Surprise, Kill, Vanish
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4.3 • 513 Ratings
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- $29.99
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- $29.99
Publisher Description
From Pulitzer Prize finalist Annie Jacobsen, the untold USA Today bestselling story of the CIA's secret paramilitary units.
Surprise . . . your target. Kill . . . your enemy. Vanish . . . without a trace.
When diplomacy fails, and war is unwise, the president calls on the CIA's Special Activities Division, a highly-classified branch of the CIA and the most effective, black operations force in the world.
Originally known as the president's guerrilla warfare corps, SAD conducts risky and ruthless operations that have evolved over time to defend America from its enemies. Almost every American president since World War II has asked the CIA to conduct sabotage, subversion and, yes, assassination.
With unprecedented access to forty-two men and women who proudly and secretly worked on CIA covert operations from the dawn of the Cold War to the present day, along with declassified documents and deep historical research, Pulitzer Prize finalist Annie Jacobsen unveils -- like never before -- a complex world of individuals working in treacherous environments populated with killers, connivers, and saboteurs.
Despite Hollywood notions of off-book operations and external secret hires, covert action is actually one piece in a colossal foreign policy machine.
Written with the pacing of a thriller, Surprise, Kill, Vanish brings to vivid life the sheer pandemonium and chaos, as well as the unforgettable human will to survive and the intellectual challenge of not giving up hope that define paramilitary and intelligence work. Jacobsen's exclusive interviews -- with members of the CIA's Senior Intelligence Service (equivalent to the Pentagon's generals), its counterterrorism chiefs, targeting officers, and Special Activities Division's Ground Branch operators who conduct today's close-quarters killing operations around the world -- reveal, for the first time, the enormity of this shocking, controversial, and morally complex terrain. Is the CIA's paramilitary army America's weaponized strength, or a liability to its principled standing in the world? Every operation reported in this book, however unsettling, is legal.
Customer Reviews
Enthralling, informative, scary.
The story’s Annie are able to gather are unprecedented in her effort to educate the populations of the world. There were few things I didn’t enjoy about this listen; the constant reminder of acronyms that cannot be confused with others ie HAHO/HALO. This critique does not take away from the story in any way shape or form. Thank you Annie for this book.
Interesting, but . . .
First off, the reading by the author is an example of why you should hire a professional rather than doing it yourself. I’ve been listening at 1.5x to make it bearable, otherwise it sounds like a ESL kindergarten teacher on downers. She not only mispronounces all the Spanish words and names from the numerous stories from Latin America, but she also errs on several English words, begging the question of whether the author knows the meanings of words she herself can’t pronounce. Moving on, as other commenters have noted, the book does have several easily-verified errors that, while not significant, do cast doubt on the research. To wit, the author states that America has only engaged in guerrilla warfare since WW2, forgetting about Operation Desert Storm, I guess. Another critique is that the book focuses on intelligence failures primarily. Perhaps it’s because these are known and declassified, but the CIA is portrayed as inept, which makes the book’s title somewhat misleading as to the content. Finally, the book does not really even focus on the CIA, but rather on military operation, foreign and American, and the US secret service, with very detailed descriptions of the Kennedy assassination and later interactions with Israeli secret service. Again, this is not the US intelligence service “Surprise, Kill, Vanish” we were promised. Not to say these stories aren’t interesting or not worth telling, but it’s not what the reader is expecting based on the title. Finally, there are gaps in some of the stories which leave the reader scratching their head, the most glaring of which is the one where a future intelligence officer is hit in the leg with an RPG in Vietnam and not only survives but keeps his leg. Just a little bit of explanation is absolutely called for here. Did the RPG not detonate? Was it a glancing blow? Was it shrapnel? It’s this sort of inattention to detail that makes the book a frustrating read. I’m not recommending against reading it, as it is interesting, but it’s definitely flawed.
Well done.
Extraordinary. Detailed and substantive.