Why am I passionate about this?

Green tracers in the sky over Baghdad. My first political memory is the start of the Gulf War in 1991. I remember writing angry essays criticizing the US decision to invade Iraq in 2003 for my high-school assignments. I have always been interested in US foreign policy and in how presidents make decisions. During my PhD, as I was working on a chapter on the origins of the Cuban Missile Crisis, I discovered the extent and–frankly–the madness of some of the plots the CIA and the White House concocted against Fidel Castro. More recently, the US government’s use of assassination and “targeted killings” have become the focus of my research. 


I wrote...

The President's Kill List: Assassination and Us Foreign Policy Since 1945

By Luca Trenta,

Book cover of The President's Kill List: Assassination and Us Foreign Policy Since 1945

What is my book about?

My book tells the controversial story of assassination in US foreign policy. From early experiments in assassination and mind control…

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The books I picked & why

Book cover of American Spy

Luca Trenta Why did I love this book?

Spies, lies, love, coups, what more do you want? In the book we encounter Marie Mitchell, now under threat of assassination, but previously a CIA spy who had fallen in love with–and collaborated in the downfall of–Thomas Sankara.

For Marie, the transition to the CIA is a way of escaping the stifling and misogynistic FBI of the 1980s. For the CIA, a black, attractive woman is ideal to snoop in and undermine a charismatic leader. The book, told by Marie as a letter to her children, moves back and forward between her spying missions and her (self)exile in Martinique.

It is fast-paced, realistic, and able to portray the daring aspects, the bureaucratic obstacles, and the moral compromises of spying for the CIA.

By Lauren Wilkinson,

Why should I read it?

4 authors picked American Spy as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

A BARACK OBAMA SUMMER READING 2019 PICK

SHORTLISTED FOR THE 2019 CENTRE FOR FICTION FIRST NOVEL PRIZE

'A whole lot more than just a spy thriller, wrapping together the ties of family, of love and of country' BARACK OBAMA

'There has never been anything like it' MARLON JAMES (GQ)

'A compelling read' MAIL ON SUNDAY

'Pacy and very exciting' DAILY TELEGRAPH
__________________________________

What if your sense of duty required you to betray the man you love?

It's 1986, the heart of the Cold War. Marie Mitchell is an intelligence officer with the FBI. She's brilliant and talented, but she's also…


Book cover of The Company: A Novel of the CIA

Luca Trenta Why did I love this book?

The book's subheading reads A Novel of the CIA. I would go further. This is ‘The Novel of the CIA,’ especially of the CIA between its founding and the early 1990s. It is a masterful combination of real and fictitious spies and covert operations.

The portrayal is so precise, the blending so seamless, that I found myself–and yes, I am supposedly an expert on this–double-checking whether certain operations had taken place. Nonfiction books on the CIA are one of my favorite things, but here, you experience the characters from much closer. I felt their desperation when operations collapsed, or agents were betrayed, or their elation after the rarer successes.

I felt the smoke in James Angleton’s room as he hunted for the missing mole; whether he managed to capture the mole or not will be for you to discover, but the book will stay with you both literally (it’s long) and emotionally for a very long time. 

By Robert Littell,

Why should I read it?

2 authors picked The Company as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

The New York Times bestselling spy novel The Company lays bare the history and inner workings of the CIA. This critically acclaimed blockbuster from internationally renowned novelist Robert Littell seamlessly weaves together history and fiction to create a multigenerational, wickedly nostalgic saga of the CIA-known as "the Company" to insiders. Racing across a landscape spanning the legendary Berlin Base of the '50s, the Soviet invasion of Hungary, the Bay of Pigs, Afghanistan, and the Gorbachev putsch, The Company tells the thrilling story of agents imprisoned in double lives, fighting an amoral, elusive, formidable enemy-and each other-in an internecine battle within…


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Book cover of A Voracious Grief

A Voracious Grief By Lindsey Lamh,

My book is fantastical historical fiction about two characters who're wrestling with the monstrosity of their grief.

It takes you into London high society, where Ambrose tries to forget about how much he misses Bennett and how much he dreads becoming as cold as their Grandfather. It takes you to…

Book cover of Poisoner in Chief: Sidney Gottlieb and the CIA Search for Mind Control

Luca Trenta Why did I love this book?

Now for some facts, although they will appear stranger than the fiction above. Born with a club foot and unable to join the army during World War II, Sydney Gottlieb became a leading covert warrior. For years, he oversaw some of the CIA’s most controversial programs. He developed poisons to kill foreign leaders and officials, and he worked in MKULTRA, the Agency’s program for mind control, which included the use of LSD, drugs, isolation, and other invasive experiments and forms of torture on witting and unwitting subjects.

The book is a detailed, if harrowing, history. It is even more impressive as most of the documents on these programs were destroyed by Gottlieb himself in 1973, under orders from the CIA Director at the time, Richard Helms. 

By Stephen Kinzer,

Why should I read it?

4 authors picked Poisoner in Chief as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

The visionary chemist Sidney Gottlieb was the CIA's master magician and gentle hearted torturer - the agency's "poisoner in chief." As head of the MK-ULTRA mind control project, he directed brutal experiments at secret prisons on three continents. He made pills, powders, and potions that could kill or maim without a trace, and he secretly dosed unsuspecting American citizens with mind-altering drugs. His experiments spread LSD across the United States, making him a hidden godfather of the 1960s counterculture, and he was also the chief supplier of spy tools used by CIA officers around the world.

Stephen Kinzer, the author…


Book cover of Legacy of Ashes: The History of the CIA

Luca Trenta Why did I love this book?

Is this the best book on the Agency, probably not. Is this a full history? No again. But it is the first book I bought and read on the Agency, and it kickstarted my passion for secrecy and covert action. I found the account, perhaps, a bit biased. There aren’t only failures in the history of the CIA, but the failures sure are many, and Weiner portrays them with accuracy and flair. The degree of access to participants is also exceptional, and I was drawn immediately into the Agency schemes.

How many failures can an Agency take? How can we reconcile secrecy with a democratic society? After reading the book, I felt like I did not have all the answers, but I certainly wanted to find out more. The book’s story ended in 2007, but a sequel is coming in 2025.

By Tim Weiner,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Legacy of Ashes as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

With shocking revelations that made headlines in papers across the country, Pulitzer-Prize-winner Tim Weiner gets at the truth behind the CIA and uncovers here why nearly every CIA Director has left the agency in worse shape than when he found it; and how these profound failures jeopardize our national security.


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Book cover of Bottled Secrets of Rosewood

Bottled Secrets of Rosewood By Mary Kendall,

Miranda falls in love with her dream house but soon discovers it's an affair with complications. A lot of them. Rosewood is a centuries old, tumble-down, gambrel roofed charmer located in an isolated, coastal corner of Virginia referred to as "strange". Known for long-standing and antiquated customs, an almost indecipherable…

Book cover of The Sisterhood: The Secret History of Women at the CIA

Luca Trenta Why did I love this book?

As I researched the 1990s hunt for Osama Bin Laden for my book, I became aware that most of the team in the CIA virtual station tasked with tracking down the terrorist leader was composed of women. And yet, most histories of the CIA are histories of (white) men.

In this book, I could find a lot more detail on the women hunting Bin Laden, as well as on many others. Mundy provides a potted history of women in the CIA, from its origins to the present day. In the book, I admired Mundy’s ability to contact and fully connect with current and former CIA operatives. The stories are told in an almost unfiltered manner from the perspectives of those who lived through them.

In this manner, each aspect is made somewhat more real, from the fight for better roles, pay, and recognition to the central role in intelligence collection, analysis, and covert operations. Sure, some of the claims, I felt, were a bit overblown, but the book is the first important step of a much-needed rebalancing of the history of the Agency. 

By Liza Mundy,

Why should I read it?

3 authors picked The Sisterhood as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

A “rip-roaring” (Steve Coll), “staggeringly well-researched” (The New York Times) history of three generations at the CIA, “electric with revelations” (Booklist) about the women who fought to become operatives, transformed spycraft, and tracked down Osama bin Laden, from the bestselling author of Code Girls

A NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW EDITORS’ CHOICE • A FOREIGN POLICY AND SMITHSONIAN BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR

In development as a series from Lionsgate Television, executive produced by Scott Delman (Station Eleven)

Created in the aftermath of World War II, the Central Intelligence Agency relied on women even as it attempted to channel their…


Explore my book 😀

The President's Kill List: Assassination and Us Foreign Policy Since 1945

By Luca Trenta,

Book cover of The President's Kill List: Assassination and Us Foreign Policy Since 1945

What is my book about?

My book tells the controversial story of assassination in US foreign policy. From early experiments in assassination and mind control to the Trump Administration’s killing of Iranian General Qassem Soleimani, the book explores the methods, the language, and the politics surrounding assassinations and assassination attempts. 

It showcases how the US government targeted leaders and officials both directly, from developing poison to bombings and indirectly, by providing support to local actors. For much of the Cold War, assassination happened behind a veil of euphemisms, special groups with dull names, and presidential deniability. With the establishment of a ban on assassination in the 1970s, the US government had to justify internally and publicly its activities as something that looked like assassination but was something else.

Book cover of American Spy
Book cover of The Company: A Novel of the CIA
Book cover of Poisoner in Chief: Sidney Gottlieb and the CIA Search for Mind Control

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