Name: The devil's chessboard
ISBN: 9780008162078

The devil's chessboard

"An explosive, headline-making portrait of Allen Dulles, the man who transformed the CIA into the most powerful and secretive colossus in Washington, from the founder of Salon.com and author of the New York Times bestseller Brothers. America's greatest untold story: the United States' rise to world dominance under the guile of Allen Welsh Dulles, the longest-serving director of the CIA. Drawing on revelatory new materials, including newly discovered U.S. government documents, U.S. and European intelligence sources, the personal correspondence and journals of Allen Dulles's wife and mistress, and exclusive interviews with the children of prominent CIA officials, Talbot reveals the underside of one of America's most powerful and influential figures. Dulles's decade as the director of the CIA which he used to further his public and private agendas were dark times in American politics. Calling himself "the secretary of state of unfriendly countries," Dulles saw himself as above the elected law, manipulating and subverting American presidents in the pursuit of his personal interests and those of the wealthy elite he counted as his friends and clients colluding with Nazi-controlled cartels, German war criminals, and Mafiosi in the process.

What Hacker News says

drweevilDec 2024

Another good book on this, covering the CIA's part in this history is David Talbot's The Devil's Chessboard. Talbot's coverage of the '54 coup was particularly gripping, and very depressing.

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soderfooOct 2023

A great book on this topic is The Devil's Chessboard, which focuses on the nascent CIA and Allen Dulles.

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soderfooJul 2023

Any recommendations for a book about Hoover?

I just finished reading The Devil's Chessboard about Allen Dulles and the nascent CIA. It's a great book if you haven't read it.

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miguelazoFeb 2023

That is exactly right, and nothing has changed— the CIA still has plenty of influence over WaPo, NYT, etc. I would say it’s perhaps slightly less direct now, but even worse because they have such a large network of think tanks and cutouts to shape the narrative. Remember when CBS news had that 60 Minutes piece last year about how most US arms and supplies were not actually getting to the front in Ukraine? How long did it take for them to “partially” retract it for some embarrassingly bogus reason? PS: if you haven’t read “The Devil’s Chessboard” by David Talbot, highly recommend.

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miguelazoFeb 2023

If you find this interesting, read "The Devil's Chessboard" by David Talbot. Nixon was highly indebted to the Dulles brothers, and they carried out many operations like this at home and abroad (including against their own-- see Frank Olson). They also looked the other way (if not helped facilitate) such plots that were carried out by foreign governments they were working with (see Jesús Galíndez case). But let's not pretend this is only something that happened in the past, and would only happen in "Putin's Russia" today as this article's annoying preamble suggests.

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