Chris Whipple - The spy masters: How the CIA Directors Shape History and the Future

Thank you for downloading this Simon & Schuster ebook.

Get a FREE ebook when you join our mailing list. Plus, get updates on new releases, deals, recommended reads, and more from Simon & Schuster. Click below to sign up and see terms and conditions.

CLICK HERE TO SIGN UP

Already a subscriber? Provide your email again so we can register this ebook and send you more of what you like to read. You will continue to receive exclusive offers in your inbox.

We hope you enjoyed reading this Simon & Schuster ebook.

Get a FREE ebook when you join our mailing list. Plus, get updates on new releases, deals, recommended reads, and more from Simon & Schuster. Click below to sign up and see terms and conditions.

CLICK HERE TO SIGN UP

Already a subscriber? Provide your email again so we can register this ebook and send you more of what you like to read. You will continue to receive exclusive offers in your inbox.

More Praise for The Spymasters

Chris Whipple has become in recent years something of a Washington elite whisperer. In The Spymastersas in his equally masterful book, The Gatekeepershe gets almost everyone to spill their secrets.

David Friend, Vanity Fair

Riveting a timely reminder of the outsize influence of our nations intelligence bureaucracyand the men and women who live in this wilderness of mirrors. They were all asked to do things they shouldnt do, says Cynthia Helms, wife of the legendary CIA director Richard Helms. Whipple explores these ethical quandaries with nuance and fairness.

Kai Bird, Pulitzer Prizewinning author of The Good Spy: The Life and Death of Robert Ames

Astute At a time when Americas intelligence community is under attack from conspiracy theories and fake news, Whipple provides a real-world history of those who have held one of the most difficult posts in Washington. These portraits are accurate, fair, and informative.

John W. Dean, Nixon administration White House counsel and bestselling author of Conservatives Without Conscience

The job of CIA director is as difficult as it is important. He or she must predict the future while steering through a moral morass. No wonder the spymasters in Chris Whipples engrossing story so often trip up. Whipple is at once clear-eyed and fair-minded while giving us a riveting read.

Evan Thomas, New York Times bestselling author of The Very Best Men: The Daring Early Years of the CIA

Chris Whipple has previously garnered wide acclaim for his history of the White House chiefs of staff. He now replicates that methodology with equal success in this history of CIA directors from Richard Helms to Gina Haspel. His group portrait of the DCIs offers a highly readable, fair, and well-researched history of the CIA over the past fifty years. He comes neither to pillory the CIA nor to praise it but, rather, to understand itand he fully succeeds.

Max Boot, New York Times bestselling author of The Road Not Taken: Edward Lansdale and the American Tragedy in Vietnam

The Spymasters will make you proud, and depressed. It will also cause you to lose sleep, not just because of the dangers we face, but because its so damned riveting it will keep you up until all hours. How Whipple managed to pull so much history together, how he extracted such a wealth of detail from his principal sourcesthe CIA leaders themselvesis quite simply mind-boggling. This is an important book. And one hell of a story.

Christopher Buckley, author of The White House Mess and Thank You for Smoking

ALSO BY CHRIS WHIPPLE

The Gatekeepers: How the White House Chiefs of Staff Define Every Presidency

Scribner

An Imprint of Simon & Schuster, Inc.

1230 Avenue of the Americas

New York, NY 10020

www.SimonandSchuster.com

Copyright 2020 by Chris Whipple

For all photos by David Hume Kennerly:Copyright Notice: Center for Creative Photography, Arizona Board of Regents Collection Credit: Center for Creative Photography, The University of Arizona: David Hume Kennerly Archive

All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever. For information address Scribner Subsidiary Rights Department, 1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10020.

First Scribner hardcover edition September 2020

SCRIBNER and design are registered trademarks of The Gale Group, Inc. used under license by Simon & Schuster, Inc., the publisher of this work.

For information about special discounts for bulk purchases, please contact Simon & Schuster Special Sales at 1-866-506-1949 or .

The Simon & Schuster Speakers Bureau can bring authors to your live event. For more information, or to book an event, contact the Simon & Schuster Speakers Bureau at 1-866-248-3049 or visit our website at www.simonspeakers.com.

Interior design by Erich Hobbing

Jacket design by Christopher Sergio

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data has been applied for.

ISBN 978-1-9821-0640-9

ISBN 978-1-9821-0642-3 (ebook)

This one is for Ann.

RICHARD HELMS

• Lyndon B. Johnson, president
• Richard Nixon, president
• General Vernon Walters, deputy CIA director
• James Jesus Angleton, head of counterintelligence
• Harold Adrian Russell Kim Philby, British Intelligence official and Russian mole
• Cynthia Helms, second wife of Richard Helms
• Robert McNamara, defense secretary
• Charles Allen, National Intelligence Officer for Warning
• Howard Hunt, ex-CIA member of the Plumbers
• H. R. Haldeman, White House chief of staff
• John Ehrlichman, White House domestic adviser
• Henry Kissinger, secretary of state

JAMES SCHLESINGER

• Richard Nixon, president
• Mel Goodman, analyst
• Leslie Gelb, Defense Dept. official
• Cora Schlesinger, daughter of James Schlesinger
• Brent Scowcroft, national security adviser
• Fred Buzhardt, legal counsel to the president
• Daniel Ellsberg, whistleblower, leaker of Pentagon Papers

WILLIAM COLBY

• Gerald Ford, president
• Ngo Dinh Diem, president of Vietnam
• Seymour Hersh, reporter, The New York Times
• Paul Colby, son of William Colby
• Howard Hughes, billionaire
• Donald Rumsfeld, White House chief of staff
• Abe Rosenthal, executive editor, The New York Times
• Daniel Schorr, CBS News correspondent
• Cicely Angleton, wife of James Angleton
• Salvador Allende, president of Chile, deposed in a military coup
• Sally Colby, second wife of William Colby; diplomat
• Carl Colby, son of William Colby; filmmaker

GEORGE H. W. BUSH

• Gerald Ford, president
• Barbara Bush, wife of George H.W. Bush
• Elliot Richardson, former attorney general
• James A. Baker III, Ford campaign official and Bush confidant
• E. Henry Knoche, deputy CIA director
• Richard Kerr, analyst
• Jimmy Carter, president-elect
• Stuart Eizenstat, domestic policy adviser
• Theodore Sorensen, Carters nominee as CIA director
• Jack Watson, Carters transition director
• Hamilton Jordan, Carters campaign manager