Charlie Wilson’s War is the untold story of the last battle of the Cold War and how it fueled the rise of militant Islam. Charlie Wilson, a maverick congressman from east Texas, conspired with a rogue CIA operative to launch the biggest, meanest, and most successful covert operation in the Agency’s history.
In the early 1980s, after a Houston socialite turned Wilson’s attention to the ragged Afghan freedom fighters who continued to fight the Soviet invaders despite overwhelming odds, the congressman became passionate about their cause and procured hundreds of millions of dollars to support the mujahideen. The arms were secretly procured and distributed with the help of an out-of-favor CIA operative, Gust Avrokotos, whose working-class Greek-American background made him an anomaly among the Ivy League world of American spies. Avrakotos handpicked a staff of CIA outcasts to run his operation and, with their help, continually stretched the Agency’s rules to the breaking point.
Moving from the back rooms of the Capitol, to secret chambers at Langley, to arms-dealers conventions, to the Khyber Pass, Charlie Wilson’s War is a detailed and brilliantly reported account of the inside workings of the CIA.
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"This is a must read as an eye opener on American foreign policy and how politics really works--even if you saw the pretty good movie version with Tom Hanks, Phillip Seymour Hoffman and Julia Roberts. In fact, as almost unbelieveable as the movie plot seemed, the reality as thoroughly depicted in the book, is even more amazing. Well written, with plenty of detail, it moves along briskly without getting bogged down. If you had any naivete left about U.S. foreign policy, the CIA and Congress, this will wring it out of you. Should be required high school current affairs reading. And with what's going on in Afghanistan and the disastrous Bush march to a war of choice in Iraq, this book is as relevant as when the actual events unfolded in the 1980s."
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Rn (5 out of 5 stars)