Research Catalog

Title

Surprise, kill, vanish : the secret history of CIA paramilitary armies, operators, and assassins / Annie Jacobsen.

Author

Jacobsen, Annie

Publication

• New York : Little, Brown and Company, [2019]
• ©2019

Items in the Library & Off-site

Details

Description

xiii, 545 pages : illustrations (some color); 25 cm

Summary

Surprise... your target. Kill... your enemy. Vanish... without a trace. From Pulitzer Prize finalist Annie Jacobsen, the untold story of the CIA's secret paramilitary units. When diplomacy fails, and war is unwise, the president calls on the CIA's Special Activities Division, a highly-classified branch of the CIA and the most effective, black operations force in the world. Originally known as the president's guerrilla warfare corps, SAD conducts risky and ruthless operations that have evolved over time to defend America from its enemies. Almost every American president since World War II has asked the CIA to conduct sabotage, subversion and, yes, assassination. With unprecedented access to forty-two men and women who proudly and secretly worked on CIA covert operations from the dawn of the Cold War to the present day, along with declassified documents and deep historical research, Pulitzer Prize finalist Annie Jacobsen unveils--like never before--a complex world of individuals working in treacherous environments populated with killers, connivers and saboteurs. Despite Hollywood notions of off-book operations and external secret hires, covert action is actually one piece in a colossal foreign policy machine. Written with the pacing of a thriller, Surprise, Kill, Vanish brings to vivid life the sheer pandemonium and chaos, as well as the unforgettable human will to survive and the intellectual challenge of not giving up hope that define paramilitary and intelligence work. Jacobsen's exclusive interviews--with members of the CIA's Senior Intelligence Service (equivalent to the Pentagon's generals), its counterterrorism chiefs, targeting officers, and Special Activities Division's Ground Branch operators who conduct today's close-quarters killing operations around the world--reveal, for the first time, the enormity of this shocking, controversial and morally complex terrain. Is the CIA's paramilitary army America's weaponized strength, or a liability to its principled standing in the world? Every operation reported in this book, however unsettling, is legal.

Subjects

• Intelligence service
• Intelligence service > United States
• United States > Central Intelligence Agency
• Assassination
• Espionage
• Intelligence service > United States > History
• History
• United States > Central Intelligence Agency > History
• HISTORY / Military / United States

Genre/Form

History.

Bibliography (note)

• Includes bibliographical references (pages 459-525) and index.
• Includes bibliographical references (pages 459-475) and index.

Contents

Part I. 1941. An office for ungentlemanly warfare -- Tertia Optio -- Surprise attack in Korea -- Special Forces -- Ruin and rule in Guatemala -- Kings, shahs, monarchs, and madmen -- The KGB's office of liquid affairs -- Green light -- The special group -- Part II. 1961. An assassination capability -- JFK, KIA -- The studies and observations group -- Kill or capture -- Green Berets -- Revenge -- Colonel Qaddafi's Libya -- Part III. 1981. Reagan's preemptive neutralization -- Parachute assassins, Saddam Hussein, and Osama bin Laden -- Operation love storm -- Carlos the jackal -- The engineer -- Part IV. 2001. War in Afghanistan -- Poke the bear -- War in Iraq -- Imad Mugniyah -- The moral twilight zone -- Just war -- The hidden hand.

Call Number

JFE 19-10643

ISBN

• 9780316441438
• 0316441430

LCCN

2018966018

OCLC

1099524601

Author

Jacobsen, Annie, author.

Title

Surprise, kill, vanish : the secret history of CIA paramilitary armies, operators, and assassins / Annie Jacobsen.

Publisher

New York : Little, Brown and Company, [2019]

Copyright Date

©2019

Edition

First edition.

Type of Content

text

still image

Type of Medium

unmediated

Type of Carrier

volume

Bibliography

Includes bibliographical references (pages 459-525) and index.

Bibliography

Includes bibliographical references (pages 459-475) and index.

Research Call Number

JFE 19-10643