The most recommended books about intelligence agencies

Washington Post national security reporter Ignatius may not know the world of espionage better than anyone, but he writes about it better than anyone. Agents of Innocence is such a realistic and engaging depiction of the life of a CIA case officer that a copy of it is left in the room of each new arrival at Camp Peary, the CIA training facility. It’s about an idealistic young CIA officer posted to Beirut to penetrate the PLO, and, in the process, learns hard lessons, not least of which is that once human lives are at stake, idealism takes a back seat to pragmatism. Ultimately, it is a compelling story with terrific characters, and I would have rooted for them had they been accountants or fishmongers rather than spies

Most people fall into one of two categories: those who firmly believe Lee Harvey Oswald was the lone gunman in the John F. Kennedy assassination, and those who don't. Before The Devil's Chessboard, lots of researchers examined the Warren Commission's own files, found solid evidence of a conspiracy, and wrote books presenting their findings. Their point-by-point analyses blew apart the official story, but few readers bothered to slog through their dense prose.

I was a fence-sitter until I read Talbot's book. He skillfully disposes of the official story as part of a larger narrative about an out-of-control, fascist-riddled CIA more powerful than the elected government. Because of Talbot’s storytelling flair, missing from earlier researcher-authors' dry dissertations, his book is able to convert fence-sitters and perhaps even a few non-believers. 

There are lots of stories about spies, and there are great histories about American missionaries.

But Sutton brings them together in a refreshing way, revealing the moral and political conundrums that arose once the United States turned to (mostly) men of faith to do undercover wartime work, from showering North Africa with propaganda and rescuing Doolittle’s downed raiders from China to stealing secrets and plotting assassinations.

I recommend this book because it introduces the reader to one of the first organized resistance networks in Paris. As a double agent, Mathilde Carré (nom de guerre: Victoire) was also known as “The Cat.” She was ultimately responsible for the arrest of hundreds of Interallié agents (including her boss, Roman Czerniawski).

This book has it all. The author weaves the stories of collaborationists (e.g., Bonny-Lafont), SOE double agents (e.g., Henri Déricourt), and Abwehr spy catchers (e.g., Hugo Bleicher) around intricate counter-intelligence plots involving British and German spy agencies. You will meet Czerniawski again as he became a double agent after his arrest by the Germans and worked for the Allies in Operation Double Cross. It’s a great foundation to begin your study of the resistance movement in Paris.

A positive NY Times review “in brief” of this “journey through the Deep State” caught my attention and mind immediately.

Most political scientists and top-tier journalists, like Ms. Howley, want no part of any association with the “deep state,” yet here was Hawley straying from the usual tone of dismissal, disdain, or stigma about the idea.

As I started reading about Reality Winner’s harrowing experience, I first thought I had mistakenly taken it for non-fiction. In fact, Winner’s name and her experiences are all too real. If there is any paranoia in Winner’s encounter with the deep state, it is to be found in the darker world of the national security state, not Hawley or her subject.

The decade between the end of the Cold War and the beginning of the Global War of Terrorism was a decade of uncertainty for the U.S. intelligence community and an important part of intelligence history. The collapse of the Soviet Union and the reduction in national security budgets raised numerous questions about the purpose, focus, and funding of intelligence organizations during the 1990s. Loch Johnson’s book is an excellent and essential read to understand this period. One of the foremost intelligence scholars, Johnson also served on the Aspin-Brown Commission that considered the future of U.S. intelligence after the Cold War (he also previously served on the 1975 Church and Pike Commission). A commission covered extensively in this book.

This is a sort of origin story for Breuer's characters, centered more tightly on a mid-1930s Nazi ring uncovered by the FBI's best investigator, Leon Turrou, and splashed across American newspapers’ front pages in 1938. Jeffreys-Jones' book, released in 2020, also shows why multi-stranded nonfiction has become a popular form.

Harry Cole was a criminal who grew up in an East London slum. In 1939 and fresh out of prison he enlisted in the army, before absconding with the mess fund. As France fell, he had a shot at redemption—and having been left behind after the evacuation at Dunkirk, set about organising escape lines. His ability to outwit the enemy made him a star of the various resistance and special operations networks, but shortly after capture in 1941 he began to betray every contact he had made in France.

Murphy’s book is unlike any other wartime biography. It plays out like a gripping piece of fiction. It shows too that while we might comfort ourselves ‘we’ were the good guys in WW2—we had plenty of very bad guys among us. Makes you look at WW2 through a different prism.

I read this unforgettable, true story, cover to cover while sitting for hours in the Denver airport waiting for a long-delayed flight to Seattle.

Thanks to Ben Macintyre’s brilliance, my day of stress became a meaningful and hugely informative adventure into the double life of Oleg Gordievsky. How this man, like his father and brother, joined the KGB; why certain realities and events during his KGB assignments changed him; what motivated his decision to become a double agent for British intelligence; and how he survived it all filled this saga with astute lessons about espionage.

There’s a simple yet profound line that stuck with me about the double life, something like: You love those around you while you conceal your true inner self.

Good intelligence is the key to winning any war.

The work of Bletchley Park in the Second World War is well known. The equally important role that the enigmatically named Room 40 played in the First World War is less well known.

This book unravels the story of this formidable naval code breaking and intelligence unit. It was made up of men from all walks of life, under the leadership of the maverick genius and spymaster, Rear-Admiral ‘Blinker’ Hall.

Without the work of Room 40 there would have been no naval battles at Dogger Bank and Jutland. The U-Boat campaign against commerce would have been much harder to overcome. Most importantly, read how their work on the infamous Zimmermann Telegram led directly to the American declaration of war.