Spymasters is a collection of interviews revealing enlightening perspectives on the covert operations of this powerful, secretive arm of the U.S. government. Here former top-ranking CIA officials shed light on some of the most sensitive issues and practices in American foreign intelligence to date. These men disclose information about:

• President Harry S. Truman's demands for a centralized intelligence agency and the stubborn resistance of James F. Byrnes, J. Edgar Hoover, and the military services

• the tumultuous early stages of the National Security Council

• the failed Bay of Pigs invasion

• the confusion surrounding the Kennedy assassination

• Khrushchev's ousting

• Operation MONGOOSE

• the Gulf of Tonkin incident

The interviews are especially valuable for their portrayal of the relationships between the agency's directors and the presidents during the most anxious and threatening decades of the Cold War. The CIA's successes and failures are recounted and carefully evaluated by the men who were there, often times issuing the orders.