Ex-Spies Tell It All

[housewolf]

Ex-Spies Tell It All
By SCOTT SHANE
Published: March 15, 2005

WASHINGTON, March 14 - These days, more and more American spies who come in from the cold go right back out, on book tours. And their portrait of the Central Intelligence Agency is none too flattering.

Since December, three former C.I.A. case officers who did the most sensitive work of the government - persuading foreigners to betray their countries or their causes - have published memoirs. Two more such books will be out in May, making a dozen firsthand accounts published since the late 1990's. This swelling library of increasingly candid C.I.A. memoirs reflects a striking cultural change at the agency.

"There used to be a feeling of 'Don't even think about writing a book,' and I shared that feeling," said Floyd L. Paseman, 64, who worked for the agency in Asia and Europe for nearly 35 years. Yet today Mr. Paseman is just out with "A Spy's Journey" (Zenith Press), in which he recounts helping foil Libyan hit men trying to assassinate an American ambassador, finding himself in a sniper's gun sights after recruiting an Iranian agent and - a more frequent hazard - fending off colleagues dispatched to the field without language skills or common sense.

Why the change of heart? "We're asking the public to support us when things go bad," said Mr. Paseman, who retired in 2001 and lives near Williamsburg, Va. "People need to understand how difficult and fragile the whole human intelligence effort is."

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http://www.nytimes.com/2005/03/15/books/15spyb.html?