Disciples: The World War II Missions of the CIA Directors Who Fought for Wild Bill Donovan
Written by Douglas Waller
Narrated by George Newbern
4/5
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About this audiobook
They are the most famous and controversial directors the CIA has ever had—Allen Dulles, Richard Helms, William Colby, and William Casey. Before each of these four men became their country’s top spymaster, they fought in World War II as secret warriors for Wild Bill Donovan’s Office of Strategic Services.
Allen Dulles ran the OSS’s most successful spy operation against the Axis. Bill Casey organized dangerous missions to penetrate Nazi Germany. Bill Colby led OSS commando raids behind the lines in occupied France and Norway. Richard Helms mounted risky intelligence programs against the Russians in the ruins of Berlin. Later, they were the most controversial directors the CIA has ever had. Dulles launched the calamitous operation at Cuba’s Bay of Pigs. Helms was convicted of lying to Congress over the CIA’s role in the ousting of President Salvador Allende in Chile. Colby would become a pariah for releasing a report on CIA misdeeds during the 1950s, sixties and early seventies. Casey would nearly bring down the CIA—and Ronald Reagan’s presidency—from a scheme that secretly supplied Nicaragua’s contras with money raked off from the sale of arms to Iran for American hostages in Beirut.
Mining thousands of once-secret World War II documents and interviewing scores, Waller has written a worthy successor to Wild Bill Donovan. “Entertaining and richly detailed” (The Washington Post), Disciples is the story of these four dynamic agents and their daring espionage and sabotage in wartime Europe.
Douglas Waller
Douglas Waller is a former correspondent for Newsweek and Time, where he covered the CIA, Pentagon, State Department, White House, and Congress. He is the author of the bestsellers Wild Bill Donovan, Big Red, and The Commandos, as well as critically acclaimed works such as Disciples, the story of four CIA directors who fought for Donovan in World War II, and A Question of Loyalty, a biography of General Billy Mitchell. He lives in Raleigh, North Carolina.
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Reviews for Disciples
12 ratings3 reviews
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Informative, well-researched book on the Wild Bill Donovan protegees and their exploits during WWII.Unfortunately, as I was reading this book I listened to a talk by the author on C-span and it colored the rest of the book for me. I did not find him an interesting speaker and he did not have anything to add to what was in the book.
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5This is a difficult book to rate. I have much respect for the time and research that the author put into writing this book, but the execution was problematic for me. The content is extensive, perhaps too much so for one book. We start with the CIA directors. The first four chapters are early biographies of each of these men, covering their childhoods through to them joining the CIA. We also go back through their family trees, meeting their parents, siblings, and anyone else who might have influenced them early on. From there, we go on to the start of their careers in intelligence and espionage. At this point, we meet countless more players and travel the world with all of them. We follow the timeline of the war, from start to finish, alongside all four men and all of the people with whom they interact. For the most part, I was overwhelmed rather than intrigued by the sheer volume of content. I felt like a needed a chart to keep track of all the people and their relationships. And, while it's impressive that the author was able to unearth so much detail, from where people sat at meetings to what they wore and ate, the way it was all laid out felt like an information dump. There was no time to explore a specific aspect or feeling before the next activity and new people joined the throng. The writing style is straightforward and conversational, but feels too much like a recitation of facts. It mostly reads like a dry textbook, rather than narrative nonfiction. I didn't get a real sense of emotion. I was told, at times, how each of these men felt about a certain thing, but I didn't see it or feel it from their perspectives. This book will have a strong appeal for readers who enjoy meticulously detailed history. Perhaps they are more patient readers than I am.*I was provided with an e-book copy by the publisher, via NetGalley, in exchange for my honest review.*
1 person found this helpful
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Excellent! It's amazing how history works. Waller covers the history of the CIA through the stories of four of the men who ran it; Allen Dulles, Bill Casey, Bill Colby and Richard Helms. All were proteges of the founder, Wild Bill Donovan. All had their good points, and their faults. Waller explains the early stages of the men's careers, through their leadership, and after they left the agency. The author presents a thorough, very fair, seemingly unbiased, examination of each man. If you read this, you cannot help but come away with a better understanding of why history has played itself out the way that it has. I highly recommend this book.I received this book from NetGalley, in exchange for a fair review.