Reviewed by jamiereadthis on
It made me sick to my stomach, and that’s a tough thing to do.
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- 22 August, 2019: Reviewed
Company Man
by John Rizzo
From a former top-level insider - whom the Los Angeles Times has called `the most influential career lawyer in CIA history' - comes an unprecedented memoir filled with revelatory stories about the US government's intelligence program.
In 1975, fresh out of law school and working in a mind-numbing job at the US Treasury, John Rizzo took `a total shot in the dark' and sent his resume to the Central Intelligence Agency. He had no notion that, more than 30 years later, he would become a notorious public figure - both a symbol and a victim of the toxic winds swirling in post-9/11 Washington.
From approving the rules that governed waterboarding and other `enhanced interrogation techniques' to serving as the CIA's spokesperson during the Iran-Contra scandal, Rizzo witnessed and participated in virtually all of the significant operations of the CIA's modern history. He was the agency's top lawyer in the years after the 9/11 attacks, and oversaw actions that remain the subject of intense debate today.
In Company Man, Rizzo charts the CIA's evolution over the course of his career, and offers a direct window into the organisation during some of its biggest controversies. In doing so, he has produced the most comprehensive insider account of the CIA ever written - a groundbreaking, timely, and remarkable personal history of American intelligence.
It made me sick to my stomach, and that’s a tough thing to do.