Taheri, Amir. Nest of Spies: America's Journey to Disaster in Iran. New
York: Pantheon Books, 1988. 314 pages. (Originally published in Britain in
1988 by Century Hutchinson Ltd.)
This book is an unusual read for Americans because of the author's
access to sources; in the U.S. we only get soundbites, punditry, and Oliver
North's wishful thinking when it comes to what's happening in Iran. The
first third of the book deals with U.S.-Iran relations up to 1979, and the
remainder covers the period from 1979 to the arms-for-hostages deals in
the mid-1980s. Taheri makes good use of the secret U.S. embassy documents
that were seized in 1979 and, in some cases, carefully reconstructed after
having been shredded. These were published by the militants in about 50
volumes, and show how the U.S. embassy was isolated because of its inability
to understand what was happening. The militants referred to the embassy as
a "nest of spies."
The author's ID on the dust cover is worth quoting: "Amir Taheri was
the editor-in-chief of 'Kayhan,' Iran's largest daily newspaper, between
1973 and 1979. Since leaving Iran, he has written for the Washington Post,
the Los Angeles Times, Newsday, the Sunday Times of London, the International
Herald Tribune, and other periodicals. He is the author of several books,
including 'The Spirit of Allah: Khomeini and the Islamic Revolution' and
'Holy Terror: Inside the World of Islamic Terrorism.' He now lives in France."
ISBN 0-394-57566-0
Extract the names from this source
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