Good Hunting

April 28, 2014
In a career that peaked as associate director of the CIA’s overseas operations, Devine served—and survived—more than three decades with the CIA, from the Nixon to Clinton administrations. Predictably, he considers “a powerful intelligence service... an imperative of modern statecraft,” believes in the effectiveness of covert action, and denounces the current tendency to politicize intelligence while condemning “White House ‘dabbling.’” Devine describes the CIA’s thinking on covert action during his career and discusses—without excessive use of the first person singular—his worldwide implementation of those principles at the sharp end of covert war, from overseeing the missile shipments that initiated the Iran-Contra scandal to delivering the Stingers that turned the tide against the Russians in Afghanistan. He argues for long-term maintenance of a “CIA covert action component” in Afghanistan as part of a “robust U.S. mission,” and hypothesizes that “most future paramilitary engagement will be reminiscent of the smaller Cold War covert action programs.” Whether one agrees with Devine’s particulars, the insights derived from a long and varied career make this a top-line addition to the proliferating body of “insider” memoirs from the years when the Cold War gave way to the “war on terrorism,” and the rules began to change. Agent: Andrew Wylie, Wylie Agency.

May 15, 2014
Veteran CIA covert operative Devine highlights his career foiling trouble from Chile to Afghanistan. The book was co-authored by Houston Chronicle managing editor Loeb (King's Counsel: A Memoir of War, Espionage, and Diplomacy in the Middle East, 2011, etc.).Devine, now founding partner of the Arkin Group, which specializes in international crisis management, retired from the CIA as acting director of operations in 1998. He is intensely proud of his 32-year career at the agency and of its original noble intent, inherited from Bill Donovan's Office of Strategic Services, to protect the nation's national security. Refreshingly, Devine, a blue-collar native of suburban Philadelphia who began to ascend the CIA ranks in the late 1960s, does not sugarcoat the various failed schemes directed by U.S. presidents from Nixon to Bush or the enormously damaging, long-running infiltration by moles like Aldrich Ames. Although Devine's tenure began after the disastrous Bay of Pigs invasion and ended before 9/11, absolving him from much of the criticism that the CIA attracted then, his first tour was in Chile just when the unrest against democratically elected president Salvador Allende got underway in 1973. Although Devine claims the CIA was not involved in the military coup, he admits to a series of destabilizing measures introduced to bring down the socialist-minded regime, at Nixon's insistence. The author spends a great deal of space discussing his erstwhile colleague Ames, once a friend, who was well into his downward spiral selling secrets to the Soviets in Rome, where Devine was also stationed-as his superior, in fact. Yet when Ames' perfidy was discovered in 1994, Devine escaped censure and was instead promoted. Working thematically rather than chronologically, Devine explores his stints of glory, namely funneling guns with Charlie Wilson to Afghanistan's mujahedeen in order to defeat the Soviets and sustaining important relationships with changing directors.Devine's attention to detail translates into a finely delineated memoir of his selective undercover tradecraft.

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June 1, 2014
Now-retired CIA officer Devine built a career (196798) in which he ascended from entry-level employee to the top echelon of the organization's clandestine service. Amid candid reflections on his experiences, Devine advances opinions about the worth of covert operations, which he supports in general. Commenting on them specifically via his own involvement, Devine defends the CIA's 1973 role in Chile and its 1980s arming of anti-Soviet Afghan rebels. But he critiques the CIA's entanglement in the Iran-Contra scandal of the mid-1980s. Devine's colorful anecdotes convey a lively sense of how a CIA officer works as a street-level case officer, a chief of station, and an executive managing the entire Directorate of Operations, all roles that Devine fulfilled and in which he takes palpable pride. The exception to success that Devine confronts is Aldrich Ames, the Russian mole whose betrayal cost many CIA agents their lives. An occasional supervisor of Ames, Devine puzzles over Ames' motivations as he describes how the case dealt a blow to CIA morale. A vivid insider's view, Devine's is an engaging account for the espionage set.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2014, American Library Association.)