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SPY

Name: SPY
Author: David Wise
ISBN: 0-375-50745-0

THE INSIDE STORY OF HOW THE FBI’S ROBERT HANSSEN BETRAYED AMERICA

by David Wise ‧ RELEASE DATE: Oct. 29, 2002

Still, a first-rate true-crime story that gets inside the shadowy—and astoundingly average—world of spooks, moles, and ops.

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A solidly paced, richly detailed account, by intelligence-community insider Wise (Cassidy’s Run, 2000, etc.), of the FBI desk jockey who sold secrets to the Soviet and Russian governments for two decades—and came close to getting away with it.

Robert Hanssen was apparently an average sort of fellow, a good churchgoer and father who kept the lawn mowed and the bills paid; his fellow FBI officers thought of him as a colorless, humorless sort, “a computer guy, a weenie, a number cruncher,” as one put it, “somebody you want to have on your team, to use. He was never going to lead the team.” Wise hazards that Hanssen may have gone over to the Soviets, way back in the late 1970s, precisely because he felt the need to show that he had executive potential; whatever the case, in his checkered and sometimes clueless career as a traitor, he gave up as many as 50 double agents, spies, and informants working around the world, most of whom wound up dead. It took federal counterespionage agents from several bureaus years to track down the spy among them, in part, as Wise writes, because Hanssen himself was involved in the investigation—and in part, it seems, as is so often true, because the feds bungled and stumbled everywhere they went. Still, they finally caught up to Hanssen just a couple of years ago, to some extent thanks to Hanssen’s own ineptitude. Wise is a bit easier on the FBI and CIA than are some of the operatives who worked on the Hanssen case—as one remarks, “There’s absolutely no excuse for the FBI not, at some point, to have identified Bob Hanssen,” as it could not do by itself. Wise writes well and capably, as always, but this story is largely narrative, if full of nice twists and turns, and readers may miss the analytical, explanatory power he has brought to bear on broader-themed works such as The Politics of Lying (1973) and The Invisible Government (1964).

Still, a first-rate true-crime story that gets inside the shadowy—and astoundingly average—world of spooks, moles, and ops.

Pub Date: Oct. 29, 2002

ISBN: 0-375-50745-0

Page Count: 256

Publisher: Random House

Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2002

Categories:

BIOGRAPHY & MEMOIR | HISTORICAL & MILITARY | GENERAL BIOGRAPHY & MEMOIR

- BOOK REVIEW
CASSIDY'S RUN
by David Wise

- BOOK REVIEW
MOLEHUNT
by David Wise

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THE PURSUIT OF HAPPYNESS

FROM MEAN STREETS TO WALL STREET

by Chris Gardner with Quincy Troupe ‧ RELEASE DATE: June 1, 2006

Well-told and admonitory.

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Young-rags-to-mature-riches memoir by broker and motivational speaker Gardner.

Born and raised in the Milwaukee ghetto, the author pulled himself up from considerable disadvantage. He was fatherless, and his adored mother wasn’t always around; once, as a child, he spied her at a family funeral accompanied by a prison guard. When beautiful, evanescent Moms was there, Chris also had to deal with Freddie “I ain’t your goddamn daddy!” Triplett, one of the meanest stepfathers in recent literature. Chris did “the dozens” with the homies, boosted a bit and in the course of youthful adventure was raped. His heroes were Miles Davis, James Brown and Muhammad Ali. Meanwhile, at the behest of Moms, he developed a fondness for reading. He joined the Navy and became a medic (preparing badass Marines for proctology), and a proficient lab technician. Moving up in San Francisco, married and then divorced, he sold medical supplies. He was recruited as a trainee at Dean Witter just around the time he became a homeless single father. All his belongings in a shopping cart, Gardner sometimes slept with his young son at the office (apparently undiscovered by the night cleaning crew). The two also frequently bedded down in a public restroom. After Gardner’s talents were finally appreciated by the firm of Bear Stearns, his American Dream became real. He got the cool duds, hot car and fine ladies so coveted from afar back in the day. He even had a meeting with Nelson Mandela. Through it all, he remained a prideful parent. His own no-daddy blues are gone now.

Well-told and admonitory.

Pub Date: June 1, 2006

ISBN: 0-06-074486-3

Page Count: 320

Publisher: Amistad/HarperCollins

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2006

Categories:

GENERAL BIOGRAPHY & MEMOIR | BIOGRAPHY & MEMOIR | BUSINESS

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BLACK BOY

A RECORD OF CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH

by Richard Wright ‧ RELEASE DATE: Feb. 28, 1945

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This autobiography might almost be said to supply the roots to Wright's famous novel, Native Son.

It is a grim record, disturbing, the story of how — in one boy's life — the seeds of hate and distrust and race riots were planted. Wright was born to poverty and hardship in the deep south; his father deserted his mother, and circumstances and illness drove the little family from place to place, from degradation to degradation. And always, there was the thread of fear and hate and suspicion and discrimination — of white set against black — of black set against Jew — of intolerance. Driven to deceit, to dishonesty, ambition thwarted, motives impugned, Wright struggled against the tide, put by a tiny sum to move on, finally got to Chicago, and there — still against odds — pulled himself up, acquired some education through reading, allied himself with the Communists — only to be thrust out for non-conformity — and wrote continually. The whole tragedy of a race seems dramatized in this record; it is virtually unrelieved by any vestige of human tenderness, or humor; there are no bright spots. And yet it rings true. It is an unfinished story of a problem that has still to be met.

Perhaps this will force home unpalatable facts of a submerged minority, a problem far from being faced.