Safe for Democracy: The Secret Wars of the CIA. This item is unavailable.Safe for Democracy: The Secret Wars of the CIA

Safe for Democracy for the first time places the story of the CIA's covert operations squarely in the context of America's global quest for democratic values and institutions. National security historian John Prados offers a comprehensive history of the CIA's secret wars that is as close to a definitive account as is possible today. He draws on three decades of research to illuminate the men and women of the intelligence establishment, their resources and techniques, their triumphs and failures. In a dramatic and revealing narrative, Safe for Democracy not only relates the inside stories of covert operations but examines in meticulous detail the efforts of presidents and Congress to control the CIA and the specific choices made in the agency's secret wars. Safe for Democracy is the most authoritative and complete book on the CIA's secret wars ever published.

*Starred Review* Most Americans know that the CIA is the agency primarily responsible for the gathering of foreign intelligence data. Some Americans are aware (to varying degrees) of the role the agency played in the overthrow of governments in Iran and Guatemala. So Prados, a historian who has written extensively on national-security affairs, has performed a valuable service by revealing the massive extent of CIA covert activities over the past 60 years. This is a comprehensive and superbly researched effort that is both engrossing and disturbing. Some of the topics covered are familiar ground, including clandestine efforts in Iran, Guatemala, and Cuba. But Prados also details lesser-known CIA activities in Guyana, Eastern Europe, and even Western Europe in the aftermath of World War II. In addition to organizing military coups, these activities included infiltration of labor unions, subsidizing publishing firms, and funding of anti-Soviet partisan groups. Prados is no rigid leftist engaged in America bashing. He accepts that U.S. foreign policy genuinely hoped to spread democracy while opposing the spread of Communism. But, as he convincingly illustrates, CIA covert efforts often produced the opposite result, and also produced an enduring legacy of hatred and mistrust toward our nation. Jay Freeman
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