This book is a must have for anyone interested in PR. It is up to date and illustrates all the relevant forces working in PR. It also outlines application and startegy for an effective PR campaign. Along with this book, I would also recommend Michael Levine's Guerill PR Wired, which is also a must have for anyone remotely interested in PR.

Whether you are a student or a pr practitioner, this book clearly tells you what Public Realtions is all about. Plus, you won't waste your money on this. It is up to date with the latest trends affecting PR, like laws, cases, and technology. I highly recommend this to all people who are interested in public relations. I have read many pr books but this one tops it all.

Philip Agee was recruited by the CIA so he could fight for the American Dream. Unfortunately for them, he became disgusted by following State policy and supporting foreign regimes whose main aim was to fill their own pockets and pay lip service to democracy.

Agee's book is massive and detailed with tidbits about CIA operations during his period with them. The problem I have is that he uses a diary format to tell his story and that you can easily get lost amongst the various Codenames for CIA agents/operations. The lack of a index doesn't make life easier. Apart from that, a very good expose of the working life of anyone who works for the spooks.

Philip Agee breaks the CIA code of silence and pens a revealing book about American intelligence gathering in Latin America. Agee leaves the agency, disgusted with sleezy cold war tactics. No other book patiently explains how the CIA recruits and operates.

Phil adopted the diary format because the editor wanted it that way. He wrote the book by going through newspaper microfiches, reading what the regular press had said about some events, recalling what really happened based on his own recollection, and putting it back together. I think most of the "how I wrote Inside the Company" is detailed in his follow-up book "On the Run," which is also a fascinating read. One thing to note about Phil is that his experiences have affected him and biased his judgement in some ways. He was there, and everything he writes is true, but he is an extremist, and often sees things in a bitterly stilted fashion, and sometimes does things that leads to the murder of US officials. One may argue that these officials engaged in oppresive operations and large scale murder are deserving of death themselves, as Agee does, but his "deserving of death" label has perhaps become a little too incompassionate.

I despise what Philip Agee did with this book, endangering the lives of real people and violating his oath as a commissioned officer in the clandestine service. I was also very surprised by the level of detail in the book, and concluded that he intended to betray the CIA well prior to leaving. I've served three overseas tours and three Washington assignments, and from all that time I can barely remember one cryptonym series and not a single true identity. I think Agee took notes and planned ahead to burn the CIA. This is a good diary, and I include it in this bibliography to represent the pedestrian side of the DO-the day to day monotony of going through the motions and doing agent recruitments and agent handling operations in third world countries where the bulk of what one does really does not contribute to U.S. national security or understanding.

Philip Agee does a wonderful job of unmasking the villains and personel of the CIA. It is written in a diary format, with each occasion listed to the exact date. Philip Agee was a former CIA agent positioned in Ecuador. His story depicts how the Company goes about their business and describes what their business is.

It is inevitable that those who read this book will admire the courage of the author in exposing the secret operations of his own government which he believes are not consistent with the United Nations Declaration on Human Rights. And definitely, these dirty jobs perpetrated against other peoples are not consistent with the American founding fathers' legacy in the form of the U.S. Constitution. A dirty job in the form of political assassination of a foreign leader is not justified under any kind of law - in heaven or on earth. Or even if the target is non-white.Agee's detailed descriptions of the CIA's dirty jobs show just how dirty unbridled power can be, especially if it becomes arrogant with immense powers or if it is clothed with the shadow of secrecy, under an unaccountable mandate. The CIA is probably one of the most notorious intelligence agencies in the world, past or present. Agee shows how this shadowy organization makes its own" executive decisions" in the international arena where the United States is playing the role of policeman. To whom is the CIA and US government accountable? Can it use the rhetoric of national security to bomb and kidnap foreign leaders and citizens tens of thousands of miles away? And yet, this wolf cries wolf against the so-called "rogue states"which do not easily bend to the will of this arrogant superpower. Agee is right in defying and opposing this arrogance. There is no dirtier work than to pretend to be the good guy like superman against others and yet not apply the same standards to yourself. The post Cold war era has shown that spying and dirty work by intelligence agencies will all the more intensify, even among friends who will cut each other's throats for economoc, financial and technological intelligence.Yes, Virginia, the dirty jobs have just begun. I just wished that Philip Agee had named more names. Not only of the CIA operatives from his own government but also the Soviet and other foreign intelligence operatives that he knew who also perpetrated similar acts of inhumanity to mankind. If that had happened, we might be surprised that these bloodthirsty and coldblooded operatives may now be working on the same camp. I would like to encourage members of civil society from all over the world to be the effective fiscalizers of unbridled power. Only the ignorance and secrecy of power will allow the dirty tricks to go on and on. Unfortunately for all spooks and their dirty tricks, the 21st century will be the century of civil society, the long oppressed and silenced by dirty tricks. This is a book that will tell you what intelligence operatives really do, or not do. Agee has told all,or almost. But, may I ask, if there are dirty tricks and dirty jobs in the spook business, are there such things as "clean jobs"? Are there international rules for spooks? This reviewer is just asking.