100 Books Like Threat on the Horizon

My line of work has only enhanced my fascination with spies and spying. Espionage was on the periphery of my world and I was privy, on occasion, to snippets of information that shed light on certain events. Reading this book was like being privy to a host of secrets, many during my own era. How fascinating to be taken through the history of espionage from biblical times until today. The author reveals missing pieces to many significant moments in history, where monumental decisions were made based on information bought and sold, died for, killed for, stolen, or extracted by torture or coercion. Equally fascinating is how so much of that information was misinterpreted, denied, ignored, inflated, or simply misplaced. Great battles were won and lost, kingdoms toppled, fortunes spent and made, often based on a single snippet of information.

I am fascinated by how different countries approach intelligence, both from how they organize intelligence activities and how intelligence informs policymaking. These various approaches highlight there is not a common approach to intelligence and help explain why simple definitions of intelligence are insufficient at capturing various intelligence activities and organizations. The Black Door looks at how British Prime Ministers have used intelligence and their relationships with intelligence organizations over the past century. A well-written account by two thoughtful and prolific scholars, the reader will appreciate how British Prime Ministers have used intelligence to not only understand the world but to also act.  

I think it is important to consider how leaders shape organizations and how the evolution of an organization might have been different under another person. To appreciate how/why intelligence organizations evolved we must appreciate the influence of intelligence leaders. For example, John Deutch and Stanfield Turner not only created tension within the CIA during their tenure, but their poor decisions affected the organization long after their departure. This edited volume looks at the personalities of U.S. and U.K. intelligence leaders and their influence on intelligence. Although the book touches on some of the more familiar names such as Wild Bill Donovan, its authors also explore lesser-known leaders whose influence on their organization and the broader community was significant. A must-read for anyone wanting to appreciate how individuals shape intelligence! I also encourage you to pick up volume 2 to learn about intelligence leaders throughout the world.

The relationship between intelligence and policy and how various countries employ intelligence organizations are two important topics that are not fully explored. Wagner’s book looks at the role played by British intelligence in Palestine during the interwar period---a role that went beyond what many consider intelligence functions. As Wagner explains, British intelligence not only informed policymakers’ thinking but was also involved in the execution of policy in the Palestinian territory during this period. This combined, no better yet intertwined, history of British policy and intelligence during this important period is something that intelligence and regional scholars should read. 

I read The Mission because it opened my eyes to the real story behind the headlines.

Weiner takes you inside CIA missions from the 21st century and shows what was happening behind the curtain while the public only saw the surface.

I was struck by how different the secret history looks compared to the official version. He makes you feel like you’re finally getting the account that no one saw at the time. For me, that transparency is incredibly powerful.

Is this the best book on the Agency, probably not. Is this a full history? No again. But it is the first book I bought and read on the Agency, and it kickstarted my passion for secrecy and covert action. I found the account, perhaps, a bit biased. There aren’t only failures in the history of the CIA, but the failures sure are many, and Weiner portrays them with accuracy and flair. The degree of access to participants is also exceptional, and I was drawn immediately into the Agency schemes.

How many failures can an Agency take? How can we reconcile secrecy with a democratic society? After reading the book, I felt like I did not have all the answers, but I certainly wanted to find out more. The book’s story ended in 2007, but a sequel is coming in 2025.

In 1960, a planned summit meeting in Paris between the US, the USSR, England, and France was suddenly jeopardized when an American U-2 spy plane was shot down over Russia and the pilot captured. Khrushchev demanded an end to the flights and an apology. President Eisenhower agreed to suspend flights until the end of his term (nine months later), but the Soviet leader angrily denounced the offer and returned to Moscow. Ironically, President Kennedy’s concern in 1962 about “another U-2 crisis” convinced him to suspend U-2 flights over Cuba—a pause that lasted from late August to early October. JFK did agree to authorize one flight over western Cuba in response to pressure from CIA director John McCone—and the missiles were luckily discovered just before they had become operational.

I love this book because I miss the days when people of great influence in America disagreed vociferously about important matters but remained good friends. Top State and Defense Department official Paul Nitze and legendary diplomat and writer George Kennan were the ying and yang of America’s post-World War II foreign policy–the former a brusque “hawk,” the latter a soft-spoken “dove.”

They battled in the halls of power and in public forums throughout the Cold War, each hoping to implant his views on U.S. foreign policy. Nitze lived to 97, Kennan to 101, and they were close pals to the very end. I wish we’d see more of that warm and friendly competition in Washington today.

In The Peacemaker, William Inboden draws on declassified materials, interviews with high-level government officials, and on Reagan’s personal diary to write the most thorough, fair, and scrupulously researched account of Reagan’s foreign policy and the successful end of the Cold War.

And he does this with such aplomb that his history reads like a novel. I worked in the US government in the 1980s and thought I knew Reagan’s foreign policy well, but I discovered much that was new and couldn’t put the book down.

The first of a two-book series by accomplished historian Richard Dolan, this volume explores a bizarre and mystifying phenomenon that has fascinated me since I was a young boy, and later inspired me to write my own sci-fi thriller. In his book, Dolan proves beyond doubt that the CIA, NSA, FBI, and the USAF held a far deeper interest in the subject than publicly stated, an interest that often bordered on fear when mysterious, intelligently controlled aircraft violated US-restricted airspace at will. And continue to do so. Well-researched and meticulously referenced, Dolan’s series should be enough to convince the die-hard sceptics that whatever is travelling across our skies, it is beyond our current understanding.