Books like Surprise, Kill, Vanish by Annie Jacobsen

Valerie Plame Wilson recounts her work as a covert CIA officer, the 2010 leak scandal that exposed her identity, and her journey to protect her family and confront the nation’s political fallout.

Annie Jacobsen uncovers a decades‑long U.S. government quest for extrasensory perception—parapsychological experiments used to locate hostages, secret sites, and predict threats—through declassified files and interviews with over fifty insiders.

Millions have been gripped by Oliver Stone's film JFK and its premise that the plot to assassinate Kennedy originated beyond the highest levels of the U.S. government. In the movie, the advocate of this theory is a character named "X" played by Donald Sutherland, who, as the film's "Deep Throat," explains how and why this plot came about. As Stone acknowledged, "X" not only was faithfully depicted in the film, but also as the film's creative adviser provided fully. Documented information and analysis that helped shape the script. This mystery man was not a fabricated character, as some critics contend. His identity can now be revealed: "X" is L. Fletcher Prouty, a former top-level "military-CIA" operative and the author of JFK: The CIA, Vietnam, and the Plot to Assassinate John F. Kennedy. Now, for the first time, Prouty presents in book form the explosive thesis that influenced Oliver Stone from the time he first began reading the. Author's writings in the late 1980s. Among the author's revelations in JFK:. Kennedy's plan to change the course of the Vietnam conflict and to remove all U.S. military personnel from that country by the end of 1965 created enormous concern at the center of the military-industrial complex and led directly to his assassination. Upon receiving the report of the Cuban Study Group from Gen. Maxwell Taylor after the Bay of Pigs disaster in 1961, Kennedy vowed to "shatter the. CIA into a thousand pieces." He began by firing longtime Director of Central Intelligence Allen W. Dulles and his top aides. The army set up a full-fledged covert operation derisively named Operation Camelot to thwart Kennedy's efforts to end the war. President Johnson reversed Kennedy's orders to wind down in Vietnam immediately following Kennedy's murder. And in March 1964 he set the course for massive troop escalation. Why Kennedy was ultimately against the war and. Why he was really murdered. Brilliantly written and researched over nearly eight years, JFK is riveting. It is the first eyewitness account by a top-level insider, a man who had access to the primary documents and personalities - including those in the White House - dating back to 1943. The shock waves generated by JFK will shake the halls of government for decades to come.

A Question of Torture charts the CIA’s fifty‑year development of psychological interrogation techniques, tracing their spread from Vietnam to Iran, Central America, and the post‑9/11 era, and arguing that coerced information is unreliable and harmful to America’s legal and international reputation.

James Jesus Angleton, CIA spymaster and powerful unelected official, wielded hidden influence from WWII through the Cold War, overseeing MKULTRA, surveillance of Americans, and the hunt for Soviet moles, while engaging in controversial political and intelligence actions.

John Foster Dulles and his brother Allen Dulles, key figures in U.S. foreign policy and CIA leadership during the early Cold War, are examined in a joint biography.

Explore the CIA’s involvement with Lee Harvey Oswald through primary-source evidence and interviews with former officials, revealing how Oswald’s file was tampered with before and after Kennedy’s assassination.

The CIA's hidden manual of magic and deception: How the agency taught its agents to use sleight of hand for espionage and covert operations during the Cold War.

Executive Secrets traces the history of CIA covert action and its relationship to U.S. presidential decision-making, drawing on declassified documents, congressional investigations, and the author's own experiences.

Mark Riebling’s *Wedge* exposes the long‑standing rift between the CIA and FBI, showing how their rivalry shaped major U.S. intelligence failures from World War II to the 1990s, based on declassified files and insider interviews.

Allen Dulles, master spymaster and former CIA director, emerges from decades of secrecy as a pivotal figure in 20th‑century U.S. intelligence, diplomacy, and presidential history.

A sweeping history of the CIA, tracing its evolution from founding to present and examining controversial covert actions and the rise of secret prisons and torture in the post‑9/11 era.

Robert Baer's memoir recounts his personal experiences in the CIA, detailing the agency's involvement in covert operations and assassination attempts in the United States and beyond.