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Wilbur Eveland
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Ropes of Sand, America's Failure in the Middle East Hardcover – January 1, 1980

by Wilbur Crane Eveland (Author)
4.4 4.4 out of 5 stars 29 ratings
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Eveland concludes that the U.S. has failed to sufficiently understand the problems of the oil embargo, the Palestinians, and the survival of Israel and warns of the possibilities for future armed conflict
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  1. Book 26 of 27
    Forbidden Bookshelf
  2. Print length
    382 pages
  3. Language
    English
  4. Publisher
    W W Norton & Co Inc
  5. Publication date
    January 1, 1980
  6. ISBN-10
    0393013367
  7. ISBN-13
    978-0393013368
  8. See all details
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4.4 out of 5 stars
29 global ratings

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Top reviews from the United States

  • JSM
    5.0 out of 5 stars A "Must Read" for understanding the background of the ongoing issues in the Middle East
    Reviewed in the United States on December 19, 2012
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    I lived next door to Bill when he was writing this book. He gave me a copy when it was published. I gave it a cursory read -- but I was in the midst of a career change, raising kids, etc....In short, it didn't hold immediate relevance for me at the time. I put it on the bookshelf with the idea that I'd read and digest it at a later date.

    That date turned out to be 30+ years later. Stimulated by wanting to have a deeper understanding of what's happening now in the Middle East, I recently have reread it. In doing so, that Bill's story is one that many people need to read to understand how the U.S. and its allies have created a mess that has yet to be resolved. While we can't undo the mistakes of the past, we can be informed by them (which Eveland does so masterly with his first-hand account) -- and hopefully re-evaluate what policies and programs that can address the underlying issues that date back years and even centuries.
    7 people found this helpful
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  • James Moose
    4.0 out of 5 stars Ropes of Sand
    Reviewed in the United States on January 23, 2013
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    This is a review of American Foreign Policy in the Middle East from the second World War to about 1980. It was done by a high level retired CIA Officer. It is very negative about our tendency to interfere in various middle eastern countries and the damage we often cause.
    3 people found this helpful
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  • L. Caluzzi
    5.0 out of 5 stars Intriguing, illuminating and very pertinent.
    Reviewed in the United States on February 8, 2007
    From namebase.org, William Blum on Ropes of Sand;

    ' Eveland spent much of his adult life in the Middle East or working in Washington for the government as a Middle East specialist. Beginning in the late 1940s, he worked at various times for or with the State Department, the National Security Council, and the CIA.

    This book provides a history of Middle-East politics and the U.S. involvement in same from post-World War One to the 1970s. Written as a personal account, the book is very readable and contains a number of significant revelations, such as U.S. plots to overthrow the government of Syria in 1956 and 1957 and to assassinate President Nasser of Egypt, as well as American involvement in several other conspiracies, alone and with the British, to fashion the Middle East to their own specifications.

    There is also material on covert Arab-Israeli relations, the CIA overthrow of the Iranian government in 1953, and on British mole Kim Philby, with whom Eveland spent time in Lebanon right up until Philby avoided arrest by fleeing to the Soviet Union. '

    From WMREA, Mary Barrett on Wilbur Crane Eveland;

    ' Former Central Intelligence Agency operative Wilbur Crane Eveland, author of the autobiographical Ropes of Sand, America's Failure in the Middle East, died Jan. 2 at the age of 71 in Boston's Dana Farber Cancer Institute. A major player in CIA covert activities in the Middle East after 1953, Eveland paid a severe personal price for publicly expressing over the past 14 years his "respectful dissent" from the conduct of US foreign policy in the Middle East.

    "It is impossible to understand America's continuing failure in the Middle East without taking into account the misapplication of the CIA's responsibilities and functions in that area: the extent to which presidents have ignored its intelligence estimates; the degree to which its clandestine political action capabilities have been employed as substitutes for sound foreign policy and conventional diplomacy," he wrote in the introduction to his book, published over CIA objections.

    "Because I played some part in shaping what America aspired to, and had to live with what we lost, I hope that this story of my own life may contribute to dispelling some of the confusion that has obscured the Middle East's problems and led to the misery and suffering that continue even now."

    Eveland, born in 1918, lied about his age to enter the Marine Corps Reserve at 17. In 1940, he slipped out of his parents' home in Spokane, Washington in the middle of the night and headed east to join the army. Within a year he was inducted into the Corps of Intelligence Police, predecessor to the Counter Intelligence Corps, and was transferred to the Panama Canal Zone after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. Moving rapidly through the ranks, Eveland served subsequently in France and Germany during the fighting there and later in the Pacific theater, picking up numerous awards and medals along the way. He left the army in 1945 but returned later to study Arabic and become a military attache. In 1950 he began a two-year assignment in Iraq.

    After 1953, Eveland worked for the CIA as a troubleshooter for its chief, Allen Dulles. He became such an effective player in the Middle East arena that CIA political operative Miles Copeland said in his recent book, The Game Player, "I still think of the period 1957-60 as the Eveland Era of Arab-American politics." He is remembered as well for his informality, style and quick wit.

    Eveland was on a first-name basis with Secretary of State John Foster Dulles and CIA top brass cousins Kermit and Archie Roosevelt. He knew Egyptian leader Gamel Abdul Nasser and the Shah of Iran. In his book he recounts involvement in such 1950s CIA covert activities as an attempt to rig elections in Lebanon and overthrow the Syrian government in Damascus. Eventually his work for the CIA was done on a contract basis, he said, to provide the agency with deniability for his actions.

    He was in Rome through most of the 1960s where, under cover as vice president of Vinnell Corporation, he carried Vinnell/Defense Department ID with GS-18 status, making him the equivalent of a lieutenant general. In the 1970s, Eveland nearly saw substantial wealth as vice president of the Fluor Corporation, but after tangling with some of the heavyweights in the world of international business and politics, he landed penniless in a Singapore prison in 1976.

    It was then that he began the reappraisal of his life which led to his decision to write Ropes of Sand. Using the Freedom of Information Act, he accumulated much of the material which defined the modern history of US diplomacy in the Mideast and documented his own relation to it. Its 1980 publication was delayed when the CIA claimed to have a document in which he agreed not to reveal anything about his work. When the CIA did not produce the document, publication proceeded under threat of suit.

    Eveland's profits never exceeded his debts, however. Without income, he hoped to live on his pension, but discovered that the government didn't think it owed him anything. Eventually, Eveland believed, the CIA leaked documents implying that he had passed secrets to his old friend, double agent and Soviet defector Kim Philby. Eveland was never able to get the government either to charge him with espionage or to pay him his pension. '
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  • C. Gee
    5.0 out of 5 stars Required reading to understand the situation the US finds itself in today.
    Reviewed in the United States on July 26, 2022
    This book explains the disaster of US Middle East policy. The US created more aminosity after the establishment of the stste of Israel.
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  • Donna
    4.0 out of 5 stars Four Stars
    Reviewed in the United States on December 16, 2017
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    I enjoyed the Historical perspective of the events in the Middle East
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  • Jerry Brown
    4.0 out of 5 stars Four Stars
    Reviewed in the United States on March 17, 2015
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    Not the best writing, but amazing story. Eveland could be the model for Jack Ryan character in Tom Clancy novels.
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  • RICHARDSON Jacques G
    3.0 out of 5 stars The United States stumbles in Southwestern Asia
    Reviewed in the United States on April 29, 2010
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    Ropes of Sand, America's Failure in the Middle East
    Reading this sensational account, even 30 years after its publication, evokes questions critical on the reader's part.
    The first and perhaps most important of these is: How true is the material published by author Eveland? The second is Why did the author wish to make his revelations (if this is what they are) public? The third query is: Why are there so few references and documentary bibliography?
    In the last respect, the author must have worked from personal notes, perhaps a diary, possibly (purloined) official documents and electronic messages protected by law,
    in order to authenticate himself and his claims to the reliable publishing house that W.W.Norton is known to be.
    Assuming that the author's story is (at least in part) true and reasonably accurate as to the events and personalities named, the reader concludes that the government in Washington blundered significantly throughout its Mid-East undertakings following the Second World War and through the 1970s. Within these same conditions, however, Eveland's account would explain how the United States got itself into the general mess in which it finds itself since at least the invasion of Iraq in Spring 2003, and possibly going back to shortly before the first terrorist attack on the Twin Towers of Manhattan a decade earlier.
    The reader finds her/himself in a further quandary as to the legitimate status of author Eveland. As a formerly field-grade officer of the Army who was transformed into a highly-graded civilian, was he on the payroll of the Department of Defense, of the Department of the Army, or of the Central Intelligence Agency? His explanations on this point--which should be extremely relevant to the degree of his influence where he operated--are nebulous and tend to weaken his expressed motivations for the work he was assigned or undertook semi-spontaneously.
    Based on the book, this reader thus looks upon author Eveland as an American T.E. Lawrence: headstrong and often brash, more than as a responsive-to-management civil servant in the American tradition.
    The book is well written, historically sequential, not lacking in cause-and-effect interpetation, and worth reading.
    6 people found this helpful
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Top reviews from other countries

  • Andy Dyer
    5.0 out of 5 stars A classic of the genre
    Reviewed in the United Kingdom on January 30, 2014
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    So much has gone wrong in this region and we need to know how. This book is a well-cited book and I'm surprised nobody has reviewed it before.
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