Charlie Wilson's War : The Extraordinary Story of the Largest Covert Operation in History
by Crile, George
Published by : Vanguard Books (Lahore) Physical details: x,550 Pages 16x24 cm | HB ISBN:9694023831.| Item type | Current location | Collection | Call number | Status | Date due | Barcode |
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Books
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General Stacks | Non-fiction | 958.1045 C928C 2003 (Browse shelf) | Available | 15762 |
The Extraordinary Story of the Largest Covert Operation in History.
Include Notes and Index.
The Extraordinary Story of How the Wildest Man in Congress & a Rogue CIA Agent Changed the History of Our Times
In a little over a decade, two events have transformed the world we live in: the collapse of the USSR & the rise of militant Islam. Charlie Wilson's War is the untold story behind the last battle of the Cold War & how it fueled the new jihad. Crile tells how Charlie Wilson, a maverick congressman from E. Texas, conspired with a rogue CIA operative to launch the biggest, meanest & most successful covert operation in the Agency's history.
In the early '80s, after a Houston socialite turned Wilson's attention to the ragged band of Afghan "freedom fighters" who continued, despite overwhelming odds, to fight Soviet invaders, the congressman became passionate about their cause. At a time when Ronald Reagan faced a total cutoff of funding for the Contra war, Wilson, who sat on the all-powerful House Appropriations Committee, managed to procure hundreds of millions of dollars to support the mujadiheen. The arms were secretly procured & distributed with the aid of an out-of-favor CIA operative, Gust Avrakotos, whose working-class Greek-American background made him an anomaly among the Ivy League world of American spies. Nicknamed "Dr Dirty," the blue-collar James Bond was an aggressive agent who served on the front lines of the Cold War where he learned how to stretch Agency rules to the breaking point.
Avrokotos handpicked a staff of CIA outcasts to run his operation: "Hilly Billy," the logistics wizard who could open an unnumbered Swiss bank account for the US government in 12 hours when others took months; Art Alper, the grandfatherly demolitions expert from the Technical Services Division who passed on his dark arts to the Afghans; Mike Vickers, the former Green Beret who created a systematic plan to turn a rabble of shepherds into an army of techno Holy warriors.
Moving from the back rooms of the Capitol, to secret chambers at Langley, to arms-dealers conventions, to the Khyber Pass, Charlie Wilson's War is one of the most detailed & compulsively readable accounts of the inside workings of the CIA ever written.
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