The Book of Honor: The Secret Lives and Deaths of CIA Operatives

The depth of research shines through each chapter and story. A must read for any person seeking a career in a Black ops organizations such as the CIA. Like Bengazi, the "agency" will leave you to die.

The first chapter of this book is so good I've read it 4 times over. Doug Mackiernan is truly an incredible specimen and his life quite the tale to be told: may his service be recognized and his name remembered. Another chapter I favored is the Greek restaurant bombing. I'm giving it four stars as some of the other chapters are quite boring and it gets very repetitive towards the end. I read this book around Fall, 2019 and it's one of my most favorite books I've read in the past 18 months. I can easily see myself just reading the first chapter over and over again and I applaud the author for how well that chapter is written. I wouldn't recommend this for people looking for information about CIA or history too much but it is truly an incredible read and a book I recommend to everyone now.

I have purchased three copies (over time) to gift out to friends. The accounts of the agents who gave their lives and how the monument was designed is a story anyone who loves our country should read. There are so many details about declassified operations most of us have never heard of. The book is well-researched and expertly written.

This book arrived as I turned the calendar page from June to July. Today is July 4th, I am several chapters into the book and already it has given me a whole new perspective on America's freedom and the people who have fought to ensure our freedom not only from British rule, but from the Communist states who envied us from afar and vowed to destroy our country. As I watched our local July 4th parade today, tears welled up in my eyes as I thought about the brave men and women who fight battles in foreign arenas every day, knowing that they do so at their own peril for the good of all. This book, appropriately titled 'The Book of Honor' profiles CIA agents who willingly went under cover in foreign countries, sacrificing home, family and their own lives to thwart the corrupt, Communist power mongers of the world. Anyone with a patriotic bone in their body will want to read this. Ironically enough, it is also this past week that the latest American defector, Edward Snowden, is all over the news for publicizing America's spying techniques and calling himself a hero for exposing the purported evils of the American government. What a sadly naive young man. As soon as he lands in prison I'm going to mail him a copy of this book. There are perfectly valid reasons why our government has secrets. And you will find many of those reasons within the pages of this book.

Generally, when people think about CIA operatives, they imagine what they see in films or television. In most popular programming there's a camaraderie among team members. Gup does an excellent job of capturing the isolation that many clandestine officers face.My favorite account was of Hugh Redmond, the U.S. intelligence agent who spent decades in a Chinese prison (Ward road Prison -- Shanghai; 1951-197x). After years of incarceration, the once-athletic Redmond had lost all of his teeth and became afflicted with disorders that he was forbidden to discuss. (William McInenly.)Gup's book is great because he captures the integrity of the men and women who have fought bravely to defend American values while at the same time criticizing hypocrisy within our government. For example, on page 75, he writes --- Plausible deniability enabled the president to distance himself from the darker hand of his own foreign policy, even freeing him to chastise those who carried out covert activities that he himself had set in play. Increasingly the Agency would be forced to fall on its own sword, to suffer not only ignominy of occasional defeats but the full moral responsibility of that defeat

Having retired from the intelligence field, I have mixed feelings about authors revealing information related to national security. I started this book with these same mixed feelings. I felt the author made a good point that the names and official acknowledgement of these persons is long overdue. I could not read the book cover to cover in a day or two. I had to read it chapter by chapter with other books interspersed between the chapters. It hurt my heart to do otherwise. These are very sad, tragic tales for not only the CIA employees but for the families and friends they left behind. Well worth the read and tears, though. I have recommended it to many of my friends and former colleagues.

The author's disdain for the CIA and its secrecy make this difficult to get through. The subject matter is interesting; while many of the details of these agents' deaths remain classified, readers get an interesting look at their lives and how they came to be agents, as well as how the agency itself evolved through the Cold War and beyond. However, the author is unrelenting in his focus on the lack of credit and recognition the agents received. He seems to imply that, once dead, all need for discretion is erased, which ignores the reality that there are other people - agents, assets, informants, etc. - still alive who could be "outed" and missions jeopardized if all was revealed. With each chapter, Gup laments the fact that the agents are represented by a "nameless star", that their widows may no have been allowed to keep their medals, and that their gravestones or other memorials referenced their over positions rather than their link the CIA; time and again he despairs over the "lowly" positions the agents held as part of their cover stories when clearly they were all so superior to their purported roles. Not only does this make for repetitive storytelling, but it is a strange fixation to have - these agents knew the nature of their work, both in terms of the risk involved and the anonymity. To be sure, the CIA has its failings and could have done more to protect some of these people, but the lack of fanfare for agents - current or former - comes with the territory. Gup has misjudged his subjects; the need for glory and notoriety is his, not theirs.

Factual and well written.

Interesting book

Un libro avvincente ed abbastanza circostanziato che comunque non contiene rivelazioni straordinarie. Narra le storie di uomini caduti in missione - e dell'impatto della loro morte sulle loro famiglie - che per motivi di segretezza non potevano apparire come incaricati della CIA. Facile lettura del testo anche per me che non sono un fenomeno in inglese. Mi è piaciuto moltissimo.

My uncle is one of the CIA agents in this book, it really makes you appreciate what these men went through, and how they got left high and dry. Very moving and for our family very moving.

Good reading, used , in very good condition.