Customer Reviews

Spytime: Library Edition

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(8)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

William Buckley has in his later years developed a surprising talent for fiction, and he couldn't have picked a more intriguing subject to focus it on with this book than James Angleton. How does one portray a man like Angleton? The spy novel genre, as epitomized by writers like John Le Carre, tends towards heavily convoluted plots, language, and characterizations in the effort to force the literary vehicle itself into a representation of the dark and twisted ethos of espionage. And one might have expected Angleton, as the quintessential cold-war spymaster, to have inspired just such a brooding study. However, Buckley will have none of that with his book, and taking the opposite tack, he crafts his novel with the same crisp lucidity that animates his political commentary. Employing spare sentence structure, sprightly characterization and fast-paced narrative, he draws a portrait of Angleton that has nothing sinister or even particularly mysterious about it. The legendary CIA counterintelligence chief emerges from this as entirely human - flawed and quirky, but brilliant, loyal to friends and motivated by a sincere patriotism. Underlying the story, however, is a kind of sad commentary by Buckley on the tragic nature of espionage as a profession. Much like a good cop corrupted by the violence of a high-crime neighborhood, Angleton by the end of his career seems helpless against the pressures driving him into a paranoid pathology. Frustrated by his failures to detect genuine traitors in his own ranks, Angleton becomes suspicious of everyone and begins voicing reckless accusations. This being historical fiction, of course, we all know how the story ends. When the CIA comes under hostile scrutiny during the post-Watergate period, Angleton has few friends left able or willing to defend him from his detractors, and he is sacked from the Agency he had devoted his life to. In what must have been the bitterest of ironies for him, attacks on his own loyalty are among the charges that doom him. Buckley touches on all this only very lightly at the end of this short work, but the simple brushstrokes paint a poignant picture. Spytime is a very good book and I recommend it.

Ms. Jane Adams is off the mark on Spytime-in fact, I'm not sure we read the same book. The novel's well-written-as we expect: this is Buckley, after all, good at everything but sex descriptions (he writes of a woman's "malleable vulva"! , memorable phrasing, but, gosh!); it's nicely paced, an absorbing fictional portrait. Angleton's obsession with Kim Philby is not, as Ms. Adams has it, "the engine that drives Spytime." Rather the book starts at the moment of undoing which marks the end of Angleton's career, and which comes because his superiors feel a need to sacrifice someone to the Church Committee. The Fifth Man is on Angleton's mind at that moment-he believes he knows who it is. We then get a flashback tour of Angleton's career in counter-espionage, an important reminder of the Soviets' use of disinformation and misinformation against the US, and of the moves and counter-moves of the Cold War. Angleton's belief in the identity of the Fifth Man was a surprise to me, and I think it will be to most readers.

What Buckley does in this book, as in its predecessor Redhunter, is to tell the story of a flawed hero in an extraordinary time. These are not adventure stories like Day of the Jackal or Red Storm Rising, or the Blackford Oakes novels, but they are adventure stories nonetheless: unusual novels of the real people who helped shape and guide our country's life during the most dangerous period in history. If some of the excitement seems gone from these tellings, it's only because we think we know how the story ended. This is not a great book, nor one of Buckley's best (my list includes Unmaking of a Mayor; Cruising Speed; Stained Glass; Airborne, etc.--books which broke new ground); but it's an important book, a chronicle of a time unlike any other in history, and a very satisfying read. The oddest thing about it, given its grave subject matter, is that it's also a fun, fast read-I read it in a day-that lingers in the mind afterward. The only thing I wished when I put it down was that there was an epilogue, to tell me what happened to the people afterward. My CD edition of the Britannica doesn't give the rest of the story-perhaps Buckley can put that into the paperback edition.

I highly recommend it.

SPYTIME is a fictional story which covers such historical events as the Bay of Pigs Invasion, the Cuban Missile Crisis, the assassination of Mussolini and the capture of Che Guevara in Bolivia. Many of the book's characters are real. In spite of its title the novel is not a spy story in the traditional sense but is actually written more in the style of an expose of the inner workings of the CIA.

Jim Angleton remains in the background throughout much of the story while the bulk of the spy action is handled by his young protege, Tony Crespi, who is stationed in Beirut. Angleton's main obsession as Director of Counterintelligence is the search for the infamous Fifth Man who collaborated with Burgess, Maclean, Blunt and Philby.

SPYTIME is an intriguing book for anyone who is interested in the Cold War and the CIA. Buckley writes with some authority about these subjects. The novel's greatest weakness is its lack of suspense and the ending is also a bit of a dud.

A very decent book and an interesting read, but Buckley's
fictional account of some of Jim Angleton's anti-communist
work lacks enough detail to really prove engaging.
As a mystery, the story seems a little weak, but passable.
A more glaring omission is Buckley's usual detailed knowledge
and background, and we are allowed only the slightest insight
into Angleton's thinking and motivation. It's especially glaring here because the author has significant knowledge
of the events and eras covered, but he has chosen not to share
it with the reader.
Angleton was the CIA's Chief of Counterintelligence for 20
years, and he was one of the leading anti-communist fighters
of all time, and he devoted his life to that cause, and we
have to wish Buckley would have shared significantly more of
his insights and knowledge. Even in a fictionalized account,
the author could have easily added far more interesting details
and stories.
This work is barely an introduction to either the life and times
of the famous Angleton or to the enormous anti-communist
effort so many Westerners made for decades.
This is a book to read in between more serious pursuits.

Buckley is a major American writer, and his fiction is better than many give him credit for. However, I think he's overreached in "Spytime," which is an ungainly mix of history, an implausible spy potboiler, and a stab at identifying the legendary "fifth man" in Philby's circle.

The book feels as if Buckley just wants to write a silly spy novel. He could write a good one if he didn't force himself to include such an endless parade of historical characters, whose actions have to be at least plausibly reconciled with the facts. Countless heads of state, spymasters, and spies march across these pages without adding much to the leading characters or the plot.

At the end, Buckley makes an intriguing stab at the fifth man. I think he's been nursing this theory for a while and wrote the book in order to publicize it. I wish he had just told us flat out, and then written the novel he wanted to write.

In my opinion, Robert Littell's: The Company: A Novel of the CIA is the definitive fictional account of James Jesus Angleton.

It captures the EXTREME nuances of Counter-Intelligence.

If counter intelligence requires the ability to connect disparate, sometimes non-obvious scraps of information, and to relate them to what has gone before in history, all to nourish some important insight, then the same qualities are called upon to make sense of the pieces of this book, which gets me to my fractal characterization.
Angleton, the guy who ends up staying too long at the spy party--so to speak--seems to be another incarnation of the "Rufus" character from prior Buckley spy books.
John Kennedy is portrayed as guessing about the percentage of U.S. nuclear throw-weight concentrated in Turkey, which is a nice touch.
Crespi seems like a character who should have been killed, perhaps along with the Russian woman counterspy. Perhaps Angleton could also have been done away with, the earlier the better, to spare us his diary recounting of his sexual encounters. Earth-to-Buckley: stop writing sex scenes. Get a co-author for that if you must, but please stop, you make yourself look silly for no purpose.
3 stars are awarded to this fractal jumble because it does move right along, and for the Lebanon scenes.

I am looking forward to reading the Mangold biography. As fiction Buckley's work is below par. I had expected more from him, the scholar that he is. This book pretends to clear Angleton,when it doesn't present enough factual detail to do this. Then it ends on a surprise note, accusing his superior without presenting any facts. Fiction can do more than simply tell or dramatize a story. I believe Harlot's Ghost by Norman Mailer, though not complete, does a better job covering some of this same information. Admittedly the latter requires a sequel to finish the job.

Mr. Buckley writes at a level of consistent excellence that few other Authors achieve even once. Often criticized for the use of words many find arcane, if they have a decent vocabulary of their own, or too long for those who articulate poorly, Mr. Buckley's writing and his spoken thoughts may require a bit more effort, but you are well rewarded for it. As with many petty complaints it is an issue of size, his lexicon is infinite to most, while the detractor's are brief, short, diminutive.

With a dictionary at hand "Spytime" is one of the better works of fiction Mr. Buckley has written. The same title in the hands of others would lead the reader on some chaotic hunt, a race against the clock to save the world yet again from a sort of super weapon, mechanical or biologic. The hero would of course find the vital clue by holding the last piece of writing of a German Corporal up to a mirror, having absconded with the relic from the mantle of Saddam, and enter, speak, sign, or write in the sand the solution to mankind's continued survival. Lest you think I jest check out the "Political Thriller" area of your bookstore.

Mr. Buckley resorts to history and the people who made it, in this case James Jesus Angleton, to deliver thought provoking historical fiction that does not require 007 toys, or pages of empty-headed sexual gymnastics to engage the reader. Mr. Buckley writes for your mind not your Libido, and by so doing demonstrates his hope that there are still readers who appreciate the fine craft of writing as opposed to the scribblers who have been published to fill ever-expanding book superstores.

All the elements are here and they are part of a whole, not some gee-whiz look behind the door contrivance after 300 pages of rubbish.

Philby, MacLean, Burgess, and Kennedy times two, Castro, Mussolini, Khrushchev, Churchill, President Truman to President Carter, and all Presidents in between, are a sampling of those who play a role in this book. Too many, too much, too confusing?, not for a moment.

Mr. Buckley presents the reader with a story, and while a bit of thought enhances the experience, and some knowledge of History is required, to pass this book by for lesser fare is to do yourself an injustice.

Many reviewers lament plots that cannot keep themselves in sequence, suffer from historical dementia, lack or need an editor, and someone who can spell. Those people need not worry with this work.

This book asks for your time and rewards that most valuable commodity most generously.

I do not believe that William F. Buckley, Jr. wrote this book. He may have given an outline to someone and consulted on the background and the plot, but he would never have made the gross errors that occur. Since I am certain that the ghost writer was a woman, let me call her Mable. Mable has no idea what punctuation is for (go to any page and look where commas are used and not used). Her vocabualary is weak and she is too lazy to comfirm the meaning of a foreign word. On p. 67, our protagonist rides "in a special armed car." Ah, you may say, that was merely a slip of the pen. What about "like as if" on p. 85; in 1962, no one used that kind of degenerate grammar. Later a character says "It scared the govno out of me." We don't need a Russian dictionary to guess the meaning of govno, but Mable not only incorrectly idenfities it as a vulgar sexual word, but makes her male character so prissy that he must spell it out rather than say it. On pp. 135-6 we have a dinner that features a 13-year old French Burgundy - a bit long to keep a pinot noir, but let that go - and jalapeño peppers. I doubt that we would find this combination on Mr. Buckley's table. How can I be sure that the author was female? Consider: the male characters have an adolescent, romanticized, and idealized view of women, while the women are either prostitutes or opportunists. Only a woman would be so naive about men and so cynical about women. There is another possibility: perhaps Mr. Buckley meant to write a satire on the many half-educated, lazy writers of the current generation. That would explain why he thanked his editor for his usual wonderful work on a story that seems to have been unread by any editor. In spite of its many faults, the story was so engrossing that I read it to the end.