Livingstone, Neil C. The Cult of Counterterrorism. Lexington MA: Lexington Books, 1990. 437 pages.

Livingstone conducts a brisk insider's tour of the 1980s world of operatives, entrepreneurs, and flakes who devoted themselves to a specialty they called "counterterrorism." Livingstone himself goes ga-ga over counterterrorism's "gods," the laconic elite forces at the hub of this world. But he tells us far more about the periphery surrounding them: specialists in "executive security," rightist operators of paramilitary training camps, and assorted vendors of mayhem manuals and mail-order arms.

As well he might, Livingstone denounces the rogues and fantasists on the disreputable outer fringe of this world. But Livingstone's own account demonstrates how difficult such distinctions are to draw. Thus for Livingstone, Ollie North in his heyday was a "player," a real counter- terrorist doing a real job. Yet North (a rogue and a fantasist in his own right) accomplished little, had money stick to his fingers, and left behind a trail of dead civilians. Livingstone is too impatient of definitions and argument to attempt to sort all this out. Nor does this book acknowledge that North's funding network paid $75,000 into Livingstone's private institute on "terrorism." -- Steve Badrich
ISBN 0-669-21407-8

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