by Joseph Trento
2005 (SC), Carroll & Graf
ISBN 0786715006
560 pages.
From NameBase.org
This book covers roughly three intermingled topics. The first is the CIA’s early years at the Berlin base, where high-flying corruption and Soviet penetration was rampant, and even seemed to help one’s CIA career. William Harvey was a key player here. The second involves the migration of some of these players to Vietnam, and also to Chile. The primary source on Chile is Edward Korry, whose story is told here in some detail. The third aspect of this book is the mole wars, where Angleton plays a major role. Trento makes a strong case that Igor Orlov and George Weisz deserve top billing as moles, but is less convincing when he describes Angleton’s theories about Oswald. In the end, the point of the book — that the Soviets consistently ran circles around a corrupted and incompetent CIA — is rock solid. It wasn’t our self-serving Keystone Cops who won the Cold War; it was simply that our arms race outlasted the Soviet economy.
Joseph Trento has been an investigative reporter on the national security beat since 1968. He had some scoops in the 1970s, and kept at it through the 1980s and 1990s by cultivating insiders such as James Angleton, William Corson, and Robert Crowley. Through them he managed to interview dozens of other retired spooks. Now he is president of the Public Education Center [1] in Washington DC.
THIS BOOK IS IN PRINT.
Available commercially. Learn more about Joseph J. Trento [2].