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Surprise, kill, vanish : the secret history of CIA paramilitary armies, operators, and assassins

Call Number

  • 327.1273 J175 (CEN)

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Edition

First edition.

Publication Information

New York : Little, Brown and Company, 2019.

Physical Description

xiii, 545 pages, 16 unnumbered pages of plates : illustrations (some color) ; 25 cm

Summary

Since 1947, domestic and foreign assassinations have been executed under the CIA-led covert action operations team. Before that time, responsibility for taking out America's enemies abroad was even more shrouded in mystery. Despite Hollywood notions of last-minute rogue-operations and external secret hires, covert action is actually a cog in a colossal foreign policy machine, moving through, among others, the Bureau of Intelligence and Research, the House and Senate Select Committees. At the end of the day, it is the President, not the CIA, who is singularly in charge. When diplomacy fails and overt military action is not feasible, the President often calls on the Special Activities Division, the most secretive and lowest-profile branch of the CIA. It is this paramilitary team that undertakes dramatic and little-known assignments: hostage rescues, sabotage, and, of course, assassinations. For the first time, Pulitzer Prize finalist and New York Times bestselling author Annie Jacobsen takes us deep inside this top-secret history. With unparalleled access to former operatives, ambassadors, and even past directors of the Secret Service and CIA operations, Jacobsen reveals the inner workings of these teams, and just how far a U.S. president may go, covertly but lawfully, to pursue the nation's interests.

Contents

  • An office for ungentlemanly warfare
  • Tertia Optio
  • Surprise attack in Korea
  • Special Forces
  • Ruin and rule in Guatemala
  • Kings, shahs, monarchs, and madmen
  • The KGB's office of liquid affairs
  • Green light
  • The special group
  • An assassination capability
  • JFK, KIA
  • The studies and observations group
  • Kill or capture
  • Green Berets
  • Revenge
  • Colonel Qaddafi's Libya
  • Reagan's preemptive neutralization
  • Parachute assassins, Saddam Hussein, and Osama bin Laden
  • Operation love storm
  • Carlos the jackal
  • The engineer
  • War in Afghanistan
  • Poke the bear
  • War in Iraq
  • Imad Mugniyah
  • The moral twilight zone
  • Just war
  • The hidden hand.

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