20th Century American History - Cold War, U.S. Politics - Public Affairs & Administration, United States - Espionage

The Very Best Men: Four Who Dared

Name: The Very Best Men: Four Who Dared
Author: Evan Thomas
ISBN: 9780684810256

by Evan Thomas

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Overview

Thomas has drawn on his original research in CIA archives and interviews with scores of old agency hands to evoke the urgency and uncertainty, as well as the giddiness, of the shadow wars of the 1950s and early 1960s when the country, with reason, felt itself in danger from Soviet-led Communist aggression. Frank Wisner, Richard Bissell, Tracy Barnes, and Desmond FitzGerald embodied the confidence, daring, and arrogance of the WASP elite that dominated the CIA at its founding. Thomas brings these men to life as they move boldly, and a bit innocently, into the corrosive life of secrets. He portrays the improbable scene of Bissell, of Groton and Yale, hiring the Mafia to eliminate Fidel Castro, and the terrible drama of Frank Wisner, the first chief of covert operations, slowly succumbing to suicidal mania. He follows Barnes and FitzGerald as they run covert operations from Berlin to Burma. These men, said one of their wives, "went to war every day." They felt that it was their duty - and their calling - to avoid a global conflagration. In a larger sense, they succeeded, but the personal cost was high. The Very Best Men is social history, a spy yarn, and a tragedy. It is the story of American hubris, of the corruption of good intentions, of four brave and flawed men who dared too greatly.

From the author of The Man to See and the coauthor of The Wise Men, comes the story of the CIA's early days--before it became The Company. Thomas' tale is told through the careers of four men who ran covert operations for the government from the end of World War II to Vietnam. Photos.

About the Author, Evan Thomas

Evan Thomas is the author of The Very Best Men: Four Who Dared: The Early Years of the C.I.A., a book about the careers of Frank Wisner, Richard Bissell, Tracy Barnes and Desmond FitzGerald; Robert Kennedy: His Life; The War Lovers: Roosevelt, Lodge, Hearst and the Rush to Empire, 1989; Sea of Thunder: The Last Great Naval Command, 1941-1945; and John Paul Jones. He is at work on a book about President Dwight Eisenhower.

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Editorials

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly

A social history of the Cold War careers of four prominent CIA agents. (Dec.)

Library Journal

This excellent addition to material on the early years of the CIA covers the heyday of the Cold War, from the middle 1940s to the middle 1960s. The book focuses on the careers of four operatives: Frank Wisner, Richard Bissell, Tracy Barnes, and Desmond FitzGerald, all of whom helped guide the covert actions and growth of the CIA. Bissell was best known owing to his involvement in the Bay of Pigs fiasco, but Wisner, as the early director of covert operations, was the key figure in the agency's early history. All four appear to have been more interested in the big operation, which could go spectacularly wrong, than in the slow process of intelligence gathering. Much of this same material is covered in Burton Hersh's more critical The Old Boys: The American Elite and the Origins of the CIA (LJ 2/15/92). The author, a managing editor at Newsweek, also co-wrote The Wise Men (LJ 10/15/86), which was similar in approach. Recommended for espionage collections of public and academic libraries.-Daniel K. Blewett, Loyola Univ. Lib., Chicago