{"id":8890,"date":"2021-03-08T07:00:00","date_gmt":"2021-03-08T12:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/?p=8890"},"modified":"2021-03-07T15:22:59","modified_gmt":"2021-03-07T20:22:59","slug":"a-spys-bedside-table","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/?p=8890","title":{"rendered":"A Spy’s Bedside Table"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"chess\"<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Which espionage books do actual spies read and, ahem, respect? A former member of the CIA\u2019s Senior Intelligence Service, Emile Nakhleh, kindly provided The Cipher Brief<\/a><\/em> with his list, and I\u2019ve added my own recent faves. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

He recommends the first two of these non-fiction books, all three of which have four GoodReads stars:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Non-Fiction<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Undaunted: My Fight Against America\u2019s Enemies, at Home and Abroad<\/a><\/em> by President Obama\u2019s CIA Director John O. Brennan, a leader who was controversial to both political parties and was \u201cin the room where it happened\u201d when many significant security issues were discussed (not all of which he can talk about).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Spymasters: How the CIA Directors Shape History and the Future<\/a><\/em> by Chris Whipple. Whipple says the job of CIA Director is \u201cone of the hardest and most perilous in government,\u201d and in this book, he tells you why.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Operation Dragon: Inside the Kremlin\u2019s Secret War on America<\/a><\/em>, by former CIA Director R. James Woolsey and former Romanian espionage chief, Lt. Gen. Ion Mihai Pacepa, the highest-ranking foreign intelligence officer to defect to the United States. They describe Russia\u2019s continuing threat to the U.S., and, in a blockbuster revelation, say Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev personally told Lee Harvey Oswald to assassinate President Kennedy, then changed his mind, but Oswald stuck to the original plan.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Fiction<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Order<\/a><\/em> by Dan Silva \u2013 Nakhleh recommends it, and I listened to it . Fans of Silva\u2019s Israeli intelligence officer Gabriel Allon will be pleased. He becomes involved in a conspiracy within the Vatican to hide evidence that the Jews were not, actually, responsible for the death of Jesus, two thousand years of violence, hatred, and retribution to the contrary. Again, GoodReads gives it four stars, but I\u2019d say three. Not nearly as troubling as the real-life Gods Bankers<\/a><\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Agent Running in the Field<\/a><\/em> \u2013 John le Carr\u00e9\u2019s last novel, continuing the string of memorable characters he developed, all the way back to George Smiley and Alec Leamus (my review<\/a>).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Finally, you might want to save a spot on the nightstand for the October 12 literary debut of former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. For her conspiracy thriller, State of Terror<\/a>, <\/em>she\u2019s teamed up with crime novelist Louise Penny.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Which espionage books do actual spies read and, ahem, respect? A former member of the CIA\u2019s Senior Intelligence Service, Emile Nakhleh, kindly provided The Cipher Brief with his list, and I\u2019ve added my own recent faves. He recommends the first … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"A Spy's Bedside Table - what people in the espionage biz read.","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[193,40,266,267,126],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8890","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-espionage","category-fiction","category-history","category-non-fiction","category-reading-2"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2NkiT-2jo","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8890","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=8890"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8890\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8891,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8890\/revisions\/8891"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8890"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8890"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8890"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}