Disciples: The World War II Missions of the CIA Directors Who Fought for Wild Bill Donovan

Doug Waller wrote a splendid history of OSS chief Bill Donovan, WILD BILL DONOVAN. Now he is back with an even better book, THE DISCIPLES, that reveals the untold story of four remarkable individuals who emerged from OSS to lead the Central Intelligence Agency: Allen Dulles, Richard Helms, Bill Casey, and Bill Colby. These were all singularly interesting people, and with a keen eye for character and a great grasp of the intelligence world, Waller tells a compelling story. He is full of insight, writes clearly and concisely, and shows again a knack for bringing events and key players alive. This is a must read for anyone interested in current events, history, and the secretive world of intelligence.

I found this a very good book. Based on what I've read elsewhere about the principal characters (Dulles, Helms, Colby & Casey), these are perhaps sympathetic, but overall very even-handed presentations. The major focus of this book is the time each man spent working for the OSS during WWII; if you're looking for a history of the CIA or an in-depth study of any of these men's tenure as Director of Central Intelligence (DCI), this is not that book. What the book does, and does very well, is tell the story of how each character came to work in the OSS, how it impacted them, and how they ended up at the CIA afterwards. Four different stories; all are interesting.Allen Dulles was an international lawyer who started out his career in the State Department (rather easy to do, when your uncle is the Secretary of State). Richard Helms started out as a reporter stationed in pre-WWII Berlin. William Colby was an "army brat" who volunteered for service and was frustrated that his poor eyesight was keeping him out of the action. Finally, William Casey was a brilliant research analyst with a gift for organization that Donovan's OSS clearly needed. Of the four, Dulles was really the only "active" spy, and a pretty good one. Based in Switzerland, he wasn't shy about letting it be known he was interested in information and willing to pay for it. Helms and Casey were generally based at OSS's London office running spy operations. Colby's was a true "shooting war", as he ended up doing commando duty in both France and Norway. For each of them, serving in the OSS was, for them, a "Good War".The book only spends about 30 pages (in the hardcover version) discussing each man's turn as DCI. In that brief space, it does a pretty good job explaining the controversies (some self inflicted, some not) that marred their service, and in three of the cases, ended up getting the Director fired (Casey resigned for health reasons, but was up to his neck in Iran-Contra when he resigned). I found the last paragraph of that chapter was the best summary of what went wrong for each of these men as DCI; why, it was that doing what was deemed "good work" in the OSS seemed to go so terribly wrong at the CIA.One of the themes talked about in other books I've read about the CIA is the basic issue that outside of spying against a known enemy in a hot or cold war situation, Americans aren't comfortable with having a spy operation. Add to that a penchant the CIA has for moving beyond pure intelligence gathering and analysis into clearly illegal operations, getting caught up in the mess might be part of the job of DCI. This book doesn't try to solve that riddle, but it's one I thought about when I was finishing it.Douglas Waller writes a good book. I enjoyed the topic, and I enjoyed how it was written. I recommend this to anyone interested in the "spook" careers of these men before there was a CIA.

This book is an interesting comparison of four men who served the United States in times of peace and conflict with one thing in common. They were spies who reached very high levels within the Central Intelligence Agency.The author divides the book into sections to made the comparison easier to understand. Especially since it details such complicated matters as starting a spy agency, gathering intelligence, sorting material and reporting information back to the united states.Of particular interest is the role espionage played in Switzerland during the second world war. The author goes into great detail regarding the members of the Austrian and German underground and the information they brought the allies. In particular, this section of the book details the American knowledge of the attempt on Hitler’s life known as Valkyrie.Allen Dulles was the man in charge of the Switzerland operation and quite frankly. I think it sounds like he enjoyed every moment of his work during the war. He was a master spy whose operations gathered intense information about the fall of Germany.Also quite interesting were the training of the Jedburgh. This complicated training lead to men, and sometimes women, who volunteered for some of the most dangerous missions in world war two. Among these men was William Colby who lead commando missions in France and Norway. The Norway history is quite fascinating and an area I’ve not read much about. But anything to with commandos on skis is bound to be interesting. Colby was clearly possessed of great courage.Richard Helms and Bill Casey will complete the history book. Anyone interested in the history of 20th century e espionage will clearly recognize these names. I will leave the rest of the details regarding their actions in World War Two and Vietnam to the reader of this book. But needless to say, it is as interesting as anything that was done by Dulles or Colby.This book is expertly researched and is fairly easy to read. It makes for a wonderful introduction to fine history regarding espionage and the kind of men who choose this line of work. I enjoyed it tremendously and would recommend reading the book Counter Spy by Richard Cultler as another perspective on World War Two. The book A drop in the Night by Royce Fulmer for more information about the methods of delivering spies. Finally, if you are interested in behind the lines action in Normandy I would recommend reading Bailout over Normandy by Ted Fahrenwald.

Book is very interesting both from a historical view point and from an informative look at US spy personnel. However, it is too long on introduction and one has trouble pulling together the various players as to their common relative ness to each other. A good read but not a great read.