A Spy’s Journey: A CIA Memoir

In March 1967, floyd Paseman joined the Central Intelligence Agency following successful service as an army officer in Germany. Stationed in the Far East, where he became fluent in Chinese language an culture, and then in Germany, at what was largely considered the agency’s toughest Cold War field posting, he quickly rose from field spy to division chief and became a fixture in the top ranks of the Operations Directorate of the CIA. A Spy’s Journey mixes Paseman’s real-life derring-do as a spy in the field with his observations on the sweeping and often negative changes that came with each new Presidential administration. Paseman details the behind the scenes intelligence gathering during the major events of eight presidential administrations: LBJ declines a second tem as the tide turns in Vietnam; Nixon opens relations to China, pulls out of Vietnam, resigns in disgrace; Ford becomes the nation’s caretaker after Watergate; Carter faces the Iranian Hostage Crisis; Reagan challenges the Evil Empire to tear down its wall; George H.W. Bush “wins” the Cold War and then takes on Saddam; Clinton leads the New World Order as peacekeeping turns tragic in Somalia; George W. Bush takes on terror, Saddam, and the Axis of Evil. While debate rages on recent intelligence failures-fueled by the report of the 9/11 Commission –Paseman’s memoir provides the ultimate pre-9/11 insider’s voice to the ongoing controversy.