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The Devil's Chessboard: Allen Dulles, the CIA, and the Rise of America's Secret Government Paperback – Unabridged, September 6, 2016

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An explosive, headline-making portrait of Allen Dulles, the man who transformed the CIA into the most powerful—and secretive—colossus in Washington, from the founder of Salon.com and author of the New York Times bestseller Brothers.

America’s greatest untold story: the United States’ rise to world dominance under the guile of Allen Welsh Dulles, the longest-serving director of the CIA. Drawing on revelatory new materials—including newly discovered U.S. government documents, U.S. and European intelligence sources, the personal correspondence and journals of Allen Dulles’s wife and mistress, and exclusive interviews with the children of prominent CIA officials—Talbot reveals the underside of one of America’s most powerful and influential figures.

Dulles’s decade as the director of the CIA—which he used to further his public and private agendas—were dark times in American politics. Calling himself “the secretary of state of unfriendly countries,” Dulles saw himself as above the elected law, manipulating and subverting American presidents in the pursuit of his personal interests and those of the wealthy elite he counted as his friends and clients—colluding with Nazi-controlled cartels, German war criminals, and Mafiosi in the process. Targeting foreign leaders for assassination and overthrowing nationalist governments not in line with his political aims, Dulles employed those same tactics to further his goals at home, Talbot charges, offering shocking new evidence in the assassination of President John F. Kennedy.

An exposé of American power that is as disturbing as it is timely, The Devil’s Chessboard is a provocative and gripping story of the rise of the national security state—and the battle for America’s soul.


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Editorial Reviews

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“A Cold War villain of realpolitik whose successes and blunders were unrivaled. As framed by Talbot, Dulles’s extra-legal interventions, coups, slush funds, and ex-Nazi collaborations were as much pro-corporate as anti-Communist, more Cheneyish than Nixonian.... He’d fit right into our globalized, subcontracted, and hypersurveilled era.” — New York Magazine

“Dulles is unmasked as the backstage manipulator of US policy (foreign and domestic) from the Cold War up to his skillful defense of the highly suspect Warren Commission report. Those who scoff at conspiracy theories might have a change of mind after reading this book.” — Boston Globe, Pick of the Week

“A frightening biography of power, manipulation, and outright treason…The story of Allen Dulles and the power elite that ran Washington, D.C., following World War II is the stuff of spy fiction…All engaged American citizens should read this book and have their eyes opened.” — Kirkus, starred review

“A damning biography―of the CIA’s longest standing director―and an exposé of American politics…. One would be hard pressed to find a book that is better at evoking the strange and apocalyptic atmospherics of the early Cold War years in America.... Neither le Carré nor Graham Greene could do any better.” — Daily Beast

“Offers a portrait of a black-and-white Cold War-era world full of spy games and nuclear brinkmanship.” — Mother Jones

“This year’s best spy thriller isn’t fiction ― it’s history…. By the time ‘The Devil’s Chessboard’ eventually climaxes with the events that unfolded in Dallas in 1963, Talbot’s argument that Dulles had both the power and temperament to execute such a plot is more than believable.” — Salon

“A chilling psychological depiction.... The vast surveillance system so dramatically revealed to the world by Edward Snowden could never have come to pass without the culture of fanatical secrecy and habitual lawlessness handed down by Dulles and his loyal agents.” — Justyn Dillingham, Bookslut.com

“This aptly titled book portrays Allen Dulles as the dark prince of the Cold War who manipulated the media, deceived presidents, helped stir up coups... [and might] have been involved in Kennedy’s assassination. Readers who enjoy espionage’s dark history will have a tough time putting this book down.” — Library Journal

“Essential reading, especially for readers with even a passing interest in post-WW2 U.S. foreign policy.” — CounterPunch

From the Back Cover

America’s greatest untold story: the United States’ rise to world dominance under the guile of Allen Welsh Dulles, the longest-serving director of the CIA. Drawing on revelatory new materials, David Talbot exposes the underside of one of America’s most influential figures. The Devil’s Chessboard tells the timely, provocative, and gripping story of the rise of the national security state—and the battle for America’s soul.

Product details

  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ Harper Perennial; Reprint edition (September 6, 2016)
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • Paperback ‏ : ‎ 720 pages
  • ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0062276174
  • ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0062276179
  • Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 1.61 pounds
  • Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 6 x 1.44 x 9 inches
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.6 out of 5 stars 3,970

About the author

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David Talbot
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David Talbot is the New York Times-bestselling author of "The Devil's Chessboard: Allen Dulles, the CIA and the Rise of America's Secret Government" and "Brothers: The Hidden History of the Kennedy Years," as well as the national bestseller "Season of the Witch." His most recent book, "By the Light of Burning Dreams: The Triumphs and Tragedies of the Second American Revolution," chronicles dramatic turning (and learning) points in the lives of 1960s and '70s radical leaders. Jessica Bruder, author of "Nomadland," wrote that the book "crackles with the radical energy of the 1960s and ’70s. It’s a shot in the arm of bold idealism, an indispensable companion for today’s revolutionaries that reminds us what can happen if we dare to believe in—and fight for—a better world.”

Talbot coauthored "By the Light of Burning Dreams" with his sister Margaret Talbot, a staff writer at The New Yorker and author of "The Entertainer," a memoir about their actor father Lyle Talbot and the golden age of Hollywood.

Before starting his career as a popular historian, Talbot founded and edited Salon, the pioneering online publication, and worked as a senior editor for Mother Jones magazine. His articles have appeared in The New Yorker, Rolling Stone, Time, the Washington Post, the Guardian and numerous other publications, and he was a columnist for the San Francisco Chronicle. He is married to author Camille Peri, who is writing a dual biography of Fanny and Robert Louis Stevenson. Their oldest son, Joe Talbot, directed the widely praised film, "The Last Black Man in San Francisco," which won him the Best Director Award at the 2019 Sundance Film Festival.

Customer reviews

4.6 out of 5 stars
4.6 out of 5
3,970 global ratings
Extremely good book. Informative for those who know nothing as ...
5 Stars
Extremely good book. Informative for those who know nothing as ...
Extremely good book. Informative for those who know nothing as well as for those who know a lot. Very well-written. Don't let Allen Dulles be right about YOU. He said about the Warren Commission Report... don't worry. Nobody in this country reads anything. (or words to that effect) smug bastard who deserves to be read about!
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Top reviews from the United States

Reviewed in the United States on November 12, 2015
After reading the unassailable 'JFK and the Unspeakable' i was waiting for the next part of the puzzle on the JFK establishment assassination and David Talbot has provided this. James Douglass's v important book had already indicated Dulles to be the Mastermind. Talbot's book provides the detail and background and is absolutely riveting reading, not just for what it tells us about the origins of the Secret Government of the elite in the US, but why the world has been such a mess over the past decades. Also for what it says about the rise of the relationship between intell and the corporate world & how this threatens our freedoms (today exposed by Edward Snowden). At its heart, this book is about the face off over American democracy that took place between JFK and Allen Dulles (and initially also his brother Foster). The world today, and the problems of the 1% etc and US corporate domination culminating in the Koch brothers, the military industrial complex and 'citizens united' have their roots in the story Talbot gives us. The book begins with Dulle's appalling treachery in cutting deals with the Nazis during and after WW2 against the desire & policy of 'unconditional surrender' of FDR.. He then analyses the mad hell bent desire for Cold War domination by Dulles and his security / intell / corporate clique, including such 'hallowed' institutions such as the Council on Foreign Relations, and the Dean of Columbia (who was also Chairing Endowements etc that were really CIA funding fronts) plus the Rockefellers etc. He takes us through the series of appalling coups engineered by the CIA to topple democratically elected governments in Iran, Guatemala, Congo (the list goes on, interminably). Where-ever the CIA has gone in, chaos, un-ending war and terror has been the result, for innocent men, women and children. When one reads of the CIA bomb and death squads one appreciates how todays world could have been a peaceable place, had the FD Roosevelt / JFK view prevailed in supporting first 'unconditional surrender' of the Nazi's (rather than their reinstatement as orchestrated by Dulles who had one eye of the corporate profits of his old firm, Sullivan and Cromwell and their associates), and later freedom and self determination during the decolonisation process across the globe as envisaged by JFK. This book is a masterpiece of research, and is properly grounded in the literature and cross referenced material. It reads like a thriller and is deeply shocking. The book helped me to make sense of my own experience, because it brings together so much; eg. it contextualised for me Guatemala and Cuba and shows why Castro was determined not to suffer the same fate as Arbenz. It reinforces what i already knew of the vast sums of taxpayer money spent to finance 'fake narrative' literature, that make the CIA seem innocent, even positive. Douglas talks of the problem of 'plausible denial' which has made the CIA thoroughly undemocratic and un-accountable. This book cites many of the cloak and dagger operations and contextualises their human side. As such, I find the 'one star' reviews here to be childish depredations of trolls who probably wish they could still conveniently label everything a "conspiracy theory". "Conspiracy" JFK's establishment assassination & Warren Commission cover up certainly was, but it is rooted in FACT not theory. Talbots work amply provides the facts, yet will be ignored by the increasingly irrelevent corporate, mainstream media. Why? He keenly exposes their supine complicity over a range of important issues, from JFK to the CIA's appalling behaviour whenever they sowed violence, hatred and chaos abroad. However, i find this research to be a very impressive contribution to our knowledge. It provokes the question surely, of when the (now) 'infamous' name "Dulles" will be removed from Washington DC"s airport? Together with James Douglass's tremendous research on these issues, both books call into question the need for a proper reckoning about what JFK's state murder means for the state of "US Democracy?" And how the CIA has sown violence and chaos on behalf of the military industrial complex and corporates (and not as it falsely pretends "democracy") whereever it has acted abroad? David Talbot has more than adequately begun a conversation about what Douglass called 'the Unspeakable' pact of silence in the corporate media and US public life about JFK's assassination. Let this conversation go on and for this to be the beginning of a period of accounting for the gross violations of the USA's dreadful domestic crime of November 1963, as well as its shameful history abroad during the past 60 yrs. Reviewed by:Lucy Morgan Edwards; Author of 'The Afghan Solution: the inside story of Abdul Haq, the CIA and how western hubris lost Afghanistan' (2011)
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Reviewed in the United States on March 25, 2024
Very well researched and written. thoroughly enjoyable !
One person found this helpful
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Reviewed in the United States on March 28, 2024
It was a good book, well written and easy to read but there are no footnotes or sources for any of the information.
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Reviewed in the United States on March 9, 2024
A riveting and disturbing factual biography of the cia under Dulles reign. Lot of focus on bay of pigs and Kennedy assassination
4 people found this helpful
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Reviewed in the United States on April 2, 2024
The evil of the Dulles brothers has to be read about to be believe. Great account of their evil and their controls.
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Reviewed in the United States on March 22, 2024
This book offers a comprehensive, incisive account of the CIA's genesis and poisonous overgrowth following the Second World War. In the fifties, a war-weary Eisenhower effectively relinquished foreign policy decisionmaking to brothers Allen Dulles (CIA) and John Foster Dulles (State Department), and their thoroughly reactionary impulses. This book describes the ensuing chaos, as the unfettered intelligence apparatus and administrative conspirators were given the freedom to impose the control their paranoid ethos craved. As they embarked on a ham-fisted quest to quash the communist bogeyman, Allen Dulles and the CIA also meddled in domestic affairs, employing increasingly deadly stratagems. Kennedy never saw it coming. Would recommend to anyone interested in understanding the influences that shaped the fifties, sixties, and beyond. Extremely well researched, elegantly written.
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Reviewed in the United States on March 29, 2024
This is a very important book. It reminded me of what happens when elected officials lose oversight over a federal agency. The "quiet" 1950s, for which many conservatives hold nostalgia, were anything but when it came to the machinations of the Dulles brothers, Allen and John Foster. We did use tainted Nazis as espionage assets, granting immunity for their crimes. We did overthrow elected governments in Iran and Guatemala to protect corporate interests, causing chaos and bloodshed for decades. We did have Patrice Lumumba murdered and replaced with the rapacious and corrupt Joseph Mobutu. The CIA was probably behind the murders of JFK and RFK. It conducted cruel mind control experiments. If you read also books like A Legacy of Ashes, you question what the agency has really accomplished for all of the billions fed into it. The author skirts over other atrocities the CIA engineered in countries like Indonesia, Vietnam, and Cambodia. All the dictatorships and security apparatuses we set up in many countries. We really weren't exporting democracy in the world after World War II. Countries shook off colonialism in spite of us. The world still suffers because of past and present CIA meddling.
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Top reviews from other countries

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Peetyboo
5.0 out of 5 stars in-depth history
Reviewed in Canada on January 9, 2024
deep & comprehensive research ...maybe a little more than u expected.....not casual reading....
recommended for the serious....history revealed...the dark side. my era, so i appreciated the book..
recommended for those with their eyes open...Peter,... 80 yrs. on the planet
3 people found this helpful
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Malcolm Tierney
5.0 out of 5 stars Essential reading
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on March 6, 2024
It is my opinion that this book should be read by everyone who is literate.
It chronicles the rise of the C.I.A. and the career of Allen Dulles its director under Eisenhower and how the military industrial complex of the U.S.A. became the indivisible unit that it now is and the consequences globally of this leviathan which is beyond control.
It is all too easy to see how the British Conservative Party has been wooed by the United States and fallen starry eyed and indebted into its clutches with very serious consequences for the unwitting citzenry of the United Kingdom.
Monica
5.0 out of 5 stars Enthralling
Reviewed in Australia on January 15, 2024
Some truly frightening incidents described in this book. I found it a bit hard to get into at first but persisted and well worth it. A very good read.
Téléacheteur
5.0 out of 5 stars Une enquête rigoureuse
Reviewed in France on August 9, 2018
Avec un souci du détail et une rigueur extrême, l’auteur nous expose la naissance et quelques éléments de l’action de la CIA pendant la Guerre Froide, à travers la vie de son créateur, Allen Dulles. C’est, de plus, le livre le plus convaincant que j’aie lu sur l’assassinat de Kennedy et la fabrication du conspirationisme. Je recommande vivement ce livre.
4 people found this helpful
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D. H. Ahles
4.0 out of 5 stars Prachtige gedetaileerde beschrijving van in-site CIA
Reviewed in the Netherlands on September 12, 2016
Eigenlijk een ontluisterende inhoud voor iedereen die toch echt geloofd in democratie, dat wil zeggen dat de overheid transparant is naar haar doelstellingen, acties en beweegredenen. Dat op de achtergrond de CIA de politici kan manipuleren is opzich wel voorstelbaar maar in een democratie als die in de US onacceptabel.
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