Hugh Milford is a Professor of History at California State University, Long Beach. Milford is a gifted writer and I love his snarky approach to the CIA. Here’s an example:

“In Indonesia, the hoped for mutiny in the military failed to materialize and Sukarno actually benefited from psychological warfare measures intended to discredit him. In one notorious instance, the CIA had sponsored the production of a pornographic movie featuring an actor made up to look like president [Sukarno]. Rumor had it that the movie backfired because Indonesians were so impressed by the the virility of the Sukarno look-alike.” (p. 91-92)

Wilford’s approach is designed to give the reader an accurate history of the CIA–both Good and Bad. Wilford starts with a brief description of international conditions that lead to the forming of the CIA in 1947. The focus then shifts to the Cold War in the 1950s and 1960s. The CIA declined in the 1970s as part of the anti-imperial backlash against the CIA at home. But President Reagan reinvigorated the CIA in the 1980s as the Cold War with Russia was ending. Finally, Wilford examines the CIA’s role in the United States’s Global War on Terror and the menacing resurgence of Cold War-like tensions with China, Russia, North Korea, and Iran.

I found The CIA: An Imperial History (2024) compelling and informative. If you want to know more about the CIA, this is the place to look. GRADE: A

TABLE OF CONTENTS:

INTRODUCTION — 1

Prologue: Imperial precursors — 11

Part 1. Overseas:

Intelligence — 35

Regime change — 69

Regime maintenance — 107P

Part 2. At Home:

Counterintelligence — 147

Publicity — 193

Unintended consequences — 239

Epilogue: The Global War on Terror — 279

Conclusion — 305

Acknowledgements — 315

Notes — 319

Index — 349