The Big White Lie
The Deep Cover Operation That Exposed the CIA Sabotage of the Drug War
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4.0 • 3 Ratings
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- $3.99
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- $3.99
Publisher Description
The Big White Lie, by New York Times best-selling author and former DEA undercover agent, Michael Levine, is a fly-on-the-wall look at the top-secret deep cover operation that ripped the lid off CIA sabotage of the War on Drugs. The New York Times described the book as a “hair-raising” non-fiction book that “moves with the speed of a first-rate thriller.” Publishers Weekly gave it a starred review calling it a “shocking exposé.” Follow Levine, called “America’s top undercover agent” by 60 Minutes, into the world of ruthless drug barons, kill-crazy assassins, secret police and corrupt government officials. The trail leads to the breathtakingly beautiful woman whom Pablo Escobar called "The Queen of Cocaine” – Sonia Atala. Levine, posing as Sonia’s lover, barely escapes the operation with his life but not before learning that America’s true enemies in the War on Drugs are not found in the jungles of South America but in the basements and back rooms of CIA headquarters.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In a shocking expose, Michael Levine--former undercover agent for the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) and author of the 1990 nonfiction bestseller Deep Cover --rips the lid off the sewer of what he argues is America's phony ``war on drugs.'' Levine, writing with his wife, charges that the CIA and the Pentagon have for decades protected and supported the world's biggest drug dealers, and that the U.S. government has allowed top-level dealers and criminals to escape punishment. This first-person account reads like an edge-of-the-seat thriller--complete with reconstructed conversations. Levine recounts his deep-cover assignments, particularly Operation Hun, which resulted in prison terms for key players in Colombia's cocaine industry and for Bolivia's drug-pushing minister of the interior, Luis Arce-Gomez. Many high-level traffickers went free, however, and Levine berates the U.S. government for failing to investigate or prosecute them, blaming this failure on the CIA and other federal agencies' policy of courting criminals in order to gain information, win influence and fund further U.S. covert operations. Levine also tells how Bolivia's booming cocaine industry was protected by paramilitary goons led by Klaus Altmann, ``a/k/a Klaus Barbie, a fugitive Nazi war criminal and long-time CIA asset.'' Revealing the personal motivation that fuels his story, Levine writes about his brother, a heroin addict who committed suicide, and about his own daughter's struggle with drug addiction. Photos.
