The Book of Honor: Covert Lives & Classified Deaths at the CIA byTed Gup
Generally, when people think about CIA operatives, they imagine what they see in films or television. In most popular programming there's camaraderie among team members. In his book, "Book of Honor: Covert Lives & Classified Deaths at the CIA," Gup does an excellent job of capturing the isolation that many clandestine officers face.
My favorite account was of Hugh Redmond, the U.S. intelligence agent who spent decades in a Chinese prison (Ward road Prison -- Shanghai; 1951-197x). After years of incarceration, the once-athletic Redmond had lost all of his teeth and became afflicted with disorders that he was forbidden to discuss. (William McInenly.)
Gup's book is great because he captures the integrity of the men and women who have fought bravely to defend American values. At the same time, he is critical of the hypocrisy within various administrations. For example, on page 75, he writes -- "Plausible deniability" enabled the president to distance himself from the darker hand of his own foreign policy, even freeing him to chastise those who carried out covert activities that he himself had set in play. Increasingly the Agency would be forced to fall on its own sword, to suffer not only ignominy of occasional defeats but the full moral responsibility of that defeat."
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My favorite account was of Hugh Redmond, the U.S. intelligence agent who spent decades in a Chinese prison (Ward road Prison -- Shanghai; 1951-197x). After years of incarceration, the once-athletic Redmond had lost all of his teeth and became afflicted with disorders that he was forbidden to discuss. (William McInenly.)
Gup's book is great because he captures the integrity of the men and women who have fought bravely to defend American values. At the same time, he is critical of the hypocrisy within various administrations. For example, on page 75, he writes -- "Plausible deniability" enabled the president to distance himself from the darker hand of his own foreign policy, even freeing him to chastise those who carried out covert activities that he himself had set in play. Increasingly the Agency would be forced to fall on its own sword, to suffer not only ignominy of occasional defeats but the full moral responsibility of that defeat."
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