The Book of Honor : Covert Lives and Classified Deaths at the CIA

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Summary: A history that is long overdue
Review: This is a book about the lives, and deaths, of some of our nation's heroes; stories that have been hidden for decades in some cases.

The author has researched the deaths of CIA agents killed in the line of duty, since the inception of the Agency. Even today some of the stories he relates are officially "classified." The truths about most of these lives should have been released by our government long ago, since it is well past the time that any national security issues would be at stake.

I found the book quite interesting--not only did the author tell a good story (or stories), but it gave me a better understanding of how the CIA works--a topic I haven't pursued up to this point.

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Summary: Depressing
Review: This is a depressing book.It's entirely about all of our people who were caught and killed....No happy ending, no success stories..EVERYBODY gets killed...a real downer.

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Summary: Much needed sunshine on the CIA
Review: This is a good book! It is good reading for anyone age 16 or older, casual reader to university professor. It is required reading for anyone serving in the intelligence or diplomatic fields - soldier or statesman. I was impressed that this is Ted Gup's first book, it is truly superb. Gup's research is among the best and most complete I have ever reviewed regarding this subject area. Book of Honor is about a small part of the CIA called the Deputy Director for Operations or DDO and about an even smaller part of the DDO that conducts clandestine, covert, and surreptitious operations overseas. It is a series of true action stories about the events of the men and women that died in the service of the CIA from its inception after WW II to the present. The author is fidelis honoring those who died and earned a listing in the "Book of Honor." You'll meet real heroes here. My favorite, whom I have long considered one of the bravest men I ever knew - Dick Holm. But, that's only part of the value of this living history. There is a second story between the lines for the more experienced reader. It is a story about an intelligence agency often more involved with nitwitery (like that in Laos) than sound objective or purpose. The reader will bounce between admiration of exceptional individual accomplishment and disbelief at the level of institutional incompetence by often unqualified managers - more mangers than leaders. This is a story too often about "playing army" than spying. Readers will cringe at a bureaucratic contest between better equipped and better trained military special operations units and CIA teams usually comprised of ex-military contract employees. Policy and law makers will see first hand the inherent problems of an intelligence agency wasting limited resources and valuable time trying to fight violent enemies at the expense of making sound intelligence about critical issues needed by others. The author includes a lucid passage attributed to members of US Army Detachment Delta - You just didn't know if you could trust the CIA. They were speaking about the reliability of both CIA intelligence and operational truthfulness and their assessment is directly on target. The CIA plays games when professionalism is needed. Too many CIA secrets are maintained more to protect incompetence than national security. The author with the help of many within the agency provides needed sunshine with the right blend of integrity and caution. There is no horse manure in this book.

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Summary: A History of Hidden Heroes
Review: This is a wonderful book. Ted Gup has done an amazing piece of historic journalism; it's a touching tribute to a group of people who gave it all - and who knew that no one would likely ever know of their contribution. He has humanized an organization that, sometimes unnecessarily, it seems to the outsider, anyway, allows itself to be portrayed otherwise. While some at CIA might publicly whine about this book, privately, I am sure that they are glad, and should be, that someone had the gumption to write it.

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Summary: Unsung heros
Review: This is one of those books that I could not put down until finished. It is a tale well told--unfortunately for the wrong reasons. There is no question that these people should be honored but not at the price of compromising today's ongoing intelligence efforts.

The author seems to feel that "the peoples (relatives) right to know" trumps any need to protect "sources and methods" and national security. He attributes all attempts at secrecy to a desire to hide blunders. And he feels that certainly anything that happened over 30 years ago has no need to be withheld. For an opposing view I would direct readers to most any non-fiction book on "intelligence tradecraft." You can search that term on the Internet and get a good book list. ###

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Summary: Another Entry in the "Demystifying the CIA" Book Trade!
Review: This is, on many level, a fascinating book. It is fascinating in terms of the stories it tells, which are often heart-wrenching and difficult to understand. But the real fascination has to be with the reality depicted herein, which may or may not have much to do with anything like honor. The author claims in many cases the Agency used and sacrificed the individuals for the greater good, and did not want to sacrifice others. Perhaps. Certainly one hopes there was good, defensible reasoning behind the use and sacrifice, often for decades, of individuals who were loyally serving the flag.

However, it is also true that much of this information could be construed just as accurately as a portrait of an agency gone corrupt and self-interested, often sacrificing individuals for what amounts to political expediency or personal and career advantage, and then quietly forgotten or sanitized through equivocation, deception, and honorarium. No one debates as whether clandestine operations are necessary or useful in terms of furthering our national interests abroad. Yet we seem particularly sophomoric and unsophisticated in expressing such cries of surprise and anger when we discover what every school boy learns; power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Why then are we so outraged to discover our spymasters sometimes lie, equivocate, and deceive us? Or are we naive enough to expect that they will each be as chaste as Caeser's wife? Not on this planet, and not in the 20th century.

Any faithful explorer of John LeCarre's fictional view of the clandestine world is familiar with the perpetual tensions and pitfalls of a spy organization in service to a democratic government, and how easily individuals are sacrificed for a whole range of reasons such as ambition, expediency, to gain advantage, departmental rilvaries, as well as a whole catalogue of darker purposes serving the wishes and needs of a particularly dark corner in one human heart. Here, the reader gains a great deal of compassion and empathy for the personal and moral and dilemmas which many of these individuals faced, who were caught while clandestinely engaged (or not) and compromised, and then were sacrificed by the Agency for its own reasons, which may or may not have had any legitimacy. Anyone volunteering for such service best heed the devil's warning to abandon all hope, for they have perhaps struck a bargain with him.

This, of coure, leaves the individual to his or her fate, a private and painful sacrifice of ignominious death or endless decades spent withering in some unnamed stinkhole of a prison, and perhaps sometimes over nothing more than the quibbling differences in political semantics that only government bureacrats can appreciate or pretend to understand. Yet the deception and potential for betrayal does not necessarily end here. What makes any reader at all confident that all that was written and described here was absolutely true, or accurate, or necessary?

To entitle such a book "The Book Of Honor" may do credit to brave individuals who perhaps deserve it, but may also be an attempt to gain undeserved credit and a less blemished new cache for an agency gone to hayseed. Remember, these are the guys who claim they couldn't kill Castro! Of course, none of us outside that marbled puzzle palace can know which (if not both) it is. Much of what has been written here could still be a subtle form of propaganda that in some fashion serves the needs of the agency or some departments or individuals within it. Once deception, equivocation, and lies begin, who knows where they may end?

A particularly acute observation made by another reviewer was that this book constitutes a history lesson, and I agree with that. But do we all agree what the lesson was, and what have we really learned from it? The problem is that we seem to keep learning the same history lesson over and over without ever taking its message to heart. It's about time we really started to mature enough as a people to recognize that the existence of organizations like the CIA, NSA or DIA constitute a necessary evil, and that like any evil this poses certain undefineable risks to the continued survival of a free and open society. Yet, these agencies will all continue to do whatever it is they do in the covert world in an absolutely necessary tension with the continuance of a democratic society. This unavoidable tension is created by the possibility that the unknown and unfettered interests, activities, and resources of the clandestine organizations may, at any time, act to interfere with, or even trump, the general or particular interests of the democracy it serves. Yet, short of another fiasco like the Church investigation in the U.S. Senate, we will not shed any additional light on these activities. Moreover, it is hard to argue that it is in the national interest to engage in another round of domestic spy-bashing. At any rate, enjoy. It is an interesting book and a thought-provoking read.

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Summary: What an eye-opener.
Review: Though this book leaves you yearning for more - information about the lives, family and operations - the stories absorb you right in. The hard truth of these covert operations coupled with the interviews of family/friends bears a broad spectrum of opinions.

It's a really good book, particularly if you know very little about the CIA.

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Summary: Book of Honor:Covert Lives and Classified Deaths at The CIA
Review: What an awesome book(I listened to the audio version)!!I love books about the real thing.This was an emotional experience.This should be listed as an American "classic" must read.Ted Gup has done a "righteous" declaration of honor to the lives of "forgotten" heroes.Hope I can find more books like this.