The Book of Honor
The Secret Lives and Deaths of CIA Operatives
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4.2 • 58 Ratings
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- $11.99
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- $11.99
Publisher Description
A national bestseller, this extraordinary work of investigative reporting uncovers the identities, and the remarkable stories, of the CIA secret agents who died anonymously in the service of their country.
In the entrance of the CIA headquarters looms a huge marble wall into which seventy-one stars are carved-each representing an agent who has died in the line of duty. Official CIA records only name thirty-five of them, however. Undeterred by claims that revealing the identities of these "nameless stars" might compromise national security, Ted Gup sorted through thousands of documents and interviewed over 400 CIA officers in his attempt to bring their long-hidden stories to light. The result of this extraordinary work of investigation is a surprising glimpse at the real lives of secret agents, and an unprecedented history of the most compelling—and controversial—department of the US government.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
A former investigative journalist with the Washington Post and Time and winner of a George Polk Award, Gup breaks a longstanding taboo in an expos that reveals the namesDand personal storiesDof some three dozen CIA agents who died in the line of duty and whose identities have been kept secretDsometimes for decades. Gup interviewed more than 400 current and former CIA agents, as well as surviving family members, to pry loose their stories. Among the spies unmasked in these kinetic biographical profiles are Douglas Mackiernan, U.S. vice-consul in China's westernmost Xinjiang province, who fled Mao's revolution only to be shot to death by Tibetan border guards; Pete Ray, an Alabama National Guard pilot killed in the Bay of Pigs invasion; Matthew Gannon, victim of the Pan Am Flight 103 crash over Scotland, a bombing linked to Libyan terrorists; and Hugh Redmond, who refused to crack during 19 torturous years in a Shanghai prison. Gup unveils covert missions from Laos to France, from Angola to Cyprus, providing extraordinary insight into the CIA's day-to-day operations. He also empathetically delves into the ordeals of these fallen spies' grieving families, many of whom were lied to for years as the agency refused to acknowledge the men's CIA ties. Told against the backdrop of Cold War and superpower struggles, Gup's sleuthing is a remarkable coup, full of high-level intrigue, cover-ups and drama. He leaves it to readers to decide whether his subjects are heroes or knaves, and whether the CIA is a rogue agency that should be reined in or an essential survival tool in a treacherous world. FYI: Gup's 1992 expos in the Washington Post of a top-secret government installation buried beneath a West Virginia resort, where Congress would seek shelter in the event of impending nuclear war, led to that underground complex being shut down.
Customer Reviews
Excellent book. They put you just in the middle of the 60's crisis.
Well recomended.
Interesting but …
First, by exposing the Greenbrier, all Gup accomplished was to punish taxpayers as a similar facility was built at some other secret location at their expense.
Secrecy is an unfortunately necessity in our country although reporters like Gup think its their duty to expose such (or more likely Gup knows government conspiracy sells). The reasons the CIA’s operations are clandestine are obvious and don’t need to be rehashed, but national security is at the top of the list. With this in mind ALL of the CIA’s covert operatives realize that a life of silence is mandatory and an anonymous death is a very real prospect, yet they still swear to perform their duties to the best of their ability. Thus, for a writer/reporter to ‘break’ the stories of these deaths is just an affront to what these heroes stood for and tarnishes the reputation of the CIA, an organization fully devoted to protect the US. And the CIA cannot defend themselves because most of the many, many, successes the Agency has enjoyed remain classified. So in the end, Gup is really not the savior of the ‘little man’ by reporting on the big bad government, he’s just a bully publicly prosecuting a defenseless organization (that very likely has been instrumental in preventing World War 3, and many other less serious calamities). If Gup were a Chinese or Russian reporter, he’d be locked away or have an ‘accident’.
Yes, it is sad that families go for years, or sometimes never find out what happened to a loved one, yet there are thousands of families that have lost members classified as MIAs in war and they must live with it. Its awful, but part of living in a secure and free country.
This said, this was an absorbing read, and I was humbled by the courage and dedication shown by these true patriots.