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Informationen zum Autor Hugh Wilford is a professor of history at California State University, Long Beach, and author of four books, including The Mighty Wurlitzer: How the CIA Played America . He lives in Long Beach, California. Klappentext From the 9/11 attacks to waterboarding to drone strikes, relations between the United States and the Middle East seem caught in a downward spiral. And all too often, the Central Intelligence Agency has made the situation worse. But this crisis was not a historical inevitability,far from it. Indeed, the earliest generation of CIA operatives was actually the region's staunchest western ally.In America's Great Game , celebrated intelligence historian Hugh Wilford reveals the surprising history of the CIA's pro-Arab operations in the 1940s and 50s by tracing the work of the agency's three most influential,and colourful,officers in the Middle East. Kermit Kim" Roosevelt was the grandson of Theodore Roosevelt and the first head of CIA covert action in the region his cousin, Archie Roosevelt, was a Middle East scholar and chief of the Beirut station. The two Roosevelts joined combined forces with Miles Copeland, a maverick covert operations specialist who had joined the American intelligence establishment during World War II. With their deep knowledge of Middle Eastern affairs, the three men were heirs to an American missionary tradition that engaged Arabs and Muslims with respect and empathy. Yet they were also fascinated by imperial intrigue, and were eager to play a modern rematch of the Great Game," the nineteenth-century struggle between Britain and Russia for control over central Asia. Despite their good intentions, these Arabists" propped up authoritarian regimes, attempted secretly to sway public opinion in America against support for the new state of Israel, and staged coups that irrevocably destabilized the nations with which they empathized. Their efforts, and ultimate failure, would shape the course of U.S.-Middle Eastern relations for decades to come.Based on a vast array of declassified government records, private papers, and personal interviews, America's Great Game tells the riveting story of the merry band of CIA officers whose spy games forever changed U.S. foreign policy. Kai Bird, co-author of "American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer" and author of "Crossing Mandelbaum Gate""Fascinating and authoritative. Hugh Wilford has written a lively, witty account of the CIA's escapades in the Middle East during the late 1940s and 1950s. Wilford uses the colorful life stories of cousins Kim and Archie Roosevelt--and their fellow covert operator Miles Copeland--to explain America's troubled historical relationship with Israel and the modern Arab world. This book is both an entertaining biography and a ground-breaking piece of critical history."Rhodri Jeffreys-Jones, author of "In Spies We Trust: The Story of Western Intelligence""This is a great book: well written with compelling details, good stories, and impressive use of primary evidence. It is tied together by a first-rate thesis that will make people think again about the Middle East." From an esteemed intelligence historian, the story of the eccentric CIA agents whose spy-games changed the course of Middle Eastern history-and U.S.-Arab relations-at the dawn of the Cold War. Zusammenfassung From the 9/11 attacks to waterboarding to drone strikes, relations between the United States and the Middle East seem caught in a downward spiral. And all too often, the Central Intelligence Agency has made the situation worse. But this crisis was not a historical inevitability -- far from it. Indeed, the earliest generation of CIA operatives was actually the region's staunchest western ally. In America's Great Game , celebrated intelligence historian Hugh Wilford reveals the surprising history of the CIA's pro-Arab operations in the 1940s and 50...
