Customer Reviews

Crippled Eagle: A Historical Perspective

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Awesome job by the author--a review of the infighting during the development of US Spec Ops forces. He focuses on Delta's formation and their activities in the early 80's. Mostly info on operation Ricebowl (if you don't know--you should read this book) but other interesting stuff too.

This is an exceptionally useful book for those interested in the Carter administration's failed attempt to rescue the American hostages held in Iran in 1980 and the disaster of Desert One, especially valuable since it is written by one of the mission's Intelligence Officers. The book contains many new details about the mission which are unavailable elsewhere and provides an invaluable research source for scholars and those simply interested in what went wrong.

The book is written from a military standpoint and is perhaps too scathing of the State Department and CIA. One finds little appreciation for Secretary of State Cyrus Vance's efforts to release the hostages by peaceful means, for instance. This is arguably important since the negotiation channel turned out to be the option which was eventually successful in getting the hostages back. The author has some harsh words also for former CIA Director Stansfield Turner, who was able to provide relatively little by the way of human intelligence backup for the mission. But since most of the CIA's main operatives in Iran had been taken hostage in November 1979 along with the other captives, new resources had to be developed from scratch, so it is difficult to see how Turner could have done much more than he did. The bibliography at the back is also rather incomplete, citing only a few of the books which have been written on the same topic. Nevertheless, "Crippled Eagle" provides an excellent source of information about the rescue mission. It is also an especially useful account of the institutional rivalries and penny pinching which beset Delta Force, and special operations planning generally, during the planning for the rescue mission.