Author Biography

David C. Martin is the Emmy-winning national security correspondent for CBS News, a position he has held since 1993. He has been covering national defense and intelligence matters since 1974, and is also the author of Best Laid Plans: The Inside Story of America's War Against Terrorism. Martin and his wife, Dr. Elinor Martin, live in Chevy Chase, Md. They have four children.

Review

"Based on scores of interviews and CIA insiders and thousands of pages of previously classified documents, Wilderness of Mirrors is a penetrating account of Cold War intrigue filled with strange doings and even stranger people.Enthralling, provocative, vividly controversial. Deserves to be widely read."—Washington Post"A remarkably detailed account of the internal disputes about the defectors and double agents that tied the CIA in knots during the 1960s . . . Intelligence buffs will savor each new revelation."—The Wall Street Journal"A classic of intelligence literature."—Center for the Study of Intelligence

Long Description

At the dawn of the Cold War, the world's most important intelligence agencies--the Soviet KGB, the American CIA, and the British MI6--appeared to have clear-cut roles and a sense of rising importance in their respective countries. But when Kim Philby, head of MI6's Russian division and arguably the twenty-first century's greatest spy, was revealed to be a Russian mole along with British government heavyweights Donald Maclean and Guy Burgess, everything in the Western intelligence world turned upside down. Here is the true story of how the American James Bond--the colorful, foulmouthed, pistol-packing, alcoholic ex-FBI agent William "King" Harvey--put the finger on Philby; how James Jesus Angleton, the chain-smoking poet of Yale University and the CIA's supposed "master spy" in charge of counterintelligence, began his descent into a paranoid wilderness of mirrors upon learning of family friend Kim Philby's ultimate betrayal; and the devastating consequences of the loss of MI6 prestige and the CIA's subsequent self-defeating witch hunts. Every revelation, every stranger-than-fiction twist and turn is all the more intriguing as truths become lies and unlikely scenarios are revealed as reality. With impeccable sourcing and the use of thousands of pages of declassified research, David C. Martin's Wilderness of Mirrors is widely recognized as a masterpiece of intelligence literature.

Review Quote

"Based on scores of interviews and CIA insiders and thousands of pages of previously classified documents, Wilderness of Mirrors is a penetrating account of Cold War intrigue filled with strange doings and even stranger people.Enthralling, provocative, vividly controversial. Deserves to be widely read." -Washington Post "A remarkably detailed account of the internal disputes about the defectors and double agents that tied the CIA in knots during the 1960s . . . Intelligence buffs will savor each new revelation." -The Wall Street Journal "A classic of intelligence literature." -Center for the Study of Intelligence

Competing Titles

A Spy Among Friends Ben Macintyre 9780804136655 16.00 Random House 5/2015 34500 Double Cross Ben Macintyre 9780307888778 15.00 Random House 5/2013 62000 Operation Mincemeat Ben Macintyre 9780307453280 15.00 Random House 4/2011 104000 Avenue of Spies Alex Kershaw 9780804140058 16.00 Random House 8/2016 6600

Description for Sales People

Includes a new foreword from the author. Author David C. Martin is the national security correspondent for CBS News, covering the Pentagon and the State Department. Widely acknowledged in the intelligence community as a must-read classic in the field, on par with A Man Called Intrepid and The Man Who Never Was. First published at the height of the Cold War in 1980. Spy stories are consistently popular, especially ones about the CIA.

Details