From the Shadows: The Ultimate Insider's Story of Five Presidents and How They Won the Cold War

by Robert M. Gates

Overview

Written by a former director of the CIA, this is the story of America's and the agency's role in the collapse of communism in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe.

As the only person to rise from entry-level analyst to Director of the CIA and to serve on the White House staffs of four Presidents, Robert Gates is uniquely qualified to tell the unprecedented inside story of the Cold War. Drawing on his access to classified information and top-level involvement in policy decisions, Gates lays bare the hidden wars and operations the United States waged against communism worldwide. Ever certain that the fifty-year struggle with the Soviet Union was indeed a war, Gates makes candid appraisals of Presidents, key officials, and policies of the period. Among his disclosures are: how Carter laid the foundations for Reagan's covert wars against the Soviets; CIA predictions of a conservative coup against Gorbachev and the collapse of the Soviet Union; CIA and KGB "black operations" against each other; the secret relationship between Pope John Paul II and the Soviets; and three secret CIA-KGB summits.

From the Shadows is a classic memoir on the career of a CIA officer at the center of power during a time when the threat of global annihilation informed America's every move.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781439127483
Publisher:	Simon & Schuster
Publication date:	12/20/2011
Series:	CIA Secrets for History Buffs
Sold by:	SIMON & SCHUSTER
Format:	eBook
Pages:	608
Sales rank:	845,348
File size:	2 MB

About the Author

Robert M. Gates was Director of Central Intelligence from November 1991 to January 1993. He lives in Washington State.

Table of Contents

Introduction     15
1969-1974: Detente-The Years of Smoke and Mirrors
Washington and Moscow: 1969     27
So This Was "Detente"?     39
1975-1980: The Mask of Soviet Ascendancy
American Paralysis     53
The "Third World" War     64
Planting Lethal Seeds     85
MUTS, Spies, and Dissidents     97
Defense and Arms Control: Advantage USSR     105
1979: Cold War, Hot War-East War, West War     118
Carter Turns to CIA     135
The Mask of Soviet Ascendancy, the Reality of Vulnerability     170
1981-1986: The Resurgence of the West
The Reawakening     183
Reagan's Sword: Casey at CIA     198
Turning the Tables     226
1983: The Most Dangerous Year     258
The War in Washington, 1983: Shultz Against the Field     278
Central America, 1983-1984: Our Own Worst Enemy     293
Passages: Last Gasp of the Soviet Old Guard     317
1985: Reagan and Gorbachev-the Best of Enemies     327
The Third World Competition, 1985-1986: Washington Pours It On     346
Intelligence Wars     357
1986-1991: Liberation and History's Dustbin
Gorbachev's Uncertain Trumpet, 1986-1987     375
Diversions     390
Geneva to Washington     404
Ending the "Third World" War     427
Gorbachev: Destroying the Soviet System     438
The "Velvet Revolutions" of 1989: The Avalanche of Liberation     449
Together at Last: Bush and Gorbachev     472
Destruction of the "Evil Empire"     508
A Joyless Victory     532
Reflections     553
Notes     577
Index     581

Editorial Reviews

Gates, director of the Central Intelligence Agency from 1991 to 1993, rose from entry level to the top. His insider's account of the Cold War, CIA operations and the unraveling of the Soviet Union is sprinkled with revelations. We learn that 1983 was "the most dangerous year in U.S.-U.S.S.R. relations"; that President Bush telephoned Boris Yeltsin in the Russian parliament building during the 1991 attempted coup; that for months the CIA predicted a coup attempt against Gorbachev-a warning that he ignored. Gates characterizes former CIA director William Casey as coming to the CIA "primarily to wage war against the Soviet Union." Both the KGB and the CIA, Gates divulges, sponsored countless "black operations"-forgeries, lies, dirty tricks and other covert propaganda activities designed to embarrass and discredit the other side. We also learn that during Gorbachev's 1987 visit to Washington, a collateral secret summit took place-Gates, then CIA deputy director, met with KGB foreign operations chief Vladimir Kryuchkov; they secretly met again in Moscow in 1989 when Kryuchkov was head of the KGB. Gates also candidly discusses how the agency's contemptuous treatment of Congress, evasive briefings and deceptions eroded public confidence. (May)

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly

A career undercover man who reached the top of his furtive profession (as director of the CIA from late 1991 through early 1993), Gates sheds considerable light in this wide-angle memoir on the ways in which the craft of intelligence influenced government policy during the height of the Cold War.

Focusing on the undeclared conflict that pitted the US against the USSR and its client states in venues ranging from Afghanistan to Poland, the author offers a notably candid chronological evaluation of what his agency contributed (or did not contribute) to the last 25 years of America's war against Communism. He also provides telling detail on the homefront hostilities in which CIA officials battled their counterparts at other agencies, justifiably wary lawmakers, and investigative reporters to remain in the good graces of the White House. Gates also explains that détente was the Nixon administration's pragmatic response to the CIA's failure to foresee the Soviet military buildup that began during the late 1960s, producing a singular shift in the global balance of power. He goes on to show that there was appreciably more continuity than is generally perceived between the Carter and Reagan eras, as far as effective challenges to Moscow's zeal for geopolitical adventurism were concerned. Covered as well are the CIA's prescient take on Mikhail Gorbachev's ouster, the agency's surprise at the overnight success of the Velvet Revolution that signalled the end of the Warsaw Pact, the cost of institutional lapses (including the treachery of Aldrich Ames), and the several secret CIA-KGB summits. The vetted text delivers a surprising measure of jocose particulars and tricks-of-the-trade disclosures. Nor does Gates neglect to settle some scores with out-of-office mandarins (George Schultz and others) who beat him into print.

A silent-service veteran's genuinely engrossing from-the- inside-out appraisal of an eventful period in the history of the US and the wider world.

Kirkus Reviews