Customer Reviews

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

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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.

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.

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.

If you want to know about "Black Ops", who really killed JFK and why, why Vietnam was a trumped up war for profit and why we should have never been there, this is the man to read - L. Fletcher Prouty. He was the USAF colonel who was the liaison between the Pentagon and Black Ops from WW2 on until after JFK was killed. He also got his hands dirty on site in Greece and a few other places so he knows too well what he's talking about. If he talks about black ops, politics, the C.I.A. and anything related-----listen carefully-----this is the "horses' mouth". It's long, even in paperback, and very detailed but that's exactly what you want in a book like this-----the real detailed truth. Highly recommended.

This book was great in explaining how the CIA has grown into the monster it has become. Instead of being an intelligence gathering agency as designed, the CIA has grown into a manipulative arm of the government. The scary thing that Prouty emphasizes is that they are not regulated nor held accountable, unlike other government agencies. You may think that this is needed today, with the war on terror. However, you will see by reading this book that the war on terror is in fact manufactured, much like the war in Vietnam was made to happen by the CIA.

Please also check out Prouty's book on JFK. I liked that book even more!

I bought this book foolishly without reading any of the reviews on the reprint edition. Big Mistake. It has been edited and redacted to death. Don't waste your money. I guess some of the good reviews are for the original edition so make sure of what you are getting.
Luckily the my seller understood the problem and gave me a choice of another of her books.

After reading the Secret Team a persons view of the world and who is actually at the reigns changes tremendously. This book is a must read for anyone who studies politics. Prouty reveals a dark and sinister world of false flag operations, swaying political views and reveals how the CIA and its allies control the US and the World. Put this together with a study of Political Ponerology and unmask the reality that has been creeping into US politics for decades!

What does it mean when we say " the CIA did such and such an action"? Just what is the CIA, a whole or a part? Given its emphasis on compartmentalization, is it accurate to say "the CIA was heavily involved in the JFK assassination" or would it be more accurate to say parts of the CIA were? Moreover, who is the CIA, and what are the powers behind it? Also, perhaps most importantly, what were the relations between the CIA and other parts of government, and how and when did these relationships change and evolve. Were these changes done democratically or secretly. These last two questions are the essence of this book. Yes, it is true as one reviewer noted, this book could have used an editor. Some times it has the feel of a collection of speeches, but not always. So why the five instead of 4. The subject matter-- in particular the last two questions typed above-- are just too rarely mentioned and discussed. This book really helps us understand the curiously evolving nervous system of the CIA btw 1947 and 1963, as very very few other books do. It sees the inception of the CIA in 1947 as just the first step, and makes it clear that later developments were neither willed nor pre-ordained by many of the elected officials who wrote the National Security Act of 1947.

The only other book that really addresses this BETWEEN WORLD--i.e. between CIA and other government agencies is one of the Three most important books published in the last 50 years IMO. Thy Will Be Done: Nelson Rockefeller, Evangelism, and the Conquest of the Amazon In the Age of OIl by Colby and Dennett.Thy Will Be Done: The Conquest of the Amazon : Nelson Rockefeller and Evangelism in the Age of Oil

Still there is one book I recommend even more than that one. This is not the current Gold Standard merely for all current JFK research. It is far more than that; it is the Gold Standard for all US Cold War History Research. JFK and the Unspeakable: Why He Died and Why It Matters by James W. Douglass. This book is so important because it is not merely who done it but why done it. It is a book that mixes how and why of JFK and those crucial-because-contestable Cold War years 1960-63 like no other.JFK and the Unspeakable: Why He Died and Why It Matters

Of the books I have read about CIA this is defenitely the most scary and gives an unbelievable amount of the many ways they have controled usa, and the rest of the world. Why do we do this, why are we always pretending we have so many enemies that we need to build up and use all the money in government to create and build weapons, bombs, drones and god knows what.
Read this book and learn the secrets so carefully hidden from us.

This is a very well written book and very informative concerning the CIA. If you are the type of person that likes to read about spying and secret operations that is not put out to the general public, this is the book for you.