Company Confessions ─ Secrets, Memoirs, and the CIA

Spies are supposed to keep quiet, never betraying their agents nor discussing their operations. Somehow, this doesn’t apply to the CIA, which routinely vets, and approves, dozens of books by former officers. Many of these memoirs command huge advances and attract enormous publicity.

Take Valerie Plame, the CIA officer whose identity was leaked by the Bush White House in 2003 and who reportedly received $2 million for her bookFair Game. Or former CIA director George Tenet whose 2007 memoir reached no. 2 in the Amazon bestseller list, beaten only by the finalHarry Potter novel. If the CIA director is allowed to publish his story, it is little wonder that regular agents are choosing to tell theirs.

Company Confessions delves into the motivations those spies that write memoirs as well as the politics and policies of the CIA Publication Review Board. Astonishing facts include: the steps taken by the agency to counter such leaks including breaking into publishing houses, putting authors on trial, and secretly authorizing pro-agency ‘memoirs’ to repair damage to its reputation.

Based on interviews, private correspondence, and declassified files, Christopher Moran examines why America’s spies are so happy to spill the beans and looks at the damage done when they leak America’s secrets.

DR. CHRISTOPHER MORAN is an Associate Professor of U.S. National Security at the University of Warwick in England. He is the author ofClassified: Secrecy and the State in Modern Britain which won the 2014 St. Ermin's Hotel Intelligence Book of the Year Award. He has held fellowships at the British Academy, the Library of Congress, and Oxford University and his serves as a historical consultant to the International Spy Museum in Washington D.C.