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The Good Spy: The Life And Death Of Robert Ames (2014)

by Kai Bird(Favorite Author)

3.88 of 5 Votes: 4

ISBN

0307889750 (ISBN13: 9780307889751)

languge

English

genre

Nonfiction

publisher

Crown

review 1: “The Good Spy” is a biography of Bob Ames – a legendary CIA Middle East hand who died in the 1983 bombing of the Beirut embassy. I had not known about Ames and I am a Middle East neophyte so the vast majority of this story was new to me, and I enjoyed the book mostly for what it taught me about the region – Arab countries’ internal politics, Isarel-Palestine issues, the rise of Hezbollah, the Lebanon civil war, etc. Ames was an Arabist’s Arabist – spoke excellent Arabic, and spent years early in his career living in remote parts of Yemen and Saudi Arabia getting to know the guts of these countries – dining with Bedouin on roast lamb in their tents. He became close to some key figures in the Palestine Liberation Organization (he was in fact the conduit to t... morehe PLO at a time when it was officially forbidden for Americans to have contact with them), and there is a lot in the book on Israel-Palestine issues. The Israelis (mostly Mossad) do not come off well in much of this – while they are tough and committed to their national security as they see it, they are also occasionally major bunglers (killing an innocent Moroccan waiter who they mistakenly thought was a Palestinian militant behind the Munich Olympics massacre for example), with little consideration given to the collateral damage to innocents (and their own reputation and moral authority) as a result of their pursuit of terrorists. I had never even heard of the Sabra and Shatila massacre (the butchering of hundreds of Palestinians in a refugee camp in Lebanon by Lebanese Christian militias, with the aid of Israeli forces), and it is truly horrific – the kind of thing that makes you understand why the two sides hate and distrust each other so profoundly. Its interesting to read about President Reagan’s reaction to some of the Israeli actions in the Lebanon war – much more directly critical of Israel (even on things like settlements) than any American President could be now – which made me wonder why and how this evolution (towards criticism of Israel as an absolute third rail in American politics) happened. There is also a fascinating section on Iran after the revolution, when they were arguably far worse (or at least more brazenly bad) actors than they are now – bombing US embassies and assassinating American diplomats. Iran has become kind of a normalized bad state in my adulthood, but in the 1980s they were almost North Korean in their roguery. The book is also really interesting on intelligence tradecraft – particularly the fine line between developing relationships with sources and recruiting actual agents. Ames, for example, was excellent at the former but not good at the latter (which is actually an incredibly rare event – most agents volunteer rather than get “turned”). The story “The Good Spy” tells – both of Bob Ames personally and the larger Middle East context – is really interesting, but I wish the writing had been better. Bird has apparently won a Pulitzer so what do I know, but I found the writing a distraction from the story sometimes – choppy and utilitarian rather than fluid.
review 2: This was a perfect book for me to read about being sorely disappointed by Brad Thor's "Act of War." This one is non-fiction, but still often thrilling and entertaining. With how much I have read on this topic, I feel I should have known all of this before, but I did not. While initially weary that the author grew up across the street from Robert Ames, I found no bias in this telling and would recommend it to anyone who enjoys reading about spycraft (fiction or nonfiction). less

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