Boys'

Barry and 'the Boys'
Author: Daniel Hopsicker
Publisher:
Total Pages: 0
Release: 2006
Genre: History
ISBN: 9780970659170

Based on the author’s three-year-long investigation, this account exposes the story of lifelong CIA agent Barry Seal, the most successful drug smuggler in American history, who died in a hail of bullets with George Bush’s private phone number in his wallet. Revealing Seal’s active role in many of the nation’s most notorious scandals--including the Bay of Pigs, the Kennedy assassination, Watergate, and the Iran-Contra Affair--and featuring primary documents previously unseen by the public, this unique history explores the Faustian bargains made by the U.S. government and the secret pasts of some of today’s politicians.

A Brotherhood of Spies

A Brotherhood of Spies
Author: Monte Reel
Publisher: Anchor
Total Pages: 421
Release: 2018-05-08
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 0385540213

A thrilling dramatic narrative of the top-secret Cold War-era spy plane operation that transformed the CIA and brought the U.S. and the Soviet Union to the brink of disaster On May 1, 1960, an American U-2 spy plane was shot down over the Soviet Union just weeks before a peace summit between the two nations. The CIA concocted a cover story for President Eisenhower to deliver, assuring him that no one could have survived a fall from that altitude. And even if pilot Francis Gary Powers had survived, he had been supplied with a poison pin with which to commit suicide. But against all odds, Powers emerged from the wreckage and was seized by the KGB. He confessed to espionage charges, revealing to the world that Eisenhower had just lied to the American people--and to the Soviet Premier. Infuriated, Nikita Khrushchev slammed the door on a rare opening in Cold War relations. In A Brotherhood of Spies, award-winning journalist Monte Reel reveals how the U-2 spy program, principally devised by four men working in secret, upended the Cold War and carved a new mission for the CIA. This secret fraternity, made up of Edwin Land, best known as the inventor of instant photography and the head of Polaroid Corporation; Kelly Johnson, a hard-charging taskmaster from Lockheed; Richard Bissell, the secretive and ambitious spymaster; and ace Air Force flyer Powers, set out to replace yesterday's fallible human spies with tomorrow's undetectable eye in the sky. Their clandestine successes and all-too-public failures make this brilliantly reported account a true-life thriller with the highest stakes and tragic repercussions.

More Stories from Langley

More Stories from Langley
Author: Edward Mickolus
Publisher: Potomac Books
Total Pages: 353
Release: 2020-09-01
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 1640123695

Who knew the CIA needed librarians? More Stories from Langley reveals the lesser-known operations of one of the most mysterious government agencies in the United States. Edward Mickolus is back with more stories to answer the question, “What does a career in the CIA look like?” Advice and anecdotes from both current and former CIA officers provide a look at the side of intelligence operations that is often left out of the movies. What was it like working for the CIA during 9/11? Do only spies get to travel? More Stories from Langley has physicists getting recruited to “the agency” during the Cold War, foreign-language majors getting lucky chances, and quests to “learn by living” turning into sweaty-palmed calls to the U.S. embassy after being detained by Russian intelligence officers. The world only needs so many suave super spies. More Stories from Langley shows how important academics, retired soldiers, and bilingual nannies can be in preserving the security of our nation.