THE CIA AND THE CULT OF INTELLIGENCE

by Victor & John D. Marks Marchetti ‧ RELEASE DATE: June 24, 1974

The book the government is still trying to suppress on a legal (violation of employment contract) technicality, an obvious attempt to skirt the First Amendment issue. And despite numerous court ordered DELETED passages, one gets the point, although some of what's left (and there's a great deal) will not necessarily come as fresh revelations to CIA watchers: the U-2, the Pueblo, the Pentagon Papers, The Penkovsky Papers, the Bay of Pigs -- if it all sounds familiar, that's the horror of it. Still, the authors, both former intelligence specialists, raise intriguing new questions on such things as the publication of Khrushchev Remembers, the killing of Che, his fellow revolutionary Tania (Patricia Hearst's model) whom they label as a double agent (problematical in light of other evidence, along with the theories here regarding the role of Bolivian Minister Arguedas). But the authors leave no doubt that the business of the CIA is dirty business and hypocrisy, violence and deceit its standard MO. What's most valuable and instructive -- and undoubtedly why the government wants to stop the presses -- are the disclosures on the CIA structure, its proprietary corporations, its powerful Clandestine Services and how, because the CIA is now virtually the President's private organization -- what distressed Kennedy about the Cuban invasion was not that it was wrong but that it failed -- it is exempt from review by either the Congress or the electorate. But how are to look to a Congress that spends all of its time looking the other way? The KGB -- which, according to the authors, the CIA has been embarrassingly inept in penetrating -- knows more about this supersecret outfit than anyone.

Pub Date: June 24, 1974

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Knopf

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 1974

Categories: NONFICTION