Discover new selections
Kindle Unlimited
Unlimited reading. Over 4 million titles. Learn more
Read for Free
OR
$12.99 with 35 percent savings
Digital List Price: $19.99

Promotions apply when you purchase

These promotions will be applied to this item:

Some promotions may be combined; others are not eligible to be combined with other offers. For details, please see the Terms & Conditions associated with these promotions.

Sold by Amazon.com Services LLC.
You've subscribed to ! We will preorder your items within 24 hours of when they become available. When new books are released, we'll charge your default payment method for the lowest price available during the pre-order period.
Update your device or payment method, cancel individual pre-orders or your subscription at
Your Memberships & Subscriptions
Kindle app logo image

Download the free Kindle app and start reading Kindle books instantly on your smartphone, tablet, or computer - no Kindle device required.

Read instantly on your browser with Kindle for Web.

Using your mobile phone camera - scan the code below and download the Kindle app.

QR code to download the Kindle App

Follow the author

Ralph W. McGehee
Follow
Something went wrong. Please try your request again later.

Deadly Deceits: My 25 Years in the CIA (Forbidden Bookshelf) Kindle Edition

by Ralph W. McGehee (Author), Mark Crispin Miller (Editor), David MacMichael (Foreword) Format: Kindle Edition
4.2 out of 5 stars 164 ratings
A veteran of the Central Intelligence Agency unmasks its culture of lethal lies in this devastating exposé, now with a new foreword by David MacMichael.

Ralph W. McGehee was a patriot, dedicated to the American way of life and the international fight against Communism. Following his graduation with honors from Notre Dame, McGehee was recruited by the Central Intelligence Agency in 1952 and quickly became an able and enthusiastic cold warrior. Stationed in Southeast Asia in the mid-1960s, he worked to stem the Communist tide that was sweeping through the region, first in Thailand and later in Vietnam.

But despite his notable successes in reversing enemy influence among the local peasants and villagers, McGehee found himself increasingly alienated from a company culture built on deceit and wholesale manipulation of the truth. While his country was being pulled deeper and deeper into the Vietnam quagmire, McGehee awoke to a chilling reality: The CIA was not a gatherer of actual intelligence to be employed in a legitimate war against dangerous enemies, but a tool of the president’s foreign-policy staff designed solely to stifle the truth and fabricate “facts” that supported the agency’s often immoral agenda.

With courage and candor, Ralph McGehee illuminates the CIA’s dark catalog of misdeeds in his stunning, no-holds-barred memoir of a life in the service of deception. Startling, eye-opening, and infuriating, Deadly Deceits is an honest and unflinching insider’s look at a toxic government agency that the author cogently argues has no useful purpose and no moral right to exist.
Previous slide of product details
  1. Book 11 of 27
    Forbidden Bookshelf
  2. Print length
    341 pages
  3. Language
    English
  4. Publisher
    Open Road Media
  5. Publication date
    March 3, 2015
  6. File size
    4.0 MB
  7. Page Flip
    Enabled
  8. Word Wise
    Enabled
  9. Enhanced typesetting
    Enabled
Next slide of product details

Great on Kindle
Great Experience. Great Value.
iphone with kindle app
Putting our best book forward
Each Great on Kindle book offers a great reading experience, at a better value than print to keep your wallet happy.

Explore your book, then jump right back to where you left off with Page Flip.

View high quality images that let you zoom in to take a closer look.

Enjoy features only possible in digital – start reading right away, carry your library with you, adjust the font, create shareable notes and highlights, and more.

Discover additional details about the events, people, and places in your book, with Wikipedia integration.
Get the free Kindle app: Link to the kindle app page Link to the kindle app page
Enjoy a great reading experience when you borrow the Kindle edition of this book with your Kindle Unlimited membership. Learn more about Great on Kindle, available in select categories.

Shop this series

 See full series
There are 27 books in this series.

Customers also bought or read

Page 1 of 1Start overPage 1 of 1
Previous page
  5. Inside the Company: CIA Diary
    Kindle Edition
    $6.99
  9. Invisible Treason in America
    Kindle Edition
    $4.99
  26. Pisces Moon: The Dark Arts of Empire
    Kindle Edition
    $14.99
  28. The Power Elite
    Kindle Edition
    $8.99
Next page
Loading...

Product details

  • ASIN ‏ : ‎ B00S7EFYXE
  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ Open Road Media (March 3, 2015)
  • Publication date ‏ : ‎ March 3, 2015
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • File size ‏ : ‎ 4.0 MB
  • Text-to-Speech ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • Screen Reader ‏ : ‎ Supported
  • Enhanced typesetting ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • X-Ray ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • Word Wise ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • Print length ‏ : ‎ 341 pages
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.2 out of 5 stars 164 ratings

About the author

Follow authors to get new release updates, plus improved recommendations.
Ralph W. McGehee

Ralph W. McGehee

Brief content visible, double tap to read full content.
Full content visible, double tap to read brief content.

I served in the CIA for 25 years during which I was staioned in five Asian countries. I as distraught at its diplicitous intelligence written soley to

support its policies. The Vietnam lasted 30 years at trmendous damage to

worldwide opinion -- several million people were killed in this war that we could never win and that the CIA never understood. I wrote the book "Deadly Deceits" to bring that truth to the people.

Customer reviews

4.2 out of 5 stars
164 global ratings

Review this product

Share your thoughts with other customers
Write a customer review

Customers say

Customers find the book readable, with one review noting it provides an electrifying reading experience. The information quality receives positive feedback, with customers describing it as very informative.

AI-generated from the text of customer reviews

Select to learn more

19 customers mention "Readability"17 positive2 negative

Customers find the book readable and interesting, with one customer noting it's an outstanding book written by former CIA agents.

"...McGehee had to work hard to publish this excellent book and he felt he was being threatened by some who did not want him to publish his negative..." Read more

"...Great quick read that sheds light on how the CIA was not gathering intel but creating it to further existing plans and goals of the powers in charge..." Read more

"Despite all the CIA censorship, the book tells an important story, about how bureaucratic bungling and ego sucked the US into the Vietnam war..." Read more

"Good read but history has revealed a few details the author was not aware of concerning Laos and N. Vietnam...." Read more

8 customers mention "Information quality"8 positive0 negative

Customers find the book informative, with one customer noting it provides a detailed biography and another describing it as an excellent expose of the truth.

"...This book is a pretty detailed biography of McGehee's work at the CIA...." Read more

"This book provides a lot of insight into house the bureaucratic elements of the CIA served to promote their own agenda instead of helping the..." Read more

"Shocking information about our government. Very informative." Read more

"...The power of the book comes from the understated way the author lays out the facts." Read more

Top reviews from the United States

  • Larry
    5.0 out of 5 stars EX CIA Agent Exposes Reality
    Reviewed in the United States on August 24, 2019
    Verified Purchase
    Author, Ralph McGehee tells it like it was when he was in the CIA for 25 years. What he found out was that the CIA was Not the All American group he originally thought it was. He became disillusioned about midway thru his 25 years. The Vietnam War and the "stuff" that was being fed to the public really bothered him, as it should have. He determined the CIA was just a political arm of the President and his main advisers. Truth was sacrificed for political gain and in the process tens of thousands of young American's died for basically no decent reason. In addition many, many more Vietnamese lost their lives in a war we didn't even try to win.

    McGehee had to work hard to publish this excellent book and he felt he was being threatened by some who did not want him to publish his negative experience's. He moved from State to State to try to find safety for his family and himself.

    Ralph was a tremendous football player for Notre Dame in the late 40's and his teams Never lost a game. He tried out for The Green Bay Packers in the 50's before being asked to join the CIA.

    I had the honor of meeting Ralph two summers ago. He is an amazing individual who I greatly admire. His book is MUST READING! Learn the TRUTH!
    22 people found this helpful
    Helpful
     Report
  • baylor
    4.0 out of 5 stars Very realistic, which means unexciting
    Reviewed in the United States on December 26, 2000
    Verified Purchase
    Interesting book. i was half expecting something like in the more subdued spy movies, but McGehee is a very average, unremarkable person who was a paper pusher in the CIA
    This book is a pretty detailed biography of McGehee's work at the CIA. i'm guessing that he was like the majority of CIA operatives, which is to say, he was a guy in the trenches with no special knowledge of the big picture and not a guy with any authority to change anything. He worked both in the field (primarily Asia during that whole Vietnam thing) collecting information and in the home office sorting paper. He devotes a lot of time to one of his biggest accomplishments, which was sorting index cards in a file cabinet
    After reading the book, what i walked away with was that a)the CIA is really just a big, uninteresting, political, short-sighted, every-day bueracracy and b)that the managers at the top of this bueracracy just make up stuff and don't care about what their experts in the field say. Basically, the CIA is run like any large, terrible company
    i thought this book would have a list of major crimes - assasinations, drug running, torture, political intrigue, coups and all that sort of stuff. In the non-crime category, i thought there'd be a lot of spying and covert activities. But there was practically none of that. Instead, he and his CIA buddies toured the country side, conducted surveys, established relations with remote hill tribes, paid informants for information, read reports and wrote reports. It's just so, what's the word, realistic
    OK, so this book would make a lousy action movie. There's nothing exciting here. Even so, the book makes several very good criticisms of the CIA. Nothing criminal and whistle blowing. It's more like an in-the-trenches or middle manager corporate employee complaining about all the little things a bueracratic company and buerecratic managers do that, added together, make the company ineffective. i think McGehee's main point is that the CIA just plain doesn't work. Not necessarily that it does evil things, although he admits that the covert ops arm (which he wasn't part of) does horrible criminal things, but that it completely fails in its stated mission of collecting and understanding information
    i don't think i'd recommend this book to fans of conspiracies and spy novels, but i'd definitely recommend it to people interested in management theory, organizational psychology and US intellectual capabilities
    53 people found this helpful
    Helpful
     Report
  • K S
    5.0 out of 5 stars Well researched and factual
    Reviewed in the United States on September 15, 2017
    Verified Purchase
    Not quite finished with it yet, and I'm considering giving up. It's one of those books with TMI and detail, which is probably needed considering the subject matter. I'll keep at it for a bit. It does remind me that the CIA, in my opinion, is an unnecessary evil. UPDATE: I decided to finish this book and am glad I did. McGehee jumped giant hurdles to get this book into print for you, so give it a chance. Yes, I still skipped through what was too much information for me, but I don't think I lost sight of his purpose. You can thank the CIA for screwing up the Vietnam war, among many other debacles. They are NOT an intelligence gathering agency. Their purpose is covert ops, and you'll be sickened, especially knowing that Ronald Reagan gave the CIA carte blanche to operate within the U.S., something that was previously forbidden. Watch your backs!
    16 people found this helpful
    Helpful
     Report
  • Ben Barber
    5.0 out of 5 stars Truth behind the Vietnam War and our CIA
    Reviewed in the United States on September 16, 2018
    Verified Purchase
    While there are likely opposing viewpoints, this one is the most accurate IMO and states many mind blowing facts publicly available (church committee etc) that the public does not acknowledge. Great quick read that sheds light on how the CIA was not gathering intel but creating it to further existing plans and goals of the powers in charge. This covers from the 50’s through the end of the Vietnam war. It is just as relevant now as it was then.
    5 people found this helpful
    Helpful
     Report
  • M. Patel
    3.0 out of 5 stars More reaffirming than surprising ...
    Reviewed in the United States on December 24, 2024
    Verified Purchase
    Anyone paying close attention to world events and our (US) role in those will find this book as a reaffirming rather than surprising or shocking. Ralph has given glimpse of "some" deception techniques, and these were approved by CIA for release. One can only imagine "classified" techniques and their impact on world and average Americans!
    Helpful
     Report
  • GKC
    5.0 out of 5 stars Tells how American deceit brought on the Vietnam war
    Reviewed in the United States on August 18, 2022
    Verified Purchase
    Despite all the CIA censorship, the book tells an important story, about how bureaucratic bungling and ego sucked the US into the Vietnam war (and other adventures of CIA deceit). Very readable.
    2 people found this helpful
    Helpful
     Report
  • Kindle Customer
    4.0 out of 5 stars CIA disinformation program codename: Fantasy
    Reviewed in the United States on June 8, 2022
    Verified Purchase
    Corrupt? The falsehoods, outright lies, presumptive fantasy and made up intel from an org that keeps dragging us to wars and conflict all for internal employee promotion and uncountable riches for the military industrial complex. Like the child safety network... Do you know where your retired generals are?
    One person found this helpful
    Helpful
     Report
  • Amazon Customer
    5.0 out of 5 stars Interesting Read
    Reviewed in the United States on August 25, 2020
    Verified Purchase
    This book provides a lot of insight into house the bureaucratic elements of the CIA served to promote their own agenda instead of helping the country obtain the best results for their efforts. This book may have been about the 1960s but that was an important time in US history and it is nice to gain some insight into someone who had first hand experience of it.
    Helpful
     Report

Top reviews from other countries

Translate all reviews to English
  • jona(h) li, jona-li.eu
    5.0 out of 5 stars Um Weltpolitik, Geheimdienste und deren Agenten
    Reviewed in Germany on February 15, 2017
    Verified Purchase
    zu begreifen und zu verstehen, sollte man sich die Zeit für 'Ralph Walter McGehee, Junior' nehmen und seine Geschichte lesen ..... - eine aufschlussreiche Lese-Erfahrung!
    Report

Report an issue


Does this item contain inappropriate content?
Report
Do you believe that this item violates a copyright?
Report
Does this item contain quality or formatting issues?
Report