In terms of genres, spy novels are not at the top of my list of must reads, but having a passion for history and the Middle East, Kai Bird's "The Good Spy" sounded like a book with great appeal. A biography of a CIA spy in the Middle East post WWII. I was not familiar with Robert Ames so brought only my knowledge of the region to the table. It was fascinating to gain an understanding of the region and players through the back channels, not what you read about in the NYT or BBC. The life of an operative works on the periphery of good and evil, moral and amoral and never more so than in the complex and strife torn area that is the Middle East.
Bird creates a well rounded portrait of Ames from his rise in the CIA throughout several posts in the region, ultimately culminating in his tragic death at the US Embassy in Beirut in 1983. t was ultimately this bombing and the subsequent Marine Barracks bombing near the airport in Beirut that led to Reagan's withdrawal of soldiers meant to maintain some semblance of order in this war torn nation.
While the book traces Ames career, it does so alongside the broad history of the changing landscape of the Middle East post WWII with the founding of the state of Israel, pan-Arabism led by Nasser and ultimately the rise of fundamentalism across the region. Across countries gradually rising from post-colonialism, these shifts reshape a region into the powder keg it has become. Hard as it is to believe, people one time referred to Beirut as the Paris of the Middle East. It is a region with tons of complexity, surreal characters, faction and friction and more nuance then almost anywhere. It was in such a world that Robert Ames rose the CIA ranks, growing to love the character and characters of the region, the culture and nuance of such complexity. In this region, there are often few players of historical importance that are without blemishes. Bird highlights the challenges of working in such a region through Ames and the reality of cultivating contacts with unsavory characters. It became increasingly important as extremism was growing after a myriad of conflicts within nations and with Israel. While the public position was not to negotiate with such unsavory characters, the reality is that it is often necessary, particularly covertly.
It is through Ames relationship with Hassan Salameh, Arafat's intelligence chief and a critical member of his inner sanctum, that Birds portrait "soars". Bird doesn't hide Salameh's warts and leaves the reader to pass judgment about cultivating sources with such murky and unsavory elements. From any objective perspective, Salameh did plenty that was abhorrent, including his (still disputed) role in the 1972 Munich massacre. However, there is enough depth to the work and relationship Ames built with Salameh to demonstrate the importance of cultivating such sources. While Salameh was never an official recruit (he wasn't being paid), it was immensely informative to get beneath all the back room dealings and conversations that provided a glimmer of hope that some of the most intractable problems in the world might be solved.
However, all that one is left with is the false hope after events larger than either Ames or Salameh, first the Embassy bombing that killed Ames and the assassination of Salameh, that extinguished the tiny but perceptible glimmer of light their rendez-vous provided. A great bit of research to bring to light someone who both sought to understand and embrace a region and forge common ground to make this world safer that most of us wouldn't ever have known about.
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