2018 Official Central Intelligence Agency Reading List
If you are only able to read one of the these books I highly recommend. Robert Gates “From the Shadows”. Written just after he left the CIA, Rob Gates offers an inside look of the workings of the white house, and the agency’s role in the collapse of the Soviet Union. While reading his writings I was most impressed with Secretary Gates ability to capture personality and character of both himself and the people he is writing about.
Next to Donald Rumsfeld, the man he relieved as Secretary of Defense, few leaders have been in more White Houses and worked around more presidents than Robert Gates.
The Most Current CIA Reading List can be accessed at CIA.gov
Jack Devine and Vernon Loeb, Good Hunting
Henry A. Crumpton, The Art of Intelligence: Lessons from a Life in CIA’s Clandestine Service
Martha Peterson, Widow Spy
Christopher Andrew, For the President’s Eyes Only: Secret Intelligence and the American Presidency from Washington to Bush
John Ranelagh, The Agency: The Rise and Decline of the CIA
William E. Colby with Peter Forbath, Honorable Men: My Life in the CIA
Robert Gates, From the Shadows: The Ultimate Insider’s Story of Five Presidents and How They Won the Cold War
Peter Grose, Gentleman Spy: The Life of Allen Dulles
Floyd Paseman, A Spy’s Journey: A CIA Memoir
Joseph Persico, Casey: The Lives and Secrets of William J. Casey
Benjamin Weiser, A Secret Life: The Polish Officer, His Covert Mission, and the Price He Paid to Save His Country
Sandra Grimes and Jeanne Vertefeuille, Circle of Treason: A CIA Account of Traitor Aldrich Ames and the Men He Betrayed
David Martin, Wilderness of Mirrors
Philip Taubman, Secret Empire: Eisenhower, the CIA, and the Hidden History of America’s Space Espionage
Robert Wallace and H. Keith Melton, Spycraft: The Secret History of the CIA’s Spytechs from Communism to al-Qaeda
Steve Coll, Ghost Wars: The Secret History of the CIA, Afghanistan, and Bin Laden, from the Soviet Invasion to September 10, 2001
John Prados, Safe for Democracy: The Secret Wars of the CIA
Disclaimer: While the CIA reading list is approved by the CIA, the website DODReads.com is not an official website.
Purchase the Current CIA reading list here.