Best ISA/NSA/CIA non-fiction book?

[JayHawk]

(above)


What do you think the best one is, and I mean recent history. I suppose there aren't many ISA-books, but I could be wrong...


Cheers,

JayHawk

[Chops]

JayHawk

There is almost nothing out there on what was once known as ISA, at least anything vaguely current. Best bet would be the slim pickings of Mark Bowden's Killing Pablo which includes some detail on Centra Spike, one of their many cover names.

Historically there is a reasonable amount for such a black unit. Hunt out Steven Emerson's Secret Warriors but it may cost you a small fortune. I've seen it listed on amazon for £80+. I got mine years ago at cover price but well worth the effort. Covers the formation of ISA, QRF, Yellow Fruit, Seaspray, Delta/CAG and ST6/DEVGRU. Excellent work. Also good is Blank Cheque by Tim Weiner which has a lengthy chapter devoted to the above units.

Everything else is primarily paragraph length mentions. Hard for people to track them as they change cover names every six months. I've tracked down about eight names but it's a difficult game matching them to ops. Personally, I'd love to write a book about them but there's simply not enough material in the public domain.

NSA- The Puzzle Palace and Body of Secrets by James Bamford
CIA- See No Evil: The True Story of a Ground Soldier in the CIA's War on Terrorism by Robert Baer

Rgds

Chops

[JiJoMacLE45]

'Wings of the CIA' by Frederic Lert
'The CIA's Black Ops' by John Jacob Nutter
'President's Secret Wars' by John Prados

Prados' work is a little inconsistent, but overall not bad reads for basic info about the paramility arm of the Agency. Wings of the CIA has a good chapter on Seaspray though it deals primarily with Air America and CIA air campaigns prior.

'The Book of Honor: The Secret Lives and Deaths of CIA Operatives' by Ted Gup is one of my favorites. It gets pretty detailed into the lives of CIA officers who have died in the line of duty from the 1950's all the way through the death of Larry Freedman in Somalia in 1992. Freedman was a founding member of Delta Force.

'See No Evil' and 'Killing Pablo' I also recommend.

'The Master of Disguise' by Antonio Mendez is written by a former CIA S&T agent.

[100%Marine]

Written in 1987 its the best book about the military intelligence community, especially ISA
Secret warriors : inside the covert military operations of the Reagan era

[Vance]

What are some good non-fiction Special Forces books?

[JiJoMacLE45]

If your talking about Army Green Berets and not just SOF in general,
try(if you can find it)

"The Company They Keep" by AJ Simons. Simons is an anthropologist and husband of a retired SF member. The book goes in depth about the relationships developed with an SF ODA. Very good read.

"At the Hurricane's Eye" by Greg Walker. The book gives an overall run down on US SOF operations since Vietnam, but the El Salvador and Gulf War sections about SF are especially good. Walker coincidentially served in El Salvador while w/ SF.

"The Raid" by Benjamin Schemmer. The most in depth report on Operation Ivory Coast(the Son Tay raid) you'll find.

"The Hunt for bin Laden" by Robin Moore. All about SF in Afghanistan. Good book.

"Special Forces" by Tom Clancy. Good overview of SF from the head shed all the way down to the team level.

[hood]

Actually it's called "Shadow Warriors" (the tom clancy one) which I second though. I really enjoyed reading it, and although I had heard about much of the stuff in the book before from navy seal and SF shows on television, I really liked the section on Operation just cause, the panama invasion. I hadn't seen that much about it before this, and it gave lots of action packed details.

[JiJoMacLE45]

There is one called 'Shadow Warriors' which is almost a biography for General Carl Stiner. I forgot about that one.

He also has one called 'Special Forces' in a series he has about military units and how they work. The others are Submarine, Armored Cav, Fighter Wing, Carrier, Marine, and Airborne.

[hood]

ahh.. woops. :oops:

[PSYWAR1-0]

"Body of Secrets" is a good book about the NSA. Its a History book, does not cover current ops.

[100%Marine]

Actually, Tom Clancy has cowritten both Special Forces and Shadow Warriors. These are two separate books.

[StealthMode]

Suggestions by a CIA recruiter: ;)

Ronald Kessler - Inside the CIA
David Ignatius - Agents of Innocence
Linet - The Company
Bob Baer - See no Evil(Iraq), Sleeping with the enemy(SaudiaArabia)

[Deuterium]

Plan of Attack, Bob Woodward, heavy CIA, Case Officer, Ground Branch, Special Forces piece about the start of OIF, really detailed.

[n4292936]

"Body of Secrets" is a good book about the NSA. Its a History book, does not cover current ops.
Ill second that nomination; it's an excellent book, full of historical and current info - very relevant, and very informative.

[Tane Angle]

A lot of good books already mentioned. To be honest, it probably won't work real well to read just one, it takes about 30 or 40 books to get a real god picture going. p-)

Good luck bud.

Have a good one, and just some thoughts...