James Jesus Angleton
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Overview
As chief of counterintelligence for the Central Intelligence Agency from the early 1950s to the early 1970s, James Jesus Angleton built a formidable reputation. Although perhaps best known for leading the agency's notorious "Molehunt"-the search for a Soviet spy believed to have infiltrated the upper levels of the American government-Angleton also played a key role in the U.S. intervention in the Italian election of 1948, in Israel's development of nuclear weapons, and in the management of the CIA's investigation of the assassination of John F. Kennedy. He later led CIA efforts to contain the Vietnam-era antiwar movement, including the campaign to destroy the liberal Catholic magazine Ramparts.In this deeply researched biography, Michael Holzman uses Angleton's story to illuminate the history of the CIA from its founding in the late 1940s to the mid-1970s. Drawing on a broad range of sources, including previously unexamined archival documents, personal letters, and interviews, he looks beneath the surface of Angleton's career to reveal the sensibility that governed not only his personal aims and ambitions but those of the organization he served and helped shape.
About the Author:
Michael Holzman, an independent scholar, holds a PhD in literature from the University of California, San Diego
Synopsis
As chief of counterintelligence for the Central Intelligence Agency from the early 1950s to the early 1970s, James Jesus Angleton built a formidable reputation. Although perhaps best known for leading the agency's notorious "Molehunt"-the search for a Soviet spy believed to have infiltrated the upper levels of the American government-Angleton also played a key role in the U.S. intervention in the Italian election of 1948, in Israel's development of nuclear weapons, and in the management of the CIA's investigation of the assassination of John F. Kennedy. He later led CIA efforts to contain the Vietnam-era antiwar movement, including the campaign to destroy the liberal Catholic magazine Ramparts.
In this deeply researched biography, Michael Holzman uses Angleton's story to illuminate the history of the CIA from its founding in the late 1940s to the mid-1970s. Drawing on a broad range of sources, including previously unexamined archival documents, personal letters, and interviews, he looks beneath the surface of Angleton's career to reveal the sensibility that governed not only his personal aims and ambitions but those of the organization he served and helped shape.
About the Author:
Michael Holzman, an independent scholar, holds a PhD in literature from the University of California, San Diego
Lobster 56
This is seriously good history, as well as a biography; Holzman is a very good writer, with a style somewhere between the academic and the journalist, and this was a pleasure to read.