Wilderness of Mirrors: Intrigue, Deception, and the Secrets that Destroyed Two of the Cold War's Most Important Agents

ISBN: 1510722181

Author: Martin, David C.

Condition: New

"A penetrating account of Cold War intrigue filled with strange doings and even stranger people. Enthralling, provocative.-Washington Post. "A remarkably detailed account of the internal disputes about the defectors and double agents that tied the CIA in knots during the 1960s.-The Wall Street Journal A classic of intelligence literature. -Center for the Study of IntelligenceAt the dawn of the Cold War, the worlds most important intelligence agencies-the Soviet KGB, the American CIA, and the British MI6-appeared to have clear-cut roles and a sense of rising importance in their respective countries. But when Kim Philby, head of MI6s Russian division and arguably the twenty-first centurys greatest spy, was revealed to be a Russian mole along with British government heavyweights Donald Maclean and Guy Burgess, everything in the Western intelligence world turned upside down.Here is the true story of how the American James Bond-the colorful, foulmouthed, pistol-packing, alcoholic ex-FBI agent William King Harvey-put the finger on Philby; how James Jesus Angleton, the chain-smoking poet of Yale University and the CIAs supposed master spy in charge of counterintelligence, began his descent into a paranoid wilderness of mirrors upon learning of family friend Kim Philbys ultimate betrayal; and the devastating consequences of the loss of MI6 prestige and the CIAs subsequent self-defeating witch hunts.Every revelation, every stranger-than-fiction twist and turn is all the more intriguing as truths become lies and unlikely scenarios are revealed as reality. With impeccable sourcing and the use of thousands of pages of declassified research, David C. Martins Wilderness of Mirrors is widely recognized as a masterpiece of intelligence literature.