Of Spies and Lies: A CIA Lie Detector Remembers Vietnam FROM THE PUBLISHER
"Any serious study of the Vietnam War would be less than complete without accounting for the CIA's role in that conflict - a role that increased dramatically after the Tet Offensive in 1968." "John Sullivan was one of the CIA's top polygraph examiners during the final four years of the war in Vietnam, where he served longer and conducted more lie detector tests than any other examiner and worked with more agents than most of his colleagues. His job was to evaluate the reliability of the agency's information sources, an assignment that gave him a more intimate view of the war than was afforded most other participants." Of Spies and Lies traces Sullivan's journey from dedication to disillusionment while serving in Southeast Asia. Although many CIA personnel lived better in Vietnam and made more money than ever before in their careers, their working conditions hindered effective intelligence gathering. A larger and far more distressing obstacle, however, was the agency's failure to send its "best and brightest" agents to Southeast Asia. On the contrary, as Sullivan notes, Vietnam became a kind of dumping ground for poor performers, alcoholics, refugees from bad marriages, and other "problem agents."
SYNOPSIS
Any serious study of the Vietnam War would be less than complete without accounting for the CIA's role in that conflict—a role that increased dramatically after the Tet offensive in 1968. We know most of the details of military engagement in Vietnam, given its greater visibility, but until recently clandestine operations have remained shrouded in secrecy.
John Sullivan was one of the CIA's top polygraph examiners during the final four years of the war in Vietnam, where he served longer and conducted more lie detector tests than any other examiner and worked with more agents than most of his colleagues. His job was to evaluate the reliability of the agency's information sources, an assignment that gave him a more intimate view of the war than was afforded most other participants. In the first book to be written by such an operative, he tells what it was like to be an agency officer working in Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos during those chaotic years, putting a human face on covert operations that helps us better understand why we lost the war.
Of Spies and Lies traces Sullivan's journey from dedication to disillusionment while serving in Southeast Asia. Although many CIA personnel lived better in Vietnam and made more money than ever before, their actual working conditions hindered effective intelligence gathering. A much larger and far more distressing obstacle, however, was the agency's failure to send its "best and brightest" agents to Southeast Asia. On the contrary, as Sullivan notes, Vietnam became a kind of dumping ground for poor performers, alcoholics, refugees from bad marriages, and other "problem agents."
Through anecdotes and inside stories Sullivan provides new insights into CIA culture that debunk the "James Bond" image of clandestine operations and show how in Vietnam the seamier aspects of that culture were allowed to grow even worse. He discusses the roles of the CIA's three most significant players—Ted Shackley, General Charles Timmes, and Tom Polgar—from a more personal perspective than previously available and candidly portrays a rogues' gallery of cheats, scoundrels, and libertines, while also giving due credit to those who fought hard to maintain professional standards.
One of the most frank and intimate looks at CIA operations in Vietnam ever published, Of Spies and Lies reveals why the CIA's efforts there were such a failure and allows a more complete assessment of its poor performance in a losing cause.
This book is part of the Modern War Studies series.
FROM THE CRITICS
Publishers Weekly
The enormous and ever-growing Vietnam War memoir library is more and more dominated by the works of former military and media men, but only a handful of memoirs tell the war stories of civilian intelligence personnel. Sullivan, a former CIA polygraph examiner, adds his unique voice and perspective in this detailed, anecdote-heavy (and CIA-approved) account of his four years of service during the Vietnam War, from 1971 to 1975. Sullivan arrived in Vietnam a war hawk. After 48 months of traversing the war zone administering lie-detector tests to thousands of enemy prisoners and others, he came home a thoroughly disillusioned dove. Sullivan chronicles his change of heart by seemingly sparing few details about his work and social lives during his extended tour of duty. He paints a generally negative picture of the CIA's war against the Vietcong. Sullivan claims that CIA operatives produced "some good information," but that information was misused by those at the top and produced no real progress in undermining the enemy. On the social side, Sullivan readily admits that he lived the good life in Vietnam. He and his wife and child lacked for few creature comforts in the war zone. The book is peppered with references to leisurely brunches, swimming pool parties, daily exercise workouts, two-hour lunches, restaurant dinners, movies in theaters, dinner parties and the services of maids, cooks and chauffeurs. "Partying hardy," Sullivan says, "was another reality of Saigon, and keeping up with Saigon's social life was a challenge." It's safe to say that few others who have written memoirs about their Vietnam War experiences have delved as deeply as Sullivan does into this particular sort of "challenge." (May 30) Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information.
Kirkus Reviews
A memoir of CIA polygraph examiner Sullivan's turbulent 1971-75 tour in Vietnam. A career CIA employee (1968-99) and current lecturer at the Centre for Counterintelligence and Security Studies, is among the most qualified people in America to write an intimate and frank account of the intelligence community's role in Vietnam. Sullivan, after a five-year stint in the army, shifted career paths and began study at Michigan State University. There, he became disgusted with the antiwar protesters and signed up with the CIA as a polygraph analyst. His calm and methodical approach to polygraph testing produced notably reliable results, and as he began to advance in the agency, his superiors assigned him to duty in Vietnam. Sullivan details his encounters with key players in Southeast Asia, such as Ambassador Ellsworth Bunker and CIA Station Chief Theodore Shackley, as well as various subordinate agents and analysts who actually executed the often dangerous American intelligence operations. He asserts that the majority of senior policymakers often refused to acknowledge or send forward negative reports about the war, despite the voluminous intelligence that the US was losing ground with the South Vietnamese population. Sullivan further recalls the depravity, corruption, and drunkenness that pervaded the lower echelons of the Southeast Asian intelligence community. These reactions to Vietnam complicated an already difficult job and threw him into conflict with agents and superiors that demanded specific polygraph results to further their individual agendas. Unfortunately, the complexities of Sullivan's Vietnam experience overwhelm his narrative. Rather than a compelling mosaic about hisexperience, Sullivan's story reads more like a chronicle of petty office squabbles. Too narrowly focused for general readers, Sullivan may find an audience among CIA or Vietnam scholars. (35 photos, 7 maps)
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