14-10-2008, 02:17 PM
Alas, Jack, the book has yet to appear.
Let's recall that Trento's The Secret History of the CIA -- published in 2003 and as sophisticated an exercise in disinformation as we're likely to encounter -- saw the light of day only after an earlier incarnation titled The Boys from Berlin was announced and even appeared, with dust jacket art, pre-publication on Amazon in 1999.
I've reproduced below some of the book's early teaser copy originating with Cahners Business Information.
We are left to imagine the reasons for the delay and changes to the title -- at least -- and what we might discover by a comparison of the manuscripts.
So on at least two occasions a Trento volume has been teased and withdrawn-- or perhaps "suppressed" is the more accurate word.
I'll give Trento his due: On another forum he has written, "'Conspiracy theorist' is a charge the right and establishment uses as McCarthy and his henchman used 'commie sympathizer.'"
Concise, on-target, devastating.
And Widows -- in particular the chapter on the John Paisley affair -- is invaluable to our efforts. Especially if we are cognizant of and able to utilize for analyses the "negative template" tool.
One is left to wonder if Yakterina Fursetseva and James Jesus Angleton ever were seen at the same time.
*****
Spying is probably the world's second oldest profession, and as a young country the United States got involved later than most Western nations. Trento, a journalist and screenwriter, delves into the murky past of the CIA's main base of spying operations, established in Berlin in the early 1950s. His main point is that the Russians quickly infiltrated the Berlin facility with their own agents and counteragents, leading to a compromising of our intelligence information and allowing such unwelcome surprises as the North Korean invasion of South Korea, the erection of the Berlin Wall in 1961, and even the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1989. Trento presents a dizzying array of characters, some famous (Richard Helms, Allen Dulles), others obscure. Relying on numerous interviews with former agentsAsome of whom had axes to grindAhe sprinkles his endnotes with secondary literature, most of it over a decade old. Thus, we are told a secret history whose source is mostly people expert at keeping secrets. How much of this to believe will be left up to the readerAthe truth remains hazy. For larger collections.AEdward Goedeken, Iowa State Univ. Lib., Ames Copyright 1999 Cahners Business Information.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
A damning indictment of the CIA, Trento's book is based largely on conversations he had with the widely criticized James Jesus Angleton, the former CIA counterintelligence maven who has been reviled for ruining many innocent lives in his zeal to root out Soviet moles. Angleton was right or so argues Trento in a book that by his own account "contains Angleton's version of what happened and the evidence he had to reach those conclusions." In the 1950s and '60s, the CIA used an operations base in Berlin as its primary training facility. The Berlin Operating Base was a prestige assignment for those anointed to form the backbone of U.S. intelligence. According to Trento (Widows, etc.), however, the German base was fatally corrupted, ruined by arrogance and infiltrated by Soviet spies. It left a legacy of venality and incompetence that spread throughout the entire agency, ultimately affecting specific operations and more sweeping errors of analysis, notably the CIA's failure to detect the imminent fall of the Soviet Union. Incompetence led to immorality, according to Trento, as the CIA developed a preference for risky, unproductive and flat-out illegal covert operations. In addition, Trento makes a case that agency blunders made possible the ascent to power of such future U.S. headaches as Saddam Hussein and Manuel Noriega. Trento writes well, and his fluid prose may lure readers into overlooking his tendency to blame every foreign policy failure of the past 50 years on the CIA. Still, this is a well-researched Molotov cocktail of a book, sure to raise hackles at Langley and to provoke spirited replies. Photos not seen by PW. (Oct.) Copyright 1999 Cahners Business Information.
Let's recall that Trento's The Secret History of the CIA -- published in 2003 and as sophisticated an exercise in disinformation as we're likely to encounter -- saw the light of day only after an earlier incarnation titled The Boys from Berlin was announced and even appeared, with dust jacket art, pre-publication on Amazon in 1999.
I've reproduced below some of the book's early teaser copy originating with Cahners Business Information.
We are left to imagine the reasons for the delay and changes to the title -- at least -- and what we might discover by a comparison of the manuscripts.
So on at least two occasions a Trento volume has been teased and withdrawn-- or perhaps "suppressed" is the more accurate word.
I'll give Trento his due: On another forum he has written, "'Conspiracy theorist' is a charge the right and establishment uses as McCarthy and his henchman used 'commie sympathizer.'"
Concise, on-target, devastating.
And Widows -- in particular the chapter on the John Paisley affair -- is invaluable to our efforts. Especially if we are cognizant of and able to utilize for analyses the "negative template" tool.
One is left to wonder if Yakterina Fursetseva and James Jesus Angleton ever were seen at the same time.
*****
Spying is probably the world's second oldest profession, and as a young country the United States got involved later than most Western nations. Trento, a journalist and screenwriter, delves into the murky past of the CIA's main base of spying operations, established in Berlin in the early 1950s. His main point is that the Russians quickly infiltrated the Berlin facility with their own agents and counteragents, leading to a compromising of our intelligence information and allowing such unwelcome surprises as the North Korean invasion of South Korea, the erection of the Berlin Wall in 1961, and even the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1989. Trento presents a dizzying array of characters, some famous (Richard Helms, Allen Dulles), others obscure. Relying on numerous interviews with former agentsAsome of whom had axes to grindAhe sprinkles his endnotes with secondary literature, most of it over a decade old. Thus, we are told a secret history whose source is mostly people expert at keeping secrets. How much of this to believe will be left up to the readerAthe truth remains hazy. For larger collections.AEdward Goedeken, Iowa State Univ. Lib., Ames Copyright 1999 Cahners Business Information.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
A damning indictment of the CIA, Trento's book is based largely on conversations he had with the widely criticized James Jesus Angleton, the former CIA counterintelligence maven who has been reviled for ruining many innocent lives in his zeal to root out Soviet moles. Angleton was right or so argues Trento in a book that by his own account "contains Angleton's version of what happened and the evidence he had to reach those conclusions." In the 1950s and '60s, the CIA used an operations base in Berlin as its primary training facility. The Berlin Operating Base was a prestige assignment for those anointed to form the backbone of U.S. intelligence. According to Trento (Widows, etc.), however, the German base was fatally corrupted, ruined by arrogance and infiltrated by Soviet spies. It left a legacy of venality and incompetence that spread throughout the entire agency, ultimately affecting specific operations and more sweeping errors of analysis, notably the CIA's failure to detect the imminent fall of the Soviet Union. Incompetence led to immorality, according to Trento, as the CIA developed a preference for risky, unproductive and flat-out illegal covert operations. In addition, Trento makes a case that agency blunders made possible the ascent to power of such future U.S. headaches as Saddam Hussein and Manuel Noriega. Trento writes well, and his fluid prose may lure readers into overlooking his tendency to blame every foreign policy failure of the past 50 years on the CIA. Still, this is a well-researched Molotov cocktail of a book, sure to raise hackles at Langley and to provoke spirited replies. Photos not seen by PW. (Oct.) Copyright 1999 Cahners Business Information.