Customer Rating:  
Summary: Very dated and basically obsolete to the general audience.
Comment: Let's start with the bottom line, I am very disappointed with this book simply because it is dated and basically obsolete to the "general" audience, in which I'm part of. I think that this book will be only interesting to readers who are passionate about historical espionage or researchers who are deeply interested in the intelligence struggle between the US and the USSR in the middle of the 20th century.
The book is written by one of the top American espionage figures, Allen W. Dulles, who directed the CIA (1953-1961) and served under eight U.S presidents from Woodrow Wilson to John F. Kennedy. As you can see in the book, this guy sure knows what he talks about and provides a great overview the surrounds almost all aspects of intelligence: from tip on how to select good field agents, how to collect information, how to analyze it, confusing the opponents, and others. He also give an extensive profile of the adversaries, i.e. the communist intelligence agency, from its development to their employed techniques. There is lot's of information with interesting examples from real life incidents.
However, you don't have to be an expert on the topic to understand that today's view of intelligence is completely different from the communist area described in this book. With the development of the Internet you have new and endless possibilities for recruiting, training, data gathering procedures and of course new computational power to do extensive analytical process. In addition, with the collapse of the USSR there are new adversaries on the playing field, and that puts the communist threat a little on the side. None of that is discussed in the book, and personally I can say that I quickly lost interest in the content.
To sum up, if your interests are limited in intelligence work in that point in time, or you are looking for history book on the development of the CIA, you might find this book interesting. For all other readers out there, I would not recommend this one.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Good Overview; A Little Boring
Comment: As the book's jacket description states, it presents "the fundamentals of intelligence gathering for a free world." In this regard, it gives a good overview of the various aspects of intelligence gathering. The book has a strong focus on the dark side of Russian intelligence, while ignoring what might be considered the "shadow side" of US intelligence (undermining foreign governments, etc.). I found the book boring during parts of the second half (I got tired of reading it).
Customer Rating:
Summary: Disappointing
Comment: This book was disappointing on two counts: (1)Much of the information was stuff you already knew; and (2) the writing was perfunctory. Anyone who has read a number of spy novels is familiar with much of the tradecraft that Dulles describes and I found myself saying throughout the book: "Well, I already knew that." The best part of the book was the inside story of many Cold War activities, particularly descriptions of how the Soviets waged their secret war against the U.S. The book is dated, only going up to the end of Dulles' CIA career back in the Cold War, but, on the other hand, if you're a Baby Boomer you'll remember many of the events he describes. I'm not clear why Dulles wrote a book like this. It wasn't very compelling and I guess he wrote it just to get his memoirs out there. Glad I read it, but it's a long way from being more than just average.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Not a how-to manual
Comment: While Allen Dulles played a pivotal role in the US intelligence service, especially as head of the CIA, his book is not a tell-all revelation of the inner workings of a spy agency. It is however a great history of the cold war told from the perspective of a spymaster. He slips in some lingo like "dead letter box", but does not really get into the nitty gritty. He covers most of the already public spy stories. If you are studying the period of history from WWII to 1965 this book is a great read with an important perspective.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Great information... but incredibly dry.
Comment: It's really all in the title. The information available in this book is excellent, reliable, and backed up with anecdotes and references. However, it's very dense and reads like a bureaucratic report, making it difficult to get through. Definitely not a casual read.
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