From Publishers Weekly
Kessler ( Escape from the CIA ), who is the first journalist to be accorded the full cooperation of the CIA, here reveals more about the agency's structure, policies and key personnel than any previous writer has. He defines the missions of the agency's five components--the director and the directorates of operations, science and technology, intelligence, and administration. Kessler explores such diverse subjects as the agency's employment policies (the CIA, he maintains, prefers aggressive, manipulative recruits willing to lie and to break the laws of foreign countries), the director's daily presidential briefing, the CIA's counter-narcotics efforts, the physical plant itself ("The CIA compound is indeed a spooky place") and the agency's struggle to create a viable public-relations policy. As to the agency's mandate, given the diminution of the Soviet threat, Kessler reports that the CIA is intensifying its effort to track nuclear proliferation, international drug trafficking and terrorism. A largely objective, evenhanded, highly informative survey.
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc. --Ce texte fait référence à l'édition Relié .
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc. --Ce texte fait référence à l'édition Relié .
From Library Journal
Multiple prize-winning reporter and best-selling author Kessler, whose books on the FBI (he's written a number of critiques of federal institutions, e.g., The FBI, Audio Reviews, LJ 9/1/96) toppled its director, most recently wrote Inside Congress (Audio Reviews, LJ 4/15/98), an uneven effort that bogged down in salacious detail and anti-Gingrich partisanship. Inside the C.I.A. was published in 1992 and is a much better offering because, generally, Kessler respects the agency he is studying. He describes its history and then divides his chapters by following the agency's organizational chart, concentrating on the divisions one by one. The listener hoping for detail on various highly publicized cases such as Iran-contra or the Cuban Missile Crisis will be generally disappointed. The reader, Chris Lane, has a young, somewhat high, well-articulated voice. In a book such as this, of course, the reader has no chance at histrionics, but Lane carries himself well, merging into the background like an effective newscaster on college radio. This audiobook should be well received in the current-events and history collections of public and academic libraries.?Don Wismer, Cary Memorial Lib., Wayne, ME
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc. --Ce texte fait référence à une édition épuisée ou non disponible de ce titre.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc. --Ce texte fait référence à une édition épuisée ou non disponible de ce titre.
