Overworld : The life and times of a reluctant spy / Larry J. Kolb.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Kolb, Larry J. (Larry Jackson), 1953-

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Kolb, Larry J. (Larry Jackson), 1953-.

Kolb, Larry J.

Kolb family.

United States. Central Intelligence Agency.

Intelligence officers--United States--Biography.

Intelligence officers.

United States.

Spies--United States--Biography.

Spies.

United States. Central Intelligence Agency--Biography.

Genre:

Biographies.

Physical Description:

465 pages ; 25 cm

Place of Publication:

New York : Riverhead Books, [2004]

Summary:

Larry Kolb was born into a house of spies. Raised all over the world as the son of a high-ranking American spymaster, he learned from his father to think, look, and listen like a spy. "The overworld" was his father's term for the powers-that-be, the figures behind the figure-heads who secretly shape the world we live in. Overworld is Larry Kolb's story of his own lifelong, intimate interaction with those powers: how his unusual childhood led to his own decision to turn down the CIA when they first recruited him, and how his ascent in the international business world-becoming, among other things, Muhammad Ali's agent and friend-became his unlikely path back into the world of espionage.

With friends like Ali, Kolb soon had invitations to the parties, palaces, boardrooms, and bedrooms-especially in the Middle East-of many of the world's wealthiest and most powerful people. Arms traders, coup plotters, gem smugglers, princes, prime ministers, dictators, and tycoons: Kolb had easy entree to the dealmakers and opinion makers, the idealistic and not-so-idealistic world leaders whose backroom conversations make the world go 'round. Kolb's extraordinary access made him irresistible to legendary spymaster and CIA cofounder Miles Copeland. Beginning with secret negotiations with the Ayatollah Khomeini and a covert mission to Beirut with Ali to secure the release of an American hostage, Kolb found his way back to the family business, becoming Copeland's eyes and ears in, among other places, Libya, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Iraq, Pakistan, India, Nicaragua, and Peru.

From the front lines of the world's covert wars to Miles Copeland's cozy study in the English countryside to the corridors of power in London, Riyadh, Washington, and New York, Kolb takes us on an exclusive tour of the secret world that is all around us but is almost never seen. Unlike any book before it, Overworld casts in genuinely human terms what it means and feels like to be a spy. From the practical to the emotional, it reveals how the world of espionage and covert statecraft actually works, and exposes the dark heart of a life built on betrayals.

Contents:

Part I The spy Who Loved me

1 Portrait of My Father Digging Up a Dead Baby 7

2 The Fight 22

3 Unter den Linden 41

4 Dark Side of the Moon 51

5 Portrait of My Father Combing His Hair 62

6 The Inferno 76

7 Paradise Regained 97

Part II Peers of the Realm

8 The Mortician's Comb 117

9 Chapter Written Under Duress 128

10 Alpes-Maritime 143

11 Sophisticated Assassination 152

12 Awaiting the Sheikh in the Garden of Nipples 165

Part III The Game of Nations

13 The Dead Sea Scrolls 181

14 The Robe 195

15 Casino du Liban 207

16 Ars Diplomatica 230

17 Ars Poetica 248

18 A Unified Theory of the Secret World 276

19 Golconda 299

20 Oxfordshire 314

21 Faith Dealer 322

22 My Traitor's Heart 337

Part IV Sweet White Smoke

23 Portrait of the Author Assassinating the King of Manda 359

24 The Sheikh's New Bracelet 381

25 The Fat Man 393

26 The Rules of Evidence 403

27 Yankee Hotel Foxtrot Kilo Oscar 413

28 Notes from Underground 418

29 Portrait of the Author as King 435.

ISBN:

1573222534

OCLC:

55067151