Intelligence Wars: American Secret History from Hitler to Al-Qaeda Paperback - 2004

First line

ON THE EVE of World War II, the United States was the world's only great power without an intelligence service.

Media reviews

"Essential wartime reading….you get a sense not of what to expect—that’s not the job of history—but of the smart questions we need to ask to be confident that we are winning our current secret war."
— Timothy Naftali, The New York Times Book Review

"A remarkable, twisted tapestry of intrigue."
— Ron Rosenbaum, The New York Observer

"The most reflective writing about intelligence…Powers deals with the history as well as the bureaucracy of the US intelligence agencies and has a sophisticated grasp of irony, self-delusion, and character."
— The Boston Globe

"Mr. Powers is one of our most thoughtful writers on espionage….But it’s not just that Mr. Powers knows the material; he knows what to make of it."
— Dallas Morning News

"It is a deeply thought-provoking book—wide-ranging and readable, incisive, expert but without jargon, able to challenge all its own assumptions.”
—Katharine Sale, Financial Times

"These discerning essays span 25 years and provide a revealing history of the victories, defeats and ambiguities of Cold War and post-Cold War intelligence gathering. Powers portrays in vivid human terms repeated FBI failures in counterintelligence, the intelligence agencies’ inability to infiltrate terrorist groups, chronic reluctance to share information and a management structure that leaves no one in charge of and accountable for the entire effort….Powers brilliantly conveys the ethos and culture of intelligence agencies—a complexity he has been studying and writing about for almost 30 years….a formidable contribution to the difficult work ahead in re-aligning the intelligence agencies’ Cold War-vintage structure."
— Lorraine Adams, The Washington Post Book World