Book summary

Christpher Andrew's history of US intelligence operations focuses on the 20th century. US intelligence gathering became much more extensive and sophisticated during the First World War, although for years it was dominated by the superior British intelligence services. During the 1950s, the US used its exceptional technological knowledge to make advances in espionage. Included in this endeavor were the development of both the U-2 spy plane and Operation Lighting, a major effort to upgrade the computer used to analyze the wealth of newly available data. One of the author's significant points is that the US has always been better at the technical end of spying than it has at the human end. This has been demonstrated by the numerous instances when the CIA has misinterpreted the motivations of both the people it has employed and those it has spied on. This book is filled with amusing anecdotes, such as Harry Truman's presentation of cloaks and daggers to his intelligence chiefs, and the CIA's forgery of labels on bottles of brandy to make better gifts for one of their moles to give to his Soviet boss.

Media reviews

"This is the most important book ever written about American intelligence."