William Colby and the CIA
Title | William Colby and the CIA PDF eBook |
Author | John Prados |
Publisher | University Press of Kansas |
Pages | 400 |
Release | 2009-10-08 |
Genre | History |
ISBN | 070061690X |
It is surprising that no one previous to John Prados attempted a biography of quintessential cold warrior William Colby, because his story is in many ways also the story of the CIA. From Italy to Vietnam, to the military coup in Indonesia, to Watergate, the prosecution of Richard Helms, investigations of CIA assassination plots, and the drugging and surveillance of unwitting Americans, Colby was there, on the ground or deeply involved at headquarters.—The Guardian William E. Colby was one of the most enigmatic figures of the Cold War and a central player in the operations of the Central Intelligence Agency. While publicly appearing as a calm bureaucrat, behind the scenes Colby helped orchestrate some of CIA's most controversial operations. His mysterious death even added to the aura. In the wake of new questions relating to CIA activities since 9/11—which John Prados discusses in his new preface—Colby's story provides crucial lessons for a nation that still struggles to reconcile intelligence methods with democratic principles. Prados tracks Colby's life and career from early years in the OSS to his tumultuous tenure as Director of Central Intelligence in the 1970s. Reviled by many outside the CIA for his role in Vietnam-and inside it for his cooperation with probes of the agency—Colby was cast as a scapegoat by the Ford White House during the Church and Pike congressional investigations. In addition, Prados offers fresh insights and new perspectives on Colby's involvement in the notorious Phoenix program in Vietnam and in the bloody Indonesian coup of 1965 that overthrew President Sukarno and brought General Suharto to power, as well as on the CIA's role in the 1963 assassination of President Ngo Dinh Diem of South Vietnam and on the actions of high-level CIA officials during the final demise of South Vietnam in 1975. A masterful study of a master spy, William Colby and the CIA also offers a vital and timely history of the inner workings of "the Company" for which he worked. Originally published in a cloth edition under the title Lost Crusader and retitled for this first paperback edition, William Colby and the CIA explores dilemmas of intelligence that are of renewed importance today.
Presidents' Secret Wars
Title | Presidents' Secret Wars PDF eBook |
Author | John Prados |
Publisher | William Morrow |
Pages | 488 |
Release | 1986 |
Genre | Political Science |
ISBN |
Provides an analysis of postwar covert activities by United States intelligence agencies, documenting the early days of the CIA and its operations.
Honorable Men
Title | Honorable Men PDF eBook |
Author | William Egan Colby |
Publisher | Simon & Schuster |
Pages | 518 |
Release | 1978 |
Genre | Biography & Autobiography |
ISBN |
The veteran intelligence agent and former CIA director recalls the events, developments, and people of his career, describes the CIA's organization, workings, and procedures, and profiles famous and hazy world figures.
Lost Victory
Title | Lost Victory PDF eBook |
Author | William Egan Colby |
Publisher | McGraw-Hill/Contemporary |
Pages | 470 |
Release | 1989 |
Genre | History |
ISBN |
"For sixteen years, from the time he was assigned Chief of Station for the CIA in Saigon to his appointment as CIA Director, William Colby was deeply involved in America's role in Vietnam. During five presidential administrations -- Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon, and Ford -- Colby moved from meetings in the Oval Office to the sweltering jungles of Vietnam as the war escalated from Vietcong guerilla terrorism to a massive U.S. military engagement. Lost Victory is his personal account of those years, an insider's view of America's first major military defeat told from a vantage point matched by few other officials."--Book cover, p. [4].
Disciples
Title | Disciples PDF eBook |
Author | Douglas Waller |
Publisher | Simon and Schuster |
Pages | 592 |
Release | 2015 |
Genre | Biography & Autobiography |
ISBN | 1451693745 |
"The author of the critically acclaimed bestseller Wild Bill Donovan, tells the story of four OSS warriors of World War II. All four later led the CIA. They are the most famous and controversial directors the CIA has ever had-- Allen Dulles, Richard Helms, William Colby, and William Casey. Disciples is the story of these dynamic agents and their daring espionage and sabotage in wartime Europe under OSS Director Bill Donovan. Allen Dulles ran the OSS's most successful spy operation against the Axis. Bill Casey organized dangerous missions to penetrate Nazi Germany. Bill Colby led OSS commando raids behind the lines in occupied France and Norway. Richard Helms mounted risky intelligence programs against the Russians in the ruin of Berlin after the German surrender. Four very different men, they later led (or misled) the successor CIA. Dulles launched the calamitous operation to land CIA-trained, anti-Castro guerrillas at Cuba's Bay of Pigs. Helms was convicted of lying to Congress over the CIA's role in the coup that ousted Chile's president. Colby would become a pariah for releasing to Congress what became known as the 'Family Jewels' report on CIA misdeeds during the 1950s, sixties and early seventies. Casey would nearly bring down the CIA-- and Ronald Reagan's presidency-- from a scheme that secretly supplied Nicaragua's contras with money raked off from the sale of arms to Iran for American hostages in Beirut. Mining thousands of once-secret World War II documents and interviewing scores of family members and CIA colleagues, Waller has written a brilliant successor to Wild Bill Donovan"--
Lost Crusader
Title | Lost Crusader PDF eBook |
Author | John Prados |
Publisher | Oxford University Press, USA |
Pages | 434 |
Release | 2003 |
Genre | Biography & Autobiography |
ISBN | 9780195128475 |
John Prados is a senior researcher at the National Security Archive in Washington.
Selling the CIA
Title | Selling the CIA PDF eBook |
Author | David S. McCarthy |
Publisher | University Press of Kansas |
Pages | 230 |
Release | 2018-06-14 |
Genre | History |
ISBN | 0700626425 |
Dubbed the "Year of Intelligence," 1975 was not a good year for the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). Caught spying on American citizens, the agency was under investigation, indicted in shocking headlines, its future covert operations at risk. Like so many others caught up in public scandal, the CIA turned to public relations. This book tells what happened next. In the mid-1970s CIA officials developed a public relations strategy to fend off the agency's critics. In Selling the CIA David Shamus McCarthy describes a PR campaign that proceeded with remarkable continuity--and effectiveness--through the decades and regimes that followed. He deftly chronicles the agency's efforts to project an image of openness and accountability, even as it did its best to put a positive spin on secrecy--"[m]ore openness with greater secrecy," in the Orwellian words of one director of public affairs. A tale of machinations and manipulation worthy of Hollywood, McCarthy's work exposes a culture of secrecy unwittingly sustained by the forces of popular culture; a public relations offensive working on all fronts to perpetuate the CIA's mystique as the heroic guardian of national security. "Our failures are known, our successes are not" has been the guiding mantra of this initiative. Selling the CIA spotlights how the agency’s success in outmaneuvering Congress and avoiding public scrutiny stands as a direct threat to American democracy.