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The devil's chessboard : Allen Dulles, the CIA, and the rise of America's secret government / David Talbot.

Van Pelt Library JK468.I6 T33 2015
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Format:
Book
Author/Creator:
Talbot, David, 1951- author.
Contributor:
Edwin B. Cole Memorial Fund.
Language:
English
Subjects (All):
Dulles, Allen, 1893-1969.
Dulles, Allen.
United States. Central Intelligence Agency--Officials and employees--Biography.
United States.
United States. Central Intelligence Agency--History--20th century.
United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
Spies--United States--Biography.
Spies.
Espionage, American.
History.
Soviet Union.
Intelligence service--United States--History--20th century.
Intelligence service.
Intelligence officers--United States--Biography.
Intelligence officers.
Official secrets--United States.
Official secrets.
Espionage, American--Soviet Union--History.
Kennedy, John F. (John Fitzgerald), 1917-1963.
Kennedy, John F.
Genre:
Biographies.
Physical Description:
xiii, 686 pages, 16 unnumbered pages of plates : illustrations ; 24 cm
Edition:
First edition.
Place of Publication:
New York, NY : Harper, an imprint of HaperCollinsPublishers, [2015]
Summary:
"An explosive, headline-making portrait of Allen Dulles, the man who transformed the CIA into the most powerful and secretive colossus in Washington, from the founder of Salon.com and author of the New York Times bestseller Brothers. America's greatest untold story: the United States' rise to world dominance under the guile of Allen Welsh Dulles, the longest-serving director of the CIA. Drawing on revelatory new materials, including newly discovered U.S. government documents, U.S. and European intelligence sources, the personal correspondence and journals of Allen Dulles's wife and mistress, and exclusive interviews with the children of prominent CIA officials, Talbot reveals the underside of one of America's most powerful and influential figures. Dulles's decade as the director of the CIA which he used to further his public and private agendas were dark times in American politics. Calling himself "the secretary of state of unfriendly countries," Dulles saw himself as above the elected law, manipulating and subverting American presidents in the pursuit of his personal interests and those of the wealthy elite he counted as his friends and clients colluding with Nazi-controlled cartels, German war criminals, and Mafiosi in the process. Targeting foreign leaders for assassination and overthrowing nationalist governments not in line with his political aims, Dulles employed those same tactics to further his goals at home, Talbot charges, offering shocking new evidence in the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. An expose of American power that is as disturbing as it is timely, The Devil's Chessboard is a provocative and gripping story of the rise of the national security state and the battle for America's soul."--provided by publisher.
Contents:
The double agent
Human smoke
Ghosts of Nuremberg
Sunrise
Ratlines
Useful people
Little mice
Scoundrel time
The power elite
The Dulles imperium
Strange love
Brain warfare
Dangerous ideas
The torch is passed
Contempt
Rome on the Potomac
The parting glass
The big event
The fingerprints
For the good of the country
"I can't look and won't look"
End game
Epilogue.
Notes:
Includes bibliographical references (pages [621]-661) and index.
Local Notes:
Acquired for the Penn Libraries with assistance from the Edwin B. Cole Memorial Fund.
ISBN:
0062276166
9780062276162
OCLC:
900795351
Publisher Number:
99964871613

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