The Secret Team: The CIA and Its Allies in Control of the United States and the World [Paperback]

L. Fletcher Prouty (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 17, 2008 | ISBN-10: 1602392293 | ISBN-13: 978-1602392298

"L. Fletcher Prouty is a man whose name will go down in history."—Oliver Stone

The Secret Team, L. Fletcher Prouty's CIA exposé, was first published in the 1970s, but virtually all copies of the book disappeared upon distribution, purchased en masse by shady "private buyers." Certainly Prouty's amazing allegations—that the U-2 Crisis of 1960 was fixed to sabotage Eisenhower-Khrushchev talks, and that President Kennedy was assassinated to keep the U.S., and its defense budget, in Vietnam—cannot have pleased the CIA. Though suppressed (until now), The Secret Team was an important influence for Oliver Stone's Academy Award-winning film JFK and countless other works on U.S. government conspiracies, and it raises the same crucial question today that it did on its first appearance: who, in fact, is in control of the United States and the world?

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

L. Fletcher Prouty (1917–2001), a retired colonel of the U.S. Air Force, served as the chief of special operations for the Joint Chiefs of Staff during the Kennedy years. He was directly in charge of the global system designed to provide military support for the clandestine activities of the CIA. He was also the author of The Secret Team: The CIA and Its Allies.

Product Details

• Paperback: 480 pages
• Publisher: Skyhorse Publishing (April 17, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1602392293
• ISBN-13: 978-1602392298
• Product Dimensions: 8.1 x 5.2 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.3 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (17 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #256,434 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

L. Fletcher Prouty (1917-2001), a retired colonel of the U.S. Air Force, served as the chief of special operations for the Joint Chiefs of Staff during the Kennedy years. He was directly in charge of the global system designed to provide military support for the clandestine activities of the CIA. He was the author of JFK: The CIA, Vietnam, and the Plot to Assassinate John F. Kennedy and The Secret Team: The CIA and Its Allies.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

32 of 32 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A symbol of sinister and mysterious foreign intrigue (H. Truman), November 30, 2008

By 

Luc REYNAERT (Beernem, Belgium) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Secret Team: The CIA and Its Allies in Control of the United States and the World (Paperback)

This is an extremely important book. The proof of it is that even the official copy in the Library of Congress disappeared (!). Moreover, even after his death, the author continues to be the object of a smear campaign (see internet).

His book is not less than a frontal attack on US intelligence and concomitantly on those who control it.
Its portrait of Allen Dulles, a longtime intelligence director, says it all: `I am a lawyer'; in other words, a servant. But of whom?
This book unveils the existence of a secret cabal, a Power Elite (G. William Domhoff), a `deep State' (P.D. Scott) within the US and its government as well as in about 40 host countries.
This Power Elite uses the Secret Team of top intelligence and military commanders as its long arm and protects it. Together they stand above the law and the democratic process. They get things done, whether they have the political authorization or not.
They dispose of a vast undercover political, military, intelligence, business, media and academic infrastructure, in the US as well as worldwide. They don't respect the nation State and are able to create, to influence and to topple governments in the hemisphere controlled by them.

The author gives a remarkable insight into the inner workings, the logistics, the strategies and the tactics of the intelligence agency. Its creation and history show that President H. Truman never intended to create an autonomous operational agency in the clandestine field. L.F. Prouty also gives valuable information about the U2- G. Powers incident (apparently to torpedo the US/USSR peace talks) and the Pentagon papers (an intelligence whitewash).

At the end, the author poses the all important question: `Can any President ever be strong enough really to rule?'

This book is a must read for all those interested in US history and for all those who want to understand the world we live in.

For more information on the Power Elite, I recommend the works of O. Tunander, D. Estulin, Peter Dale Scott, Carroll Quigley, Gary Allen and G. W. Domhoff.

85 of 97 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars An Ill-Advised Rewrite of the Best Book Ever, May 11, 2008

By 

Peter Hill - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: The Secret Team: The CIA and Its Allies in Control of the United States and the World (Paperback)

I've been a devout student of Fletcher Prouty for fifteen years. Fletcher Prouty is a hero almost beyond measure in clandestine American history. 'The Secret Team' is and always will be one of the most important books of all time. However, this version is actually a slight rewrite from the original Prentice-Hall/ICHS version; and the incidental changes that have been added to this flawless American classic, I'm sorry to say, make it weaker, not stronger. I'm not saying people shouldn't read Fletcher Prouty; just understand that if you want the original book -- the real Coke rather than the new Coke -- you want to avoid this printing, even though it's available, and even though it's cheap. Some classics are better left alone, and this is one of them.

22 of 22 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An Insider's Candid Expose' of the National Security Welfare-Warfare State, April 30, 2008

By 

anarchteacher (United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Secret Team: The CIA and Its Allies in Control of the United States and the World (Paperback)

As in the case of the brilliant Jules Archer volume, The Plot To Seize The White House, it is terrific to have this masterful study of the inner workings of the early CIA back in print after so many years of unavailability.

Skyhorse Publishing is to be commended in seeing to it that both of these crucial works are again available to the attentive reading public who want to know the truth concerning our dark hidden history that the government has so actively strived to keep buried.

The late Colonel L. Fletcher Prouty served as chief of special operations for the Joint Chiefs of Staff where he was in charge of the global system designed to provide military support for covert activities of the Central Intelligence Agency.

In Oliver Stone's highly acclaimed film on the assassination of President John Fitzgerald Kennedy, JFK, the mysterious character "X" portrayed by Donald Sutherland was in fact Colonel Prouty, who assisted director Stone in the production and scripting of this historical epic. Prouty had relayed the shocking information detailed in the movie to the actual New Orleans District Attorney Jim Garrison, played by Kevin Cosner, in a series of communiques.

The Secret Team was first published in 1973 during the Watergate scandal, when many Americans were first learning about the dark side of covert government, an outlaw executive branch headed by a renegade chief of state. Richard Nixon would not be the last of this foul breed.

This was years before Frank Church's Senate Committee's damning revelations of CIA misdeeds and assassination plots against foreign leaders rocked the nation.

In each chapter in his book, Prouty speaks frankly with an insiders knowledge of what he describes as the inner workings of "the Secret Team."

This prudential judgment and keen assessment of the National Security Establishment was gained from years as a behind-the-scenes seasoned professional in military intelligence working intimately with those of the highest rank in policy making and implimentation.

The important story Prouty boldly tells should be read by every reflective American.