Know Thine Enemy: A Spy's Journey into Revolutionary Iran [Hardcover]

Edward Shirley (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 1997

Stealing across the border of Iran, a former spy for the CIA offers a portrait of contemporary Iran and a look inside the Iranian character, tracing particularly the country's growing disenchantment with Islamic dogma.

Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal

Developments in U.S.-Iranian relations since the overthrow of the pro-Western monarchy in 1979 have made it increasingly difficult for the two erstwhile allies to maintain a working relationship. Consequently, official American views of Iran are heavily influenced by misperceptions about the political and social forces operating in Iran today. This fascinating and entertaining book by a former member of the CIA's clandestine service is part travelog, part analysis of the dynamics of contemporary Iranian society. Shirley (a pseudonym) was smuggled into Iran by a native, and he here chronicles his clandestine journey, including his encounters and candid discussions with ordinary Iranians. The reader gets a different picture of Iranians than the distorted portrayals routinely found in the mass media and official pronouncements. Recommended for both general and informed lay readers.?Nader Entessar, Spring Hill Coll., Mobile, Ala.
Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist

Shirley says he left the employ of the CIA before sneaking into Iran in 1994, so this is, more accurately, an ex-spy's journey. Although his old bosses, whom Shirley regards as time-serving incompetents, occasionally enter the stage, the main actors are the half dozen Persian personalities Shirley encounters on his brief, high-tension trip. Inside a concealed compartment of a truck, Shirley smuggled himself across the Turkish-Iranian border and made his way to Tabriz and Tehran. He was driven and guided by Hosein, from Iranian Azerbaijan, and met Hosein's various friends and relatives. In between expressive observations on Persian customs, mannerisms, and attitudes toward himself as an American, Shirley posits apt meditations about Persian and Shiite history, which all combine into an unusually interesting travelogue. Exotica are part of the attraction, but the undertone of furtive movement and danger of exposure seals the reading deal. Well written besides, this a remarkable and rare glimpse into the opinions of ordinary Iranians about the U.S. and the theocracy they live under. Gilbert Taylor

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 247 pages
• Publisher: Farrar Straus & Giroux (T); 1st edition (May 1997)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0374182191
• ISBN-13: 978-0374182199
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6.2 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 2.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (10 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,057,166 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Pretty good yarn, August 1, 2009

By 

D. Hodges (Washington, DC) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Know Thine Enemy: A Spy's Journey Into Revolutionary Iran (Paperback)

"Know Thine Enemy: A Spy's Journey Into Revolutionary Iran" has a misleading subtitle. It really should be called "A Former Spy's Journey Into Post-Revolutionary Iran." That criticism aside, however, this fictionalized account of former CIA case officer Reuel Marc Gerecht's (writing under the pen name Edward Shirley) real-life travel in Iran is a very good book. I can't think of other authors, aside from Robert Kaplan, who deftly weave history and international relations (like the Safavid dynasty's legacy to the modern Middle East) as well as Gerecht does here.

Replete with history, criticism of the CIA, and musings on espionage, Gerecht takes the reader from the Turkish border all the way to Tehran. Although the book is more of a travelogue than a plot-driven story, Gerecht manages to keep the reader entertained with a sharp writing style and highly-informed narrative. Among the best parts of the book are Gerecht's observations on his former profession and the peculiar task for him to use his knowledge of a country he loves to gets its people to betray their government.

Recommended.

8 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Mostly Laughable, April 23, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Know Thine Enemy: A Spy's Journey into Revolutionary Iran (Hardcover)

Mr. "Shirley" (whose identity is now well known) was not quite as high in the CIA's Iran section as he implies, and almost all of what he learnt in Iran was already well known and widely reported. One wonders why he didn't just get a visa and travel there like all the other tourists who visit that country regularly.

14 of 23 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Separating myth from reality, March 9, 2001

By 

D. Mark Blanchard (utah) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Know Thine Enemy: A Spy's Journey Into Revolutionary Iran (Paperback)

I have read Mr. Shirley's Know Thine Enemy, an accomplishment that seems to separate me from the the four or five other recent reviewers of this book.

In fact, those other reviews (mostly unsigned) so obviously miss the point of the book that one wonders if they were not actually written by the shills of a certain three letter government Agency who was skewered so mercilessly by Mr. Shirley in his recent Atlantic cover article and forthcoming book. Since representatives of that same Agency have been quoted as saying they'll 'get' Mr. Shirley for daring to reveal that the Emperor has no clothes, I wouldn't put those reviews past them. Lord knows they were poorly-written enough to have been crafted in the halls of Langley.

But let's stick to the book itself, shall we? In my opinion, it's a neat little gem and it provides a fascinating insight into a foreign culture, one vastly different from the world that the American Mr. Shirley was born into. The author's journey into Iran gives us a peek behind the forebidden curtain of that Great and Powerful Iranian Oz, so that we can see the harmless little old man back there pulling levers. As a result, it's an anti-Bond kind of book and it does not have a spooky ending. That's the whole point, of course, and it's a wonder to me that most of the other reviewers seem to have missed it.

For example, several of these shill reviews ask 'Why didn't Mr. Shirley simply buy a plane ticket to Iran instead of sneaking in in the floorboards of a truck?' The answer is found in the book, of course (as are the answers to all of their other off-the-point and uninformed criticisms). At the time Shirely went in (years ago) it wasn't possible for gringos like himself, especially gringos KNOWN to Iranian Intel as CIA agents, to fly into Iran. He had to sneak in if he wanted to see the country that he had studied for so long from a distance. Now things are different, but they weren't back then and as a result those shill reviewers are essentially saying, 'Gee Gary Powers, why risk getting shot down in a U2 in 1960 when any dummy can fly into Moscow today and hire all the cheap vodka-drinking hookers he wants?"

Things change and only when they change do we find out that our prejudicial attitudes were often in error. That's Mr. Shirley's point and it's not so hard to figure out from the book itself unless your real purpose is to discredit the author with cheap, inaccurate shots. It's certainly the point that any real reader without a frontal lobotomy will get because Mr. Shirley FULLY DESCRIBES what a big joke all his 'penetrate the forbidden city' preparations were proven to be when he gets inside Iran. He tells you how the Iranian people welcome him with a no big deal shrug of their shoulders. It's just the purposefully-paranoid-so-it-can-perpetuate-its-own-existence CIA who taught him to fear what lay behind the Persian Curtain. To miss that point, in this very well written book, is to be either an adipated, humorless drone or a CIA employee, or both.

No, I take that back. It's impossible to be EITHER an adipated humorless drone OR a CIA employee. If you're one, odds are you're already both.