Intel Books?

TH15

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I did a search (albeit a quick one) and found nothing on the topic. I'm looking for some books to read this summer between semesters- preferably focusing on intelligence. Any suggestions?
 
Not necessarily Intel, but related to modern conflict: The Sling and the Stone by Thomas X. Hammes. Best book on 4th gen warfare that Ive seen.
 
The Psychology of Intelligence Analysis is a through but hard read if you've got the patience. You can find it on the CIA website.
 
Highly recommend the following:

On covert action: William J. Daugherty's "Executive Secrets" (University Press of Kentucky)
On intelligence versus terrorists: Devin Springer et.al. "Islamic Radicalism and Global Jihad" (Georgetown University Press)
On espionage, agent handling, and clandestine ops generally: James Olson's "Fair Play" (Potomac Books)

What makes these books the best: Each of the authors is a long time CIA officer with real experience in the field. Their books have zero crap.

If you need more to read, drop me a note, but I've used these books with military and civilian students extensively.
 
Highly recommend the following:

On covert action: William J. Daugherty's "Executive Secrets" (University Press of Kentucky)
On intelligence versus terrorists: Devin Springer et.al. "Islamic Radicalism and Global Jihad" (Georgetown University Press)
On espionage, agent handling, and clandestine ops generally: James Olson's "Fair Play" (Potomac Books)

What makes these books the best: Each of the authors is a long time CIA officer with real experience in the field. Their books have zero crap.

If you need more to read, drop me a note, but I've used these books with military and civilian students extensively.

Will do. Thanks Cat.
 
On espionage, agent handling, and clandestine ops generally: James Olson's "Fair Play" (Potomac Books)

I second that. An entertaining read. Additionally, at the end of his book, Olson includes a list of books on intelligence which he calls "The Essential Intelligence Library", the first fifty books he would acquire if he were building a personal intelligence library.

If you're looking for a beginner's primer on the craft of intelligence, "Silent Warfare" by Abram Shulsky and Gary Schmitt is just that. It's almost too basic, IMO, if you're already somewhat familiar with intelligence.

As for Lowenthal's book, I found it was good at explaining the relationship between different members of the intelligence community, even if it was a bit dry.
 
If you want to get an excellent introduction to signals intelligence, I would suggest James Bamford's "The Shadow Factory."
 
I would recommend any of Christopher Andrew's books on the KGB. He co wrote a lot/all of them with KGB defectors (Gordievsky, Mitrokhin and someone else IIRC) and they're really very interesting.

Marcus Wolf's book is pretty good. He was a good writer and it's interesting to see it directly from an East German point of view.
 
Have you read Matthew Aid's "The Secret Sentry"? If so, how does it compare to Bamford's book?
"Secret Sentry" is especially good on the history of the signals intelligence community. Bamford explains more about current techniques especially broad scale collection systems.
 
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