31. Recent Books on the CIA

The following is a list I obtained from Nigel West. The books are listed in alphabetical order of author.

Anonymous (2004). Imperial Hubris. New Potomac Books. A highly critical analysis of the CIA’s campaign against Al-Qaeda written by Michael Scheurer, a respected senior CIA counterterrorism analyst and expert on Osama bin Laden.

Baer, Robert (2002). See No Evil. Crown Books A CIA officer’s experiences in the Middle East with the clandestine service during the Clinton Era.

Drogin, Bob (2007). CURVEBALL. New York: Random House. A detailed account of how a single Iraqi chemical engineer in Munich misled the DIA, the CIA, and Colin Powell.

Drumheller, Tyler (2006). On the Brink. Carrol and Graf. A controversial insider’s view of the WMD debate by the former CIA operations chief for Western Europe who says he warned George Tenet not to rely on CURVEBALL.

Earley, Pete (2007). Comrade J. New York: G. P. Putnam and Sons. The former Russian SVR deputy rezident in New York, Sergei Tetyakov, defected in October 2000 and recalls his KGB career offering a fascinating insight into Putin-era corruption in the Kremlin.

Olson, Jim. (2006). Fair Play. Potomac. A thoughtful review of the ethics of intelligence operations writt3en by an experienced CIA station chief who served in Mexico City, Moscow, and Vienna.

Plame, Valerie (2007). Fair Game. New York: Simon and Schuster. A self-serving, not entirely accurate memoir by the CIA analyst married to Joe Wilson, who became controversial when he challenged publicly the White House view of Iraqi WMD.

Susskind, Ron (2008). The Way of the World. Simon and Schuster. A journalist's rather disorganized account of the intelligence community’s internal debate on Iraqi WMD prior to the 2003 invasion, with plenty of indiscreet insider gossip.

Tenet, George. (2007). At the Center of the Storm. Harper Collins. The angry memoirs of the former Director of Central Intelligence who recalls 9/11 and reveals rather too many of his own inadequacies.

Weiner, Tim (2007). Legacy of Ashes.. New York: Random House. A journalist’s history of the CIA. Comprehensive, but too reliant on newspaper reports of the Agency’s well-publicized failures and so reads as a one-sided critique.