From Publishers Weekly
In this hefty, balanced review of American intelligence, espionage and covert action, the author demonstrates that these activities, far from being dishonorable or "un-American," are part of a tradition that dates back to George Washington. The father of our country was, in fact, the chief American spymaster in the Revolutionary War ("He recruited spies, instructed them in their treacherous craft, sent them out, welcomed them back, and paid them off"). O'Toole ( The Cosgrove Report ) recounts every major intelligence operation from 1776 through 1962, describes the gradual emergence of the professional intelligence officer in both military and foreign service, and explains how secret intelligence and "special operations" became vital instruments of American policymaking. Finally, O'Toole describes how CIA intelligence may have made the difference between "a near thing and a nuclear holocaust" during the October 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis. History Book Club selection. Photos.
Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From Library Journal
O'Toole, a former intelligence officer, presents a comprehensive history of American intelligence activities from colonial times to the present. While Americans profess to believe, with Secretary of State Henry Stimson, that "gentlemen do not read other people's mail," they in fact have proven quite skilled in all manner of espionage and covert action. George Washington himself was the most gifted intelligence officer of the Revolution; he recruited, trained, dispatched, and handsomely rewarded spies. In 1917 another Virginian, President Woodrow Wilson, created a little-known secret agency, the Inquiry, directed by journalist Walter Lippmann, to compile intelligence for the peace negotiations that ended World War I. O'Toole offers fascinating information generally unrecorded in traditional diplomatic and military histories. Recommended for academic and large public libraries. O'Toole is also the author of The Encyclopedia of American Intelligence and Espionage: From the Revolutionary War to the Present, LJ 1/89.
- Thomas H. Appleton Jr., Kentucky Historical Soc . , Frankfort
Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc.
About the Author
G. J. A. O’Toole was born in 1937 and worked for the CIA from 1966 to 1969. He was the author of several award-winning books, including the Encyclopedia of American Intelligence and Espionage; Honorable Treachery, a history of American intelligence; The Spanish War: An American Epic, 1898, a Pulitzer Prize nominee; and An Agent on the Other Side, a novel. He died at the age of sixty-four in Mount Vernon, NY.
