Robert Baer does an excellent job of drawing the reader into the shadowy world of the covert world of intelligence. His elaboration (as much as he can divulge) of the training and operations of case officers is both fascinating and worrysome. Fascinating, because it allows laymen get a glimpse of what "could have been" if they too had pursued the life of being a "spy" (come on...admit it, we all have that fantasy), and worrysome because he outlines the CIA and intelligence community's not so slow drift toward reliance on technical means to get intelligence, rather than the days-old practices of the human side of the world's second oldest profession. His elaboration on names that are all too familiar now to those of us who study the mid-east weaves an incredibly complex and captivating web. Immediately after finishing Baer's book, I started on American Jihad, and the web just grows more tangled. Truly a great read, though, and is highly recommended for anyone who wants the "down and dirty" side of espionage. It is all the more important now that we are trying to rebuild it.

If I had read this book before 9/11, I wouldn't have been shocked at all when the Twin Towers collapsed. The book outlines the decline of the CIA in the 80's and its absolute collapse in the 90's. It really is frightening. Baer expertly outlines his exciting career and weaves in the story of the fall of the CIA. Some of the stories would be funny if it wasn't deadly serious. I'm surprised Bob Baer didn't go nuts and start going after people, the incompetance he describes is shocking and horribly frustrating.

Get this book only if you're ready for a shock. I pray we can get some professionals in the agency before something else hits our country.

In See No Evil, Robert Baer explains how the US found itself dealing with international terrorism.

Baer recounts how he became a CIA agent, during a time when the government was looked on as, to put it politely, worse than dung. He claims he never thought he was going to get accepted. It was amusing to read about the time anarchists'(whose apartment he shared) snake escaped, and the CIA agent, who was supposed to be checking Baer's friends, got lost and ended up at his apartment. He wrote that he tried to get rid of the CIA agent "as soon as possible" and that he was afraid that "at any moment the snake would come slithering around the corner".

I found it chilling when I read about the time Baer and his fellow ground agents came across a petty criminal who was willing to help the CIA by being a liaison in a well-known terrorist group. The CIA head men refused because he was a criminal. Baer points out that the FBI has sources that are criminals, and basically says that to catch a criminal, you can't use good people. The potential liaison in the terrorist group was wasted, and you can't help wondering if we could have prevented September 11th, if the CIA wasn't so picky about its sources.

This book is great read and it'll open your eyes to the political correctness that is so prevalent in today's society. If political correctness has invaded our intelligence agencies, what is next?

Hersh is great at seeking dirt, which is a public service as he uncovers so much of it. Guys like him serve a function only as long as we keep his role in perspective. He found My-Lai, yes, but does he approve of anything whatsoever? This book is a 500-page indictment of Kissinger that follows no standard other than to show that the guy was really really bad. There is little if any acknowledgment of what Kissinger accomplished, virtually no consistent standards discussed of what would have been better, and no suggestions offered. As such, it is simply over the top.

Only a handful of journalists in the nation have the credibility to write of book of this nature. To this end, Author Seymour Hersh puts his considerable reputation on the line and uses his powerful contacts in Washington to painstakingly document the shallow political and career motives of Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger.

Hersh does a tremendous service to America. He single-handedly destroys the myth that Nixon and Kissinger were dedicated to the swift end of the Vietnam war. To his credit, Hersh documents the formation of Nixon's secret "Madman" policy and how the President and Kissinger employed this risky strategy to prolong the war.

"The Price of Power: Kissinger in the Nixon White House," is also a serious study of how certain key cabinet members that opposed the manipulation of foreign policy were quickly isolated and discredited. Hersch interviews key individuals that Kissinger personally recruited to work at the NSC to show how significant contributions to foreign policy was wrestled from the State Department and firmly established in the White House. The early consolidation of power by Nixon and Kissinger set the pattern for a long string of dark policy.

The secret bombing of Cambodia, the crisis in Korea, the SALT talks, the Mideast, Cuba, China, the Berlin settlement are all explored in this text. However, the most damaging information to the reputation of Henry Kissinger is how his secret information to the Nixon campaign during the Johnson administrations peace talks in Paris compromised any chance of reaching an early conclusion to the war. Hersh meticulously researches how Kissinger manipulates his contacts in Paris to circumvent the practice of conflict resolution by Lyndon Johnson. Hersh also explains how Kissinger used this secret information to position himself on Nixon's short list of foreign policy advisors after the defeat of Hubert H. Humprhey in the 1968 presidential elections.

There is little flattery of the 37th President of the United States in this book. If anything Hersch displays the ruthlessness of the Nixon White House and how Henry Kissinger would sacrifice everything to implement a dark policy that cost thousands of lives. In conclusion, this book is a bitter pill for the brave young men and women who answered the nation's call in Vietnam.

We all know that Nixon was a shady character, but after reading the Price of Power, I learned so much more about our former president.

The Price of Power reveals much about the Nixon-Kissinger administration that would shock most Americans. Focusing most of its attention on the Vietnam war, this book tells how Nixon/Kissinger basically detatched themselves from the rest of the U.S. government in order to do whatever they wanted throughout the world. It seemed as though Nixon/Kissinger based every decision they made on their future political survival. Hersh does a superb job of bring to light some of the truly darkest moments in U.S. History. He also shows us how Nixon-Kissinger were able to get their policies implemented by eliminating and and all opposition. They created such a strong executive with such little oversight that their leadership resembled that of a dictatorship.

After reading this, I felt ashamed to call myself an American. We strongly supported a president who was an alcoholic racist whose paranoia dictated much of his actions. I never realized just how close we came to using nuclear weapons in Vietnam (and this AFTER Nixon campaigned with his "Peace with Honor" slogan). We are quick to point to several leaders of the 20th century and label them "war criminals." By any definition, Nixon and Kissinger should be included on this list of war criminals. Disagree with me? read Price of Power. If, after doing so, you still disagree with me, you obviously did not read very carefully . . .

Wow, some of the things that took place in the cold war were catastrophes. The difference between this incident and the American shoot down of the Iranian plane is that this was done on purpose it would seam. I think if you would read more about this era you would find that the USSR did finally discipline the Commanders that made this mistake, but in typical Soviet style they did it in secret thus eliminating any public good will they may have gained. I think the biggest error made by the Regan administration is that they did not immediately release the tape, which one could argue that the gathering of the information may have lead to the 007 shoot down. The book is an enjoyable read that moves fast.

This book brings it all home. Those disbelievers have their necks screwed on backwards. Wake up! This is how WAR is fought! This is WHY wars are fought! This is WHAT really happens in the light of day! and the darkness of moonless nights. Errors are made, therefore tragedy. Those who are educated must see that our countries are groomed towards certain destinies controlled by those who are evil and those who are not so evil, but trained to respond in the best way possible. Very well written.

This is a book about the selective use - and misuse - of intelligence information.

On Sept. 1 1983, a Soviet fighter pilot was ordered to shoot down Korean Airlines Flight 007, even though the pilot argued with his superiors and repeatedly identified the plane as a civilian plane. Breaking with usual intelligence policies, the Reagan administration released the recorded conversation between the fighter pilot and ground control to news media and the world.

This breach was made for political reasons. The impression this was intended to create was that it was standard Soviet policy to shoot down civilian airliners. This jeopardized our future intelligence-gathering capabilities, because it gave away to the Soviets just how sophisticated our intelligence-gathering was, and the extent to which Norway was providing us with info.

Many U.S. intelligence officers were dismayed by the way this was done, because the Reagan administration also withheld all information about the intense U.S. military activity that was being conducted in the area with reconfigured civilian aircraft. For the past several years, the U.S. had been routinely flying specially-configured Boeing 707s equipped with electronic communications surveillance equipment over the Barents sea and other areas that KAL flew over. In fact, a Cobra Ball surveillance plane was in the air to the south of the KAL flight path the same day. George Schultz made sure Cobra Ball was safely in its hangar before they made any announcements about the shootdown of a civilian plane.

The U.S. had also performed massive military maneuvers with three carriers and 23,000 personnell just off Soviet Far Eastern waters six months earlier (in March of 1983), and six U.S. fighter jets overflew Soviet airspace during these exercises. While officially the U.S. claimed the overflight by the six fighters was a mistake, this was widely believed among the U.S. intelligence community to be a deliberate provocation by the U.S. military.

Soviets often put civilian markings on military transports, and given all the increased U.S. military and surveillance activity just off Soviet territorial waters in 1981-83, it becomes far more plausible that the commanding Soviet officers on the ground suspected that Americans had done the same thing with one of our electronic surveillance planes.

The U.S. and Canada shared intelligence information, and the Reagan administration was very unhappy with Canada because Prime Minister Trudeau (based on the same intelligence information provided to the U.S.) said he was sure the Soviets made a tragic mistake, and believed they were shooting down a U.S. intelligence plane that, like the six fighters earlier that year, was testing their defenses and their response times.

Want to know more? You'll have to read the book.

The Gulf War veterans and their supporters in Congress have forced a resisting military and intimidated white house to acknowledge that the price of war-even in smashing triumph-is high. The lesson this book teaches is this: Today's high tech wars are too important and too dangerous to be left to the military or to the politicians. Neither will risk all to protect their soldiers. Those men and women who do the fighting want their say, too, and are learning how to get it". This book, by its glaring omission of criticism, upholds the Gulf War Massacre. This is not an anti-war book, it's a book calling upon the system to live up to its supposed "ideals". It seems as though the author has gotten defensive in the wake of his stinging book on the Kennedys [see Camelot Review-Ed.] and backed off on some of his indictment for the system. Hersh sees a government divided. He says that the CIA had knowledge that there were chemical weapons at Khamisyah and "failed to relay the information...that failure was a criminally negligent mistake, but it was not a cover-up." Apologizing for the government by saying the problem was confusion inside the American intelligence movement is absurd. He portrays the white house as "intimidating" saying "Bill Clinton was afraid to take on the Pentagon. It was up to Congress to do what the president would not. In many respects this is their victory"!

The book has a strong 'honor the vet' edge that leaves a nasty taste in our mouths. If you've had the privilege of reading the scathing expose, My Lai 4 , by this same author you would never believe it's the same guy. This book does do a good job, if you filter well through the politics, of outlining the major physiological issues regarding the Gulf War Illness. With that exception noted, we can only say this: Paper will put up with anything that is written on it.

This book helped me to understand what my brother had been trying to say...he was sick (a Gulf War Vet...now deceased). My family thanks Seymour Hersh and any others who expose the military for what they did (and didn't do) before, during, and after the Gulf War. The book made a lot more sense than the propaganda material the gov't. has sent our family concerning questions we've had. According to the military....everything (except for the stress) occurred in "insignificant levels to have caused any diseases". Tell that to my brother now... Good job Mr. Hersh!

A very well written, well researched and well documented book on Gulf War Syndrome. It concisely answers the "Who, What, When, Where and Why" questions that many of us are asking. In doing so, it lifts the lid on one more of America's dirty little secrets. Powerful and Amazing.

The one thing this book points out is that no matter how close of a friend any one country claims to be with another, in the end all countries are out for themselves. I would think that government officials would know this one ancient fact, it must be a staple of foreign policy. Yet reading this book and the stumbling around the US government did you kind of wonder if maybe they were just putting their heads in the sand and hoping the issue would go away. The book details out how Israel bought, lied and stole their way to the nuclear bomb, you got to give it to them they just kept going after the goal they set. The path they took is well laid out by the author and you get a good taste for the political dealing between the US and Israel.

My only complaint with the book is that the author could have spent just a bit more time clearly explaining the fears in Israel that drove them to get the bomb. The author touches on this point but I would have liked more detail. Then again it may be difficult to truly understand their mindset given the violent history they have had over the past century. Overall I found the book to be interesting and well put together yet not overly exciting. If you are interested in this part of history or even how US / Israel politics worked in the cold war then you will enjoy this book. If you are looking for an exciting true life spy story then this is not the book for you.

This book proved to be very interesting when I started reading it.It gives you a very good inside look of how Israel was able to obtain the atomic.Seymour Hersh shows how Israel dealt with the United States,South Africa,and Iran to obtain the technology
and materials to become a nuclear power. You are shown the spy activities that were used by Israel to make this a sucessful effort.This book leaves little to the imagination.This is a good history of the nuclear movement in Israel.Read this book,you
will enjoy it.

This book tells how Israel became a secret nuclear power during the cold-war with the help of the U.S. "It also tells how that secret was shared sanction and at times, willfully ignored by the top political and military officials of the U.S since the Eisenhower years" (author's note). Hypocrisy aside, the author recalls the events that shaped the Israeli program, though he never strays far from U.S. interests and involvement. In his opinion, the Israli nuclear program could not have existed without the continuous aid of the U.S. He also pays attention to the political climate between the two allies, and how different presidents could effect the balance of information flowing between Israel and the U.S.

Basically, how you rate "The Dark Side of Camelot" all comes down to how you feel about the Kennedys, as the previous reviews on this book have clearly demonstrated. If you admire the Kennedys, then this book is "trash" and Hersh's claims about John F. Kennedy's Presidency are "wildly exaggerated" or "just not true". But if you don't like the Kennedys, then Hersh's claims are "without doubt" and "undeniably the truth". Books about John F. Kennedy usually fall into one of these two groups - the scholarly, mostly admiring "serious" books which look primarily at the issues Kennedy dealt with as President and look only briefly at his many personal flaws; and the so-called "sensational" books which focus primarily on JFK's wild private life and look only briefly at the major historical events of his term of office (the Bay of Pigs, Cuban Missile Crisis, etc.). I tend to look at Hersh's book somewhat differently - I think that many of Hersh's allegations are indeed true, and there's little doubt (as many other books and sources have confirmed Hersh's allegations) the John F. Kennedy was anything but a saint in his private life. However, I'm still not convinced that his private behavior had much effect on his judgements and decisions on the big moments of his Presidency. For example, does anyone (except his strongest critics) believe that Kennedy consulted Marilyn Monroe (or one of his other mistresses) before giving the order to allow Cuban exiles to invade Cuba at the Bay of Pigs to overthrow Fidel Castro (Would Monroe even know where Cuba was)? Most of Hersh's claims have been made elsewhere, although Hersh does come up with new testimony from ex-Secret Service agents, aides, and others to butress his arguments. Specifically, the major charges are: 1) That Kennedy, with the help of his sinister, enormously wealthy father, "bought" the 1960 presidential election by stealing enough votes to defeat JFK's great rival, Richard Nixon. There was some evidence of major vote-stealing in Illinois (Nixon carried 92 of 101 counties in Illinois but still lost the state by only 9,000 votes, mostly because of a huge Kennedy vote in Chicago). President Eisenhower encouraged Nixon to contest the results there, but Nixon, in a graceful move, refused to. Hersh implies that the Mafia in Chicago, specifically mob boss Sam Giancana, stole the votes necessary for JFK to win in Chicago, and that Kennedy and Giancana privately communicated through a woman they both shared sexually, Judith Campbell-Exner. Exner's story has been repeated in other books, and there is little doubt that she and Kennedy had a relationship. However, Illinois alone wouldn't have changed the outcome of the election, and Nixon would still have needed to win another big state to change the result. His best bet may have been in Texas, another state that JFK won by a close margin and where there were also claims of vote fraud. However, the Texas angle has never been investigated as thoroughly as the Illinois vote, and we may never truly know who should have won the 1960 presidential election - we can only speculate. 2)That as President Kennedy repeatedly fooled around with huge numbers of women, thus leaving himself open to blackmail from foreign governments or hostile internal forces (such as the mafia). Again, there's considerable evidence that Kennedy did fool around - two of his secretaries were called "Fiddle" and "Faddle" and took nude swims with him in the White House pool. Again, the real charge is whether or not these women compromised his ability to do his job, and that's harder to prove. That Kennedy treated most of these women like live sex toys is undeniable - he didn't seem to take most of them seriously (nor, according to author Gore Vidal, a relative of Jackie Kennedy, did his wife. According to Vidal, she often used the word "it" , not "she" or "her", when referring to her husband's mistresses). Kennedy also supposedly had a fling with a woman who was later suspected of being a spy for the Communist East German government, and who was quickly deported when Bobby Kennedy learned of the suspicions about her. These are serious charges, and Kennedy does seem to have been guilty of, at least, extremely poor judgement. And, finally, 3)that Kennedy systematically used the power of the Presidency to cover up his shenanigans, thus breaking the law repeatedly and committing criminal acts. If true, this would place Kennedy in the Nixon range of Watergate-type scandals, which means that he should have been impeached. Again, there is little doubt that Kennedy used the Secret Service and other agencies to hide his behavior from outsiders, and his brother did use his power as Attorney General to silence embarrassing stories and try to dig up dirt on potential enemies (such as Nixon, the Kennedys had the IRS audit his taxes several times from 1961-1963, with no result). Of course, MANY politicians have done the same, and while it may not be morally right, the Kennedys were neither the first nor the last politicians to do so. Whether this makes them especially evil or sinister is dubious. In short, it is my belief that Hersh's claims, although largely true, still don't provide a clear link between JFK's private life and his public (political) life. Was Kennedy a terrible person? As Hersh proves, the private Kennedy was often a sexually deviant, amoral man. But as for Kennedy the President (and they are different things), I don't believe he was a great President, but he also wasn't the awful leader that Hersh and some others make him out to be. Today many historians rate JFK as about average - in the middle of the pack. And that's about where I would place him, too. And that's also why I'm giving "The Dark Side of Camelot" three stars - Hersh's research and allegations are worth reading, but whether there's a link between what Hersh describes and Kennedy's political behavior remains to be seen.

Seymour Hersh, one of America's most respected journalists, and a Pulitzer Prize winner, does his homework here in exposing the Kennedy presidency. He carefully researches and documents the exploits of JFK and the Kennedy family, from the numerous sexual conquests (JFK makes Bill Clinton look like a boy scout) to Kennedy's political errors, including the failed assassination of Fidel Castro, the Bay of Pigs, the October missle crisis, and the Kennedy family's involvement with organized crime. Kennedy lovers won't like it, but everything is carefully footnoted and documented. A well written book and highly recommended.

The on-line reviews of the book are telling: The ones attacking & debunking the book don't provide any substance. They attack the author, they call it sleaze, etc. But not one of them takes issue with the contents of the book, which is what a review should do. To those of you who still are seduced by the Kennedy mystique, I challenge you to find anything substantively wrong with Mr. Hersh's thesis: That JFK, because of his debauched personal life compromised his country in ways we couldn't heretofore imagine. A more apt metaphor for his administration should have been Oz rather than Camelot. And shame on all the people all these years who knew what was behind the curtain, but yet continue to propogate the lie. Unfortunately, there are enough people still out there who try to defend the indefensible, but they distort the debate by avoiding the issues and point out, among other things, problems the author had in compiling the book. Mr. Hersh took great care in researching his book, and that's why the "Marilyn Papers" didn't make it. He was honest enought and thorough enough to make sure only the truth got in. We need to judge the book by it's actual, not it's potential, contents. I wonder what Entertainment Weekly has said in the past about books regarding Richard Nixon? Do they defend him? Call those books sleaze? I doubt it. He was not an attractive man, and his sins are well-documented and easy to believe. But attack the handsome JFK... Ah, pop culture. The air-heads leading the air-heads.

This is a publicity exercise orchestrated by the CIA who, having found a tame and gullible author, have spoon-fed him only the lies they want to. US radar capability is not mentioned once! A reader could be forgiven in believing that the USA relies totally on radio intercepts for the primary defence of the nation! Yet this author was awarded a Pullitzer Prize for a previous work. If the Pullitzer people read this book they might ask for their prize back. The whole world has a right to answers to this myster. We don't need rubbish like this.

Seymour Hersh's Target Is Destroyed is: 1.) one-third usable early-1980s history, 2.) one-third irrelevent conjecture, 3.) one-third calculated falsehood. Worth reading only if accompanied by other, more recent, books on the same subject.

This is a book about the selective use - and misuse - of intelligence information.

On Sept. 1 1983, a Soviet fighter pilot was ordered to shoot down Korean Airlines Flight 007, even though the pilot argued with his superiors and repeatedly identified the plane as a civilian plane. Breaking with usual intelligence policies, the Reagan administration released the recorded conversation between the fighter pilot and ground control to news media and the world.

This breach was made for political reasons. The impression this was intended to create was that it was standard Soviet policy to shoot down civilian airliners. This jeopardized our future intelligence-gathering capabilities, because it gave away to the Soviets just how sophisticated our intelligence-gathering was, and the extent to which Norway was providing us with info.

Many U.S. intelligence officers were dismayed by the way this was done, because the Reagan administration also withheld all information about the intense U.S. military activity that was being conducted in the area with reconfigured civilian aircraft. For the past several years, the U.S. had been routinely flying specially-configured Boeing 707s equipped with electronic communications surveillance equipment over the Barents sea and other areas that KAL flew over. In fact, a Cobra Ball surveillance plane was in the air to the south of the KAL flight path the same day. George Schultz made sure Cobra Ball was safely in its hangar before they made any announcements about the shootdown of a civilian plane.

The U.S. had also performed massive military maneuvers with three carriers and 23,000 personnell just off Soviet Far Eastern waters six months earlier (in March of 1983), and six U.S. fighter jets overflew Soviet airspace during these exercises. While officially the U.S. claimed the overflight by the six fighters was a mistake, this was widely believed among the U.S. intelligence community to be a deliberate provocation by the U.S. military.

Soviets often put civilian markings on military transports, and given all the increased U.S. military and surveillance activity just off Soviet territorial waters in 1981-83, it becomes far more plausible that the commanding Soviet officers on the ground suspected that Americans had done the same thing with one of our electronic surveillance planes.

The U.S. and Canada shared intelligence information, and the Reagan administration was very unhappy with Canada because Prime Minister Trudeau (based on the same intelligence information provided to the U.S.) said he was sure the Soviets made a tragic mistake, and believed they were shooting down a U.S. intelligence plane that, like the six fighters earlier that year, was testing their defenses and their response times.

Want to know more? You'll have to read the book.