Stockwell, John. In Search of Enemies: A CIA Story. New York: W.W. Norton, 1979. 285 pages.

This chronicles the political evolution of a CIA officer that culminated in his resignation from the Agency. Stockwell was in the CIA from 1965 to 1977, including tours in Burundi, Zaire, Vietnam, and finally as chief of the Angola Task Force. In this last capacity he literally ran a war by carrying out the policy of supporting two guerrilla movements against the MPLA-controlled government. The lies and ideology that drove this war finally caused Stockwell to call it quits. The book deals primarily with Angola and is most instructive about the world of mercenaries and about Joseph Mobutu, the notoriously unscrupulous leader of Zaire and CIA comrade-in-arms.

Stockwell also tries to illuminate the CIA "mind": how the Agency's officials go about advancing their careers, covering their ass, lying to Congress, the American public, and to each other, and caring remarkably little about the fate or happiness of the foreign peoples for whose good they are presumably acting. It is not a pretty picture.

-- William Blum
ISBN 0-393-00926-2

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