Central Intelligence

A CIA officer's inside account of how Libya's descent into rampant violence precipitated the harrowing overland evacuation of the entire US mission from Tripoli after being trapped in the city for weeks.

The Senate Intelligence Committee Summary Report on Torture is a public document belonging to the American people, arising from the Senate investigation into the CIA’s Interrogation and Detention Program. Commonly known as The Torture Report, the document was made public, with redactions, on December 9, 2009. The events surrounding its investigation, writing, and publication are now the subject of Scott Z. Burns’ film The Report, an Amazon Original (in theaters on 11/15; on Amazon Prime 11/29 from Amazon Studios). Here, you can hear the report in its entirety.

This unique, now-declassified manual makes an unflinching and in-depth examination of the techniques of the CIA interrogator tasked with tracking down and exposing moles, sleepers, double-agents and more. It equips the listener with the tools to "read", question, influence, manipulate and eventually break even the most recalcitrant subject—and the ability to recognize when these powerful techniques are used against you!

Charlie Wilson's War is the untold story behind the last battle of the Cold War and how it fueled the rise of militant Islam. George Crile tells how Charlie Wilson, a maverick congressman from east Texas, conspired with a rogue CIA operative to launch the biggest, meanest, and most successful covert operation in the agency's history.

Released by the Freedom of Information Act. This document is a thorough description of how the CIA recommends interrogating a subject. To get the information that is needed there is nothing withheld short of torture. For example in "Threats and Fears," the CIA authors note that "the threat of coercion usually weakens or destroys resistance more effectively than coercion itself. The threat to inflict pain, for example, can trigger fears more damaging than the immediate sensation of pain."

Though it might be hard to believe, the Americans did not have a covert operations organization when they joined World War II, and like the British, it took them some time to realize it could be a powerful tool. As a result, the Office of Strategic Services (OSS) was not established until June 13, 1942, six months after the attack on Pearl Harbor.

Meticulously formatted, this is a highly listenable edition of the Senate Intelligence Committee’s investigation of Central Intelligence Agency interrogation and detention programs launched in the wake of the 9/11 attacks.

With help from family archives, CIA documents, and on-the-record interviews, Douglas A. Wissing reveals how Benjamin C. Evans Jr. quietly ran a vast government agency as elected leaders came and went. A CIA officer for more than 20 years, Evans deftly managed the CIA through four presidents and seven directors of central intelligence. Gentleman in the Shadows is a book about a remarkable American living in tumultuous times. Through the depths of the Cold War, Evans helped make and execute world-shaping CIA decisions

The OSS and CIA: The History of America’s Intelligence Community during World War II and the Establishment of the Central Intelligence Agency looks at the agencies’ organizational characteristics, historical inception, early Cold War growth, and recent influence. You will learn about the OSS and CIA like never before.

A powerful and revelatory memoir from former CIA director John Brennan, spanning his more than 30 years in government.

Inside the “Mickey Mouse Factory” comes from a veteran of 27 years of U.S. government service in various agencies such as the CIA, and combines an insider's life with a memoir that reveals his experiences serving as a CIA operations officer. From training courses designed to reflect operational realities to various incidents that presented special diplomatic and political challenges as operations were carried out in other countries, Sawyer's ability to reveal the nuts and bolts of intelligence goals and conundrums alike creates a fast-paced book packed with information.

La Central Intelligence Agency (CIA, "agence centrale de renseignement"), fondée en 1947 est l'une des agences de renseignement les plus connues des États-Unis. Elle est chargée de l'acquisition du renseignement (notamment par l'espionnage) et de la plupart des opérations clandestines effectuées hors du sol américain. Son quartier général depuis 1961 sur le site de Langley, en Virginie, aux États-Unis. Elle a le droit de garder secrètes la plupart de ses caractéristiques : nombre d'employés, budget.

In The Rising Clamor: The American Press, the Central Intelligence Agency, and the Cold War, David P. Hadley explores the relationships that developed between the CIA and the press, its evolution over time, and its practical impact from the creation of the CIA to the first major congressional investigations of its activities in 1975-1976 by the Church and Pike Committees.

Though it might be hard to believe, the Americans did not have a covert operations organization when they joined the war, and like the British, it took them some time to realize it could be a powerful tool. As a result, the Office of Strategic Services (OSS) was not established until June 13, 1942, six months after the attack on Pearl Harbor. And of course, it would all chart a path for the early days of America’s most famous intelligence agency, the CIA.

In Spy Watching, Loch K. Johnson explores the United States' travails in its efforts to maintain effective accountability over its spy services.