A Review of CIA Memoirs
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Moran, Lindsay. Blowing My Cover: My Life as a CIA Spy. New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 2005.
A generally enjoyable, highly-readable memoir of a short-termed intelligence officer. Moran recounts in fascinating detail her induction into the CIA in the late 90s, paramilitary training at a camp known as the Farm, and her brief service overseas in the Balkans. Unfortunately, the book is loaded with nauseating romantic interludes and frustrating discussions about how confused her work and these romances made her. Given her admission at the start of the book that she is adept at lying and exaggerating stories, one is forced to wonder how much is poetic license and how much is true. She decides to quit in the run-up to the invasion of Iraq, which she describes as a “concocted diversion” in light of the failure to capture Osama. Her brief epilogue also recounts conversations she had with CIA officers, “one” of whom reported that there was “no definitive evidence whatsoever” that Saddam had WMD or posed “an “imminent threat,” and another who only offered the letter “q” as a connection between al Qaeda and Iraq. These hastily appended claims add little to the book and have been undercut by discoveries of WMD (albeit leftover from over a decade ago) and documented ties not just to al Qaeda, but to the Taliban and other terrorist groups. A fun read, nonetheless.
Lilley, James R. China Hands: Nine Decades of Adventure, Espionage, and Diplomacy in Asia. New York: PublicAffairs, 2004.
A fascinating autobiography of one of America’s finest statesman. Lilley, co-writing with his son Jeffrey, takes us from his childhood as an expatriate in China, through his college experience at Yale, and his career in government service beginning just after World War II. Lilley explains his role in covert operations undertaken by the CIA in China and Laos, the historic Nixon-Kissinger visits of the 1970s, and diplomatic relations between Washington, Beijing, and Taipei. Having served as the ambassador-in-all-but-name to Taiwan, ambassador to South Korea, and ambassador to China, Lilley is in a unique position to describe what happened during the democratization of South Korea and how he personally intervened to help that process along, how the U.S. embassy protected and evacuated Americans from China during the tragic days of Tiananmen, and the degree to which personal interactions drive what Seinfeld’s Kramer called “the high-stakes game of world diplomacy and international intrigue.” A superb addition to any bookshelf.
Clarridge, Duane R. A Spy for All Seasons: My Life in the CIA. New York: Scribner, 1997.
An information-packed, deftly-written autobiographical account of thirty years of protecting American national security. Clarridge, alongside co-writer Digby Diehl, takes us from his childhood as a young boy playing soldier with his friends during World War II, a brief stint in the Army, and his wide-ranging and exciting career as an operations officer in the CIA. Like many of those who joined both the Agency and its predecessors during and immediately after the war, Clarridge’s academic background is rigorously Ivy League. His undergraduate days were spent as an American Studies major at Brown and he pursued Russian Studies graduate work at Columbia. Unlike many of his contemporaries, however, he hails from solid Republican stock. Clarridge’s career in the Agency took him from Nepal to India, Ankara to Rome; he headed the Latin America and Europe Divisions. At the Counter-Terrorist Center he chased after terrorists, including the notorious Abu Abbas (later captured by Coalition forces in Iraq, the former regime of which supposedly had no connections to international terrorists). A great deal of the book is devoted to in-depth discussions of his role in fighting the Sandinistas, the Iran-Contra controversy, dealings with Congress and federal funding, the invasion of Grenada, and much more. Clarridge opines that the operations arm of the CIA was rendered defunct by political warfare in the 1990s. Published a year before the bombings of US embassies in Africa, the book eerily concludes that the Clandestine Services “will be reinvented or restored to competency only after some appalling catastrophe befalls us….Then, when it becomes apparent that only a human source, an agent, could have provided forewarning, someone will ask why we don’t have any agents and the answer will force the issue.” A real page-turner for anyone interested in the Cold War and terrorism.
