Blond Ghost: Ted Shackley and the CIA's Crusades

by David Corn

Book Overview

A biography of CIA agent Ted Shackley, whose thirty-year career included operations in Berlin, Miami and Cuba, and Laos, is also a critical look at the CIA and its conflicting roles of objective... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0671695258
• ISBN13: 9780671695255
• Release Date: October 1994
• Publisher: Simon & Schuster
• Length: 509 Pages
• Weight: 1.77 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.4" x 6.4" x 9.6"

Customer Reviews

Very informative, a must-read on the intelligence community

This book is very informative on the subject of Ted Shackley. I think Corn is fair to him and doesn't indict him as an upcoming book will do. It treats him fairly and leaves the reader to make up their own mind. If you want an overview of the important events o the Cold War read this and how this legend participated in them.

Spend Money, Get Lots of Folks Killed, Lose Anyway...

Although Ted Shackley was a line case officer, this book is placed within the paramilitary section because his entire career encompassed a series of wars where the CIA played a very tragic and unproductive role. As Shackley's deputy in Laos is quoted on page 163, speaking on Shakley's accomplishments in Laos, "We spent a lot of money and got a lot of people killed," Lair remembered, "and we didn't get much for it." For those seeking to understand the bureaucratization of the Directorate of Operations, both in the field and in Washington, this is essential reading.