📖 David Talbot - The Devil's Chessboard
Allen Dulles, the CIA, and the Rise of America's Secret Government
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Today’s book is:
The Devil's Chessboard: Allen Dulles, the CIA, and the Rise of America's Secret Government by David Talbot
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 exposé 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.
You can buy the book here (Amazon link).
CIA as Organized Crime by Valentine.
He was given free access to "ex" CIA agents by Wm Colby. He also wrote a book about the CIA's Phoenix Program in Vietnam which was an extra-judicial murder and torture program that coordinated the military, police and intelligence agencies. This book is about how it was rolled out world wide including Fusion Centers in the USA which allow police agencies to receive illegal intelligence information so that they can build a case "legally".
Secret Team by Fletcher Prouty
He was a military logistics officer for CIA traffic. He realized that even back then the CIA under Dulles had expanded beyond its legal scope and insinuated itself into the entire US govt and other organizations and was involved in the JFK coup d'etat. Accordingly the CIA ws beyond the control of the govt; instead was controlled by the Secret Team.
Fully recommend this book. Very interesting portrayal of Dulles, and a great read, it flows really well for non-fiction.