The Very Best Men: The Daring Early Years of the CIA
Sign in to keep track of books you’ve read and want to read.
The Very Best Menis the story of the CIA's early days as told through the careers of four glamorous, daring, and idealistic men who ran covert operations for the government from the end of World War II to Vietnam. Evan Thomas re-creates the personal dramas and sometimes tragic lives of Frank Wisner, Richard Bissell, Tracy Barnes, and Desmond FitzGerald, who risked everything to contain the Soviet threat.
Read more
Within the inner circles of Washington, they were regarded as the best and the brightest. They planned and acted to keep the country out of war—by stealth and "political action" and to do by cunning and sleight of hand what great armies could not, must not be allowed to do. In the end, they were too idealistic and too honorable, and were unsuited for the dark, duplicitous life of spying. Their hubris and naivete led them astray, producing both sensational coups and spectacular blunders like the Bay of Pigs and the failed assassination attempts on foreign leaders in the early 1960s. Thomas draws on the CIA's own secret histories, to which he has had exclusive access, as well as extensive interviews, to bring to life a crucial piece of American history.
Liked The Very Best Men: The Daring Early Years of the CIA? Here’s where I’d start.
These suit anyone who liked The Very Best Men: The Daring Early Years of the CIA. Sign in and mark a few books for picks shaped around your own taste.
-
The Book of Honor: Covert Lives and Classified Deaths at the CIA Shares nonfiction, espionage, CIA -
The CIA And The Cult Of Intelligence Shares history, espionage, nonfiction -
Spycraft: The Secret History of the CIA's Spytechs, from Communism to al-Qaeda Shares nonfiction, espionage, history -
Circle of Treason: A CIA Account of Traitor Aldrich Ames and the Men He Betrayed Shares espionage, nonfiction, CIA
“People who read The Very Best Men: The Daring Early Years of the CIA tend to reach for these next.”
-
The Secret Team: The CIA & its Allies in Control of the United States & the World
- The Man Who Kept the Secrets: Richard Helms & the CIA
-
For the President's Eyes Only: Secret Intelligence & the American Presidency from Washington to Bush
-
Wilderness of Mirrors: Intrigue, Deception, and the Secrets that Destroyed Two of the Cold War's Most Important Agents
