L'histoire, les opérations et les personnels de la CIA, de sa fondation en 1947 à nos jours, par le grand historien américain John Prados. Fondée en 1947, la CIA est la plus célèbre agence de renseignement américaine, voire mondiale. Elle est aussi sans doute la plus controversée. Grâce à de nombreux documents jusqu'alors inconnus, John Prados jette un nouvel éclairage sur ses méthodes et ses opérations - de la Pologne à la Hongrie, de l'Indonésie à l'Irangate et de la baie des Cochons à Guantanamo. Il lève en particulier le voile sur son rôle dans la guerre contre le terrorisme depuis le 11 septembre, qui s'est étendu très au-delà des actions clandestines. Ses réussites, ses échecs, ses relations avec le pouvoir, ses directeurs, ses héros - mais aussi ses salauds - sont ici présentés par l'un des meilleurs spécialistes du sujet, qui décrit par ailleurs l'évolution de l'Agence : se militarisant et s'éloignant toujours davantage de sa mission première de collecte de renseignements, elle semble ne chercher qu'à s'affranchir de tout contrôle du pouvoir exécutif et surtout législatif pour devenir un État dans l'État. Cette Histoire de la CIA, fruit de quarante ans de recherches, est indispensable pour comprendre l'histoire contemporaine des États-Unis et envisager son avenir. Pages de début Préface Au lecteur Liste des directeurs de la CIA (*par intérim) Sigles et acronymes Des fantômes dans la machine 1 - La maison qu'Allen a bâtie 2 - Zélateurs et intrigants 3 - Étoiles et météorites 4 - Crises 5 - Les consiglieri 6 - Les shérifs 7 - Le cavalier sans tête 8 - Un médiocre exorciste 9 - Le spectre de la torture 10 - Le Hollandais volant BibliographieNotes Index Pages de fin

The Ghosts of Langley : Into the CIA's Heart of Darkness

HISTOIRE DE LA CIA;LES FANTOMES DE LANGLEY

Prados, John (author.)

Ladybird Books Ltd

Penguin Books Ltd

The New Press,

New Press, The

Domaine étranger, Paris (12 Avenue d'Italie 75013), 2020

Lightning Source Inc. (Tier 3), [N.p.], 2017

United Kingdom and Ireland, United Kingdom

United States, United States of America

New York State, 2017

New York NY, 2017

France, France

US, 2017

Includes bibliographical references (pages 391-423) and index.

'The Ghosts of Langley offers a detail-rich, often relentless litany of CIA scandals and mini-scandals... [and a] prayer that the CIA learn from and publicly admit its mistakes, rather than perpetuate them in an atmosphere of denial and impunity.'—The Washington PostFrom the writer Kai Bird calls a'wonderfully accessible historian,'the first major history of the CIA in a decade, published to tie in with the seventieth anniversary of the agency's foundingDuring his first visit to Langley, the CIA's Virginia headquarters, President Donald Trump told those gathered,'I am so behind you... there's nobody I respect more,'hinting that he was going to put more CIA operations officers into the field so the CIA could smite its enemies ever more forcefully. But while Trump was making these promises, behind the scenes the CIA was still reeling from blowback from the very tactics that Trump touted—including secret overseas prisons and torture—that it had resorted to a decade earlier during President George W. Bush's war on terror. Under the latest regime it seemed that the CIA was doomed to repeat its past failures rather than put its house in order. The Ghosts of Langley is a provocative and panoramic new history of the Central Intelligence Agency that relates the agency's current predicament to its founding and earlier years, telling the story of the agency through the eyes of key figures in CIA history, including some of its most troubling covert actions around the world. It reveals how the agency, over seven decades, has resisted government accountability, going rogue in a series of highly questionable ventures that reach their apotheosis with the secret overseas prisons and torture programs of the war on terror. Drawing on mountains of newly declassified documents, the celebrated historian of national intelligence John Prados throws fresh light on classic agency operations from Poland to Hungary, from Indonesia to Iran-Contra, and from the Bay of Pigs to Guantánamo Bay. The halls of Langley, Prados persuasively argues, echo with the footsteps of past spymasters, to the extent that it resembles a haunted house. Indeed, every day that the militarization of the CIA increases, the agency drifts further away from classic arts of espionage and intelligence analysis—and its original mission, while pushing dangerously beyond accountability. The Ghosts of Langley will be essential reading for anyone who cares about the next phase of American history—and the CIA's evolution—as its past informs its future and a president of impulsive character prods the agency toward new scandals and failures.

The Ghosts of Langley is a provocative and panoramic new history of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) that tells the story of the Agency through the eyes of key figures in CIA history and its covert actions around the world. Drawing on a wealth of newly declassified documents, celebrated historian of intelligence John Prados throws fresh light on classic agency operations such as the Bay of Pigs, and discerns a disturbing continuum from the practice of covert actions from Iran in the 1950s, Chile and Vietnam in the 1970s, and Central America in the 1980s to the current secret wars in the Muslim world.
Prados delves into early Agency history to show that spy chief legends including Allen Dulles and Frank Wisner were masters of obfuscation who shielded the agency from government probing, to the extent that they have cast a ghostly shadow over their bureaucratic descendants. Thanks to these legendary spymasters, over the seven decades since its creation the CIA has slowly decoupled itself from government accountability, going rogue in a series of highly troubling and even criminal ventures that reach their tragic apotheosis with the secret overseas prisons and torture programs of the War on Terror.

Prologue: Ghosts in the machine
1. The house that Allen built
2. Zealots and schemers
3. Stars and meteors
4. Crisis
5. The consiglieri
6. The sheriffs
7. The headless horseman
8. A failed exorcist
9. Jacob Marley's ghosts
10. The Flying Dutchman.

2021-04-18