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A Look over My Shoulder begins with President Nixon’s attempt to embroil the Central Intelligence Agency, of which Richard Helms was then the director, in the Watergate cover-up. Helms then recalls his education in Switzerland and Germany and at Williams College; his early career as a foreign correspondent in Berlin, during which he once lunched with Hitler; and his return to newspaper work in the United States. Helms served on the German desk at OSS headquarters in London; subsequently, he was assigned to Allen Dulles’s Berlin office in postwar Germany. On his return to Washington, Helms assumed responsibility for the OSS carryover operations in Germany, Austria, and Eastern Europe. He remained in this post until the Central Intelligence Agency was formed in 1947. At CIA, Helms served in many positions, ultimately becoming the organization’s director from 1966 to 1973. He was appointed ambassador to Iran later that year and retired from government service in January 1977. It was often thought that Richard Helms, who served longer in the Central Intelligence Agency than anyone else, would never tell his story, but here it is–revealing, news-making, and with candid assessments of the controversies and triumphs of a remarkable career.
A provocative and strikingly original new voice in fiction reinvents the historical novel–along with American history itself–in this wry “what if?” that merges and mashes up four of our most famous and infamous national icons. Historian Otis Pease once remarked that the story of nineteenth-century America could be encompassed in the lives of the two sets of James brothers–William and Henry in the East, Frank and Jesse in the West. The James Boys goes further by making all four of them the fruit of the same family tree and showing how it shakes out. In 1876, the No. 4 Missouri Pacific Express pulls out of Kansas City for Saint Louis. Among those on board is Henry James, the erudite and esteemed novelist and brother of the brilliant philosopher William James. Trying his hand at travel writing, Henry is beset, as ever, by hypochondria–in the form, this case, of dire digestive woes. Suddenly, the train is stopped and robbed–and not by just any bandits but by the legendary James Gang. Taken hostage by the brigands, Henry realizes to his unspeakable horror that Jesse and Frank are in fact “Rob” and “Wilky,” his long-lost brothers, who had disappeared during the Civil War and been presumed dead for more than a decade. From there the ride only gets wilder, careening through underbrush and ivory towers, throwing together America’s greatest intellectuals and most notorious outlaws in a saga of six-guns and sherry that is peopled by a fascinating roster of passengers, both historical and imagined. Most prominent among them are Elena Hite, a feisty young feminist deeply aroused by the down-and-dirty charisma of the criminal Jesse; Alice Gibbens, the eminently sensible schoolteacher engaged to the sexually inexperienced William, who tempts him to stay put rather than joining Henry out West; and William Pinkerton, the renowned detective hot on all of their trails–especially Elena’s. Based on and incorporating actual events, The James Boys is a through-the-looking-glass romp that boldly blends both sides of the American character–the brilliant and the barbaric–in one unforgettable family and one seriously entertaining story.
The true stories behind some of the most shocking assassinations in recent history. We live in a new age of political assassination; within our lifetimes all the senior members of the UN Security Council have used it as an extension of political policy in all corners of the globe. In every case, the orders came from the very top. Today, while leading governments use covert ops, drones and lazer guided missiles, the terrorist methods of car bombs and suicide bombers make the game even more dangerous. In his compelling history of hit men, assassinations and the men who command them, Richard Bellfield recalls the major hits in history from Julius Caesar to twenty of the most shocking assassinations in recent history. He also reveals: how the assassination of President Sadat of Egypt launched Al Qaeda. How President Kennedy ordered the death of President Diem of Vietnam. And with excerpts from CIA and Al Qaeda manuals he shows how they have changed the course of history. He also uncovers the hidden world of killers and cover ups.
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