CIA Suggested Reading List

(source) This brief bibliography of intelligence literature provides a wide spectrum of views on intelligence and the Central Intelligence Agency. The readings cover history, technology, opinion, and some of the key personalities associated with intelligence. The book lists offer the reader personal and academic views on intelligence, its role in national security, and the forces that have shaped it over the years.

This revision was published January 2014.

World War II & Before

Book cover for Tracking the Axis Enemy: The Triumph of Anglo-American Naval Intelligence

Book cover for Grant's Secret Service: The Intelligence War from Belmont to Appomattox

Book cover for The Secret War for the Union: The Untold Story of Military Intelligence in the Civil War

Book cover for The Deceivers: Allied Military Deception in the Second World War

Book cover for Foreign Intelligence: Research and Analysis in the Office of Strategic Services, 1942-1945

Book cover for The Final Months of the War With Japan: Signals Intelligence, U.S. Invasion Planning, and the A-Bomb Decision.

Book cover for Intelligence in the War of Independence

Book cover for Black Dispatches: Black American Contributions to Union Intelligence During the Civil War

Book cover for Enigma: The Battle for the Code

Book cover for The Code Book: The Evolution of Secrecy from Mary, Queen of Scots to Quantum Cryptography

Book cover for Stalin's Secret War: Soviet Counterintelligence against the Nazis, 1941-1945

Book cover for Cloak and Gown: Scholars in the Secret War, 1939-1961

CIA & OSS History

Book cover for For the President's Eyes Only: Secret Intelligence and the American Presidency from Washington to Bush

Book cover for The CIA: Reality Vs. Myth

Book cover for The Central Intelligence Agency: An Instrument of Government, to 1950

Book cover for Directors of Central Intelligence and Leaders of the U.S. Intelligence Community

Book cover for The Book of Honor : The Secret  Lives and Deaths of CIA Operatives

Book cover for The Central Intelligence Agency: History and Documents

Book cover for The CIA at War: Inside the Secret Campaign Against Terror

Book cover for Honorable Treachery: A History of U. S. Intelligence, Espionage, and Covert Action from the American Revolution to the CIA

Book cover for Agency: The Rise and Decline of the CIA

Book cover for On the front lines of the Cold War: Documents on the intelligence war in Berlin, 1946 to 1961

Book cover for Donovan and the CIA: A History of the Establishment of the Central Intelligence Agency

Book cover for The CIA Under Harry Truman

Book cover for The Office of Strategic Services: America's first intelligence agency

Book cover for Inside CIA's Private World: Declassified Articles from the Agency`s Internal Journal, 1955-1992

Biographies & Memoirs (CIA Careers)

Book cover for CIA Spymaster: George Kisevalter: The Agency's Top Case Officer Who Handled Penkovsky And Popov

Book cover for Autobiography of a Spy

Book cover for Spy Handler: Memoir of a KGB Officer - The True Story of the Man Who Recruited Robert Hanssen and Aldrich Ames

Book cover for A Spy For All Seasons: My Life in the CIA

Book cover for From the Shadows

Book cover for CIA Life: 10,000 Days with the Agency

Book cover for Gentleman Spy: The Life of Allen Dulles

Book cover for A Look Over My Shoulder: A Life in the Central Intelligence Agency

Book cover for China Hands: Nine Decades of Adventure, Espionage, and Diplomacy in Asia

Book cover for The American Agent: My Life in the CIA

Book cover for The Reader of Gentleman's Mail: Herbert O. Yardley and the Birth of American Cod

Book cover for Spymaster: My Thirty-two Years in Intelligence and Espionage Against the West

Book cover for The Twilight of Democracy

Book cover for Cold Warrior: James Jesus Angleton - Cia's Master Spy Hunter

Book cover for The Master of Disguise: My Secret Life in the CIA

Book cover for General Walter Bedell Smith as Director of Central Intelligence, October 1950-February 1953

Book cover for A Spy's Journey: A CIA Memoir

Book cover for Casey: The Lives and Secrets of William J. Casey: from the OSS to the CIA

Book cover for The Night Watch: 25 Years of Peculiar Service

Book cover for The Man Who Kept the Secrets: Richard Helms And The CIA

Book cover for Lost Crusader: The Secret Wars of CIA Director William Colby

Book cover for The Very Best Men

Book cover for At the Center of the Storm: My Years at the CIA

Book cover for Secrecy and Democracy: The CIA in Transition

Book cover for Man Without A Face

Women in Intelligence

Book cover for Wild Rose: Rose O'Neale Greenhow, Civil War Spy

Book cover for A Life in Secrets: The Story of Vera Atkins and the Lost Agents of SOE

Book cover for Cast No Shadow: The Life of the American Spy Who Changed the Course of World War II

Book cover for Denial and Deception: An Insider's View of the CIA from Iran-Contra to 9/11

Book cover for Sisterhood of Spies: The Women of the OSS

Book cover for Wolves at the Door: The True Story Of America's Greatest Female Spy

Book cover for Female Intelligence: Women and Espionage in the First World War

Book cover for Women in the Resistance

Book cover for Southern Lady, Yankee Spy: The True Story of Elizabeth Van Lew, a Union Agent in the Heart of the Confederacy

Operations: Counterintelligence (CI)

Book cover for Confessions of a Spy: The Real Story of Aldrich Ames

Book cover for Thwarting Enemies at Home and Abroad: How to Be a Counterintelligence Officer

Book cover for The Falcon and the Snowman: A True Story of Friendship and Espionage

Book cover for Wilderness of Mirrors

Book cover for Spy Who Got Away

Book cover for Spy: The Inside Story of How the FBI's Robert Hanssen Betrayed America

Operations: Espionage

Book cover for The Sword and the Shield: The Mitrokhin Archive and the Secret History of the KGB

Book cover for The World Was Going Our Way: The KGB and the Battle for the the Third World - Newly Revealed Secrets from the Mitrokhin Archive

Book cover for The Main Enemy: The Inside Story of the CIA's Final Showdown with the KGB

Book cover for Partners at the Creation: The Men Behind Postwar Germany's Defense and Intelligence Establishments

Book cover for A Short Course in the Secret War

Book cover for Mole - The True Story of the First Russian Spy to Become an American Counterspy

Book cover for Battleground Berlin: CIA vs. KGB in the Cold War

Book cover for Cia's Secret Operations: Espionage, Counterespionage, and Covert Action

Book cover for The Spy Who Saved the World: How a Soviet Colonel Changed the Course of the Cold War

Book cover for A Secret Life: The Polish Officer, His Covert Mission, and the Price He Paid to Save His Country

Operations: Covert Action (CA)

Book cover for Feet to the Fire: CIA Covert Operations in Indonesia, 1957-1958

Book cover for The CIA's Secret War in Tibet

Book cover for Executive Secrets: Covert Action and the Presidency

Book cover for Dirty Tricks or Trump Cards: U.S. Covert Action and Counterintelligence

Book cover for Raiders of the China Coast: CIA Covert Operations During the Korean War

Book cover for Facing reality: From world federalism to the CIA

Book cover for Safe for Democracy: The Secret Wars of the CIA

Book cover for Countercoup: The Struggle for the Control of Iran

Book cover for Operation Hotel California: The Clandestine War Inside Iraq

Book cover for Clinton's Secret Wars: The Evolution of a Commander in Chief

Analysis

Book cover for War of Numbers: An Intelligence Memoir

Book cover for At Cold War's End: United States Intelligence on the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, 1989-1991

Book cover for CIA and the Vietnam policymakers: Three episodes 1962-1968

Book cover for Analyzing Intelligence: Origins, Obstacles, and Innovations

Book cover for CIA's Analysis of the Soviet Union 1947-1991: A Documentary Collection

Book cover for Getting to Know the President: CIA Briefings of Presidential Candidates 1952-1992

Book cover for Strategic Intelligence for American World Policy

Book cover for Assessing the Soviet Threat: The Early Cold War Years

Book cover for Intentions and Capabilities : Estimates on Soviet Strategic Forces: 1950-1983

Book cover for Sherman Kent and the Board of National Estimates: Collected essays

Technology

Book cover for Body of Secrets: Anatomy of the Ultra-Secret National Security Agency

Book cover for The Puzzle Palace: Inside the National Security Agency, America's Most Secret Intelligence Organization

Book cover for Mayday: Eisenhower, Khruschev and the U-2 Affair

Book cover for Eyeball to Eyeball: The Inside Story of the Cuban Missile Crisis

Book cover for Deep Black: Space Espionage and National Security

Book cover for Eye in the Sky: The Story of the Corona Spy Satellites

Book cover for Ultimate Spy

Book cover for CIA Special Weapons & Equipment: Spy Devices of the Cold War

Book cover for CIA And The U-2 Program, 1954-1974

Book cover for 50 Years of the U-2: The Complete Illustrated History of the Dragon Lady

Book cover for Skunk Works: A Personal Memoir of My Years at Lockheed

Book cover for Archangel: CIA's Supersonic A-12 Reconnaissance Aircraft

Book cover for CORONA : America's First Satellite Program

Book cover for Blind Man's Bluff: The Untold Story of American Submarine Espionage

Book cover for Secret Empire: Eisenhower, the CIA, and the Hidden Story of America's Space Espionage

War on Terrorism

Book cover for The 9/11 Commission Report: Final Report of the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States

Book cover for Forecasting Terrorism: Indicators and Proven Analytic Techniques

Book cover for 1000 Years for Revenge: International Terrorism and the FBI--the Untold Story

Book cover for First In: An Insider's Account of How the CIA Spearheaded the War on Terror in Afghanistan

Book cover for Imperial Hubris: Why the West Is Losing the War on Terror

Book cover for Terrorism and Democracy

Book cover for Al Qaeda in Europe: The New Battleground of International Jihad

General Interest

Book cover for Knowing Your Friends: Intelligence Inside Alliances and Coalitions from 1914 to the Cold War

Book cover for The CIA and Congress: The Untold Story from Truman to Kennedy

Book cover for Best Truth: Intelligence in the Information Age

Book cover for The Future of American Intelligence

Book cover for The Craft of Intelligence: America's Legendary Spy Master on the Fundamentals of Intelligence Gathering for a Free World

Book cover for War by Other Means: Economic Espionage in America

Book cover for KGB: The Inside Story of Its Foreign Operations from Lenin to Gorbachev

Book cover for The Great Game: The Myths and Reality of Espionage

Book cover for Strategic Intelligence: Windows into a Secret World

Book cover for World of Secrets: The Uses and Limits of Intelligence

Book cover for Intelligence: From Secrets To Policy

Book cover for The Fourth World War: Diplomacy and Espionage in the Age of Terrorism

Book cover for Fair Play: The Moral Dilemmas of Spying

Book cover for Wedge: The Secret War Between the FBI and CIA

Book cover for Transforming U.S. Intelligence

Book cover for The Agency and the Hill:  CIA's Relationship with Congress, 1946-2004

Book cover for The Central Intelligence Agency: Security under Scrutiny

Book cover for Spymasters: Ten CIA Officers in Their Own Words

Reference

Book cover for Encyclopedia of Intelligence and Counterintelligence

Book cover for Intelligence and espionage: An analytical bibliography

Book cover for The Literary Spy: The Ultimate Source for Quotations on Espionage & Intelligence

Book cover for The Encyclopedia of American Intelligence and Espionage: From the Revolutionary War to the Present

Book cover for American Intelligence, 1775-1990: A Bibliographical Guide

Book cover for Stalking the History of the Office of Strategic Services: An OSS Bibliography

Book cover for Spy Book: The Encyclopedia of Espionage

Book cover for The Commission on the Intelligence Capabilities of the United States Regarding Weapons of Mass Destruction: Report to the President of the United States

Book cover for Foreign Relations of the United States, 1945-1950: Emergence of the Intelligence Establishment

Book cover for United States Intelligence: An Encyclopedia