Cloak and Dollar: A History of American Secret Intelligence [Hardcover]

Professor Rhodri Jeffreys-Jones (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 1, 2002

organizations almost from the outset. Allan Pinkerton, whose nineteenth-century detective agency was the forerunner of modern intelligence bureaus, invented assassination plots and fomented anti-radical fears in order to demonstrate his own usefulness. Subsequent spymasters likewise invented or exaggerated a succession of menaces ranging from white slavery to Soviet espionage to digital encryption in order to build their intelligence agencies and, later, to defend their ever-expanding budgets. While American intelligence agencies have achieved some notable successes, Jeffreys-Jones argues, the intelligence community as a whole has suffered from a dangerous distortion of mission. By exaggerating threats such as Communist infiltration and Chinese espionage at the expense of other, more intractable problems-such as the narcotics trade and the danger of terrorist attack-intelligence agencies have misdirected resources and undermined their own objectivity. Since the end of the Cold War, the aims of American secret intelligence have been unclear. Recent events have raised serious questions about effectiveness of foreign intelligence, and yet the CIA and other intelligence agencies are poised for even greater expansion under the current administration. Offering a lucid assessment of the origins and evolution of American secret intelligence, Jeffreys-Jones asks us to think also about the future direction of our intelligence agencies.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Jeffreys-Jones, professor of American history at the University of Edinburgh, offers an anecdotal history of American intelligence from the era of George Washington to that of George W. Bush. This history is replete with provocative characters (Allan Pinkerton, J. Edgar Hoover) and covers a multitude of incidents, many notorious in their day, from the Zimmerman telegram of WWI to the Cuban missile crisis. The author sees all these people and events as connected by a single theme: a strain of hucksterism "smooth talk, hyperbole, deception" pervading U.S. intelligence efforts. For Jeffreys-Jones (The CIA and American Democracy), a leading authority on the history of American intelligence, the leaders of American intelligence have regularly "sheltered behind the veil of secrecy so vital to the promotion of false alarms and invented menaces." One example of this "con man" mentality is a tendency to reward failure. When intelligence agencies miss an important development, the upshot is a successful pitch for more money, more technology and more agents (this should sound familiar to post-9/11 ears). For Jeffreys-Jones, U.S. intelligence has chronically hyped its accomplishments and concealed its many failures, misleading the American people more often than it has baffled foreign enemies. The author's persistent invocation of the "con man" theme may actually do the book a disservice, opening the door to accusations of unfair exclusion of evidence contrary to the book's thesis. In fact, Jeffreys-Jones cites numerous instances of unobtrusive success by U.S. intelligence agencies, such as the breaking of Japanese codes in WWII. This account is more balanced in its content than the author's rhetoric might lead you to believe.

Review

. . . .[O]ffers some badly needed historical perspective to current debates. . . . Sobering and insightful . . . . -- Elisabeth H. Piedmont-Marton, Texas Observer

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 384 pages
• Publisher: Yale University Press; 2nd edition (March 1, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0300074743
• ISBN-13: 978-0300074741
• Product Dimensions: 9.6 x 6.5 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.5 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 1.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,565,439 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Amazingly bad, November 25, 2004

By 

Roberto Macías "El Robert" (Offenau, Deutschland) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Cloak and Dollar: A History of American Secret Intelligence (Hardcover)

As I've mentioned in other books, the secret services history is far from simple. The author manages to make it unnerving to read. Not because of facts presented but because there's no sequence, no effort to write the book adequately. He goes un using exaggerted words, which come out of context with the book.
It is as if a highschool student wanted to make a display of his extense vocabulary, grabbed words out of a dictionary and made a great example of not knowing how to use them. The book is also too opinionated. It is leading you to the author's opinion, he leads on a battle without backing, to direct you to think that secret services are over funded, still filled with a seemingly patriotic belief in their good intentions.
On the whole, the author set on an ambitious idea of writing a book, tried to fit anectotic facts with hard history and set his opinions, and managed to make a hideous menage. There are better books on the subject, and I wouldn't recommend it.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Sloppy Research, April 30, 2009

By 

Alexander Rea (Mt. Carmel, PA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Cloak and Dollar: A History of American Secret Intelligence (Paperback)

I consulted this book to see what this British author had to say about Allan Pinkerton, founder of the Pinkerton Detective Agency and the forerunner of the Secret Service during the U.S. Civil War. The author's brief account of Pinkerton's "Molly Maguires" investigation was shockingly inaccurate and misleading. This book is an embarrassment for Yale University Press.

2.0 out of 5 stars embarrassment for Yale University Press, February 28, 2011

By 

W. Frederick Zimmerman "W. Frederick Zimmerman" (Ann Arbor, Michigan, USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Cloak and Dollar: A History of American Secret Intelligence (Hardcover)

I was pleasantly surprised to find that all the other reviews agree with my estimation, which is that this is a superficially researched, ahistoric polemic. There are a few nuggets of interest here, and the overall thesis -- beware of entrepreneurial confidence men -- is not a bad one, even though it is drowned out by modern bureaucracy, applies in all walks of life and applies just as well to Julian Assange as to the Iraq WMD's "Curveball." But really, not up to the standards of Yale University Press.