“Broman’s true tales of putting his life on the line recruiting and running spies in a dozen countries are the stuff of action movies.” —Peter Arnett, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Live from the Battlefield Joining the CIA after fighting in Vietnam as a Marine, Barry Broman’s first posting was war-torn Cambodia. He was present at the fall of Phnom Penh in 1975, escaping just before the Khmer Rouge took power. During his career, he was twice chief of station, once a deputy chief of station, and he supervised an international paramilitary project in support of the Cambodian resistance to Vietnamese invaders. He was actively involved in several assignments in counter-narcotics operations in Southeast Asia including a major bust that yielded 551 kilograms of high-grade heroin from a major drug trafficker. His favorite agent against a variety of hard targets was a fellow whose only demand was that his assignments be “life threatening.” (He survived them all.) As amazing as the characters Broman has met are the places he’s been, with visits to little-known and rarely seen places like the Naga Hills on the India–Burma border, the world-famous but off-limits jade and ruby mines of Burma, and the isolated Banda Islands of Indonesia, the home of nutmeg. Broman’s engaging tone is complemented by photographs taken throughout his career, many of them his own, made using the skills he learned as a teenager working for the Associated Press in Southeast Asia—including Marines in action in Vietnam, the ravages of war in Cambodia, and opium buyers forcing growers to sell in Burma. “[A] remarkable life story.” —Booklist
CIA intelligence officer Rick Blayne must use all his skills—and charm—to achieve his mission of infiltrating émigré Cambodian factions in the center of international intrigue, Paris. Richard “Rick” Blayne has a mission. One of the CIA’s top expert on Cambodia, who escaped the country’s fall to the Khmer Rouge and has monitored the ensuing genocide from Thailand ever since, he has been sent to Paris to further the CIA’s plan to infiltrate the Cambodian resistance to the Hanoi-controlled puppet government in Phnom Penh. Arriving in the middle of a Parisian summer, Rick feels out of place and uncertain if he can handle the assignment. Vying factions seek to form a guerrilla force. As he establishes contact with old Cambodian friends in both the factions vying to control the resistance, he is drawn into an operation to recruit a Russian diplomat serving in Paris. With the help of a Thai fashion designer serving as an access agent, Rick, under the guidance of Sasha—a seasoned CIA Soviet “head hunter” and deputy chief of Paris station—moves the operation forward at a time of great upheaval and change for the Soviet Union.
Myanmar, once known as Burma, is the largest country in mainland Southeast Asia. A land of rugged beauty, it extends 1300 miles north to south, from the snow-capped peaks of the Himalayas to the 800 pristine islands of the Mergui Archipelago in the Andaman Sea. Myanmar is home to over 47 million people form over 140 different ethnic groups. film the people of this mysterious, isolated country. Be they the once fearsome sea gypsies, the extraordinary giraffe ladies, the tattooed Chin, or Nagas who collected human heads as trophies, Broman has documented their presence in some 75 colour photographs, confirming that even today, Myanmar is a mosaic of mysterious and cultured peoples.
“Broman’s true tales of putting his life on the line recruiting and running spies in a dozen countries are the stuff of action movies.” —Peter Arnett, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Live from the Battlefield Joining the CIA after fighting in Vietnam as a Marine, Barry Broman’s first posting was war-torn Cambodia. He was present at the fall of Phnom Penh in 1975, escaping just before the Khmer Rouge took power. During his career, he was twice chief of station, once a deputy chief of station, and he supervised an international paramilitary project in support of the Cambodian resistance to Vietnamese invaders. He was actively involved in several assignments in counter-narcotics operations in Southeast Asia including a major bust that yielded 551 kilograms of high-grade heroin from a major drug trafficker. His favorite agent against a variety of hard targets was a fellow whose only demand was that his assignments be “life threatening.” (He survived them all.) As amazing as the characters Broman has met are the places he’s been, with visits to little-known and rarely seen places like the Naga Hills on the India–Burma border, the world-famous but off-limits jade and ruby mines of Burma, and the isolated Banda Islands of Indonesia, the home of nutmeg. Broman’s engaging tone is complemented by photographs taken throughout his career, many of them his own, made using the skills he learned as a teenager working for the Associated Press in Southeast Asia—including Marines in action in Vietnam, the ravages of war in Cambodia, and opium buyers forcing growers to sell in Burma. “[A] remarkable life story.” —Booklist
CIA intelligence officer Rick Blayne must use all his skills—and charm—to achieve his mission of infiltrating émigré Cambodian factions in the center of international intrigue, Paris. Richard “Rick” Blayne has a mission. One of the CIA’s top expert on Cambodia, who escaped the country’s fall to the Khmer Rouge and has monitored the ensuing genocide from Thailand ever since, he has been sent to Paris to further the CIA’s plan to infiltrate the Cambodian resistance to the Hanoi-controlled puppet government in Phnom Penh. Arriving in the middle of a Parisian summer, Rick feels out of place and uncertain if he can handle the assignment. Vying factions seek to form a guerrilla force. As he establishes contact with old Cambodian friends in both the factions vying to control the resistance, he is drawn into an operation to recruit a Russian diplomat serving in Paris. With the help of a Thai fashion designer serving as an access agent, Rick, under the guidance of Sasha—a seasoned CIA Soviet “head hunter” and deputy chief of Paris station—moves the operation forward at a time of great upheaval and change for the Soviet Union.
China has its Great Wall. Cambodia has Angkor Wat. Indonesia has Borobudur. Myanmar has Bagan, a city of temples on the banks of the Ayerawaddy River. Pagan) has been fought over, conquered and suffered earthquakes, but has somehow survived. Poised serenely by the Ayerawaddy, Bagan has thousands of temples, thousands of ruins and a mysterious past. Today it is one of the wonders of Asia. colour photographs taken during the last decade. Here we see the old restored to new; glimpses of the grandeur and delicacy of buildings returning to the earth; the mammoth temples beloved of Burma's kings; and the day to day life of farmers and artists, much as it has been during the preceding one thousand years.
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