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Title: The Company: A Novel of the CIA by Robert Littell ISBN: 0-14-200262-3 Publisher: Penguin USA (Paper) Pub. Date: 25 March, 2003 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $15.00 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.04 (90 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: What's wrong with this book? At 894 pages it's too short!
Comment: I am not a big fan of spy novels, in the same way that I don't tend to favour genre fiction. However, having read a shining review for this book in "The Economist", which is not a normally frivolous publication, I picked it up and read it from cover to cover in a few days. The book is a compulsive page-turner. The story is nothing less than that of the CIA from its inception in 1950 to the end of the Cold War in 1992, seen through the lives of several CIA and KGB operatives. The story is rigorously researched and the period details seem to be perfectly portrayed (I am a big fan of contemporary history, and did not find any significant flaws in the book). They follow our boys (mostly boys in this book, no big surprise there) from Berlin in 1950 to Budapest in 1956, to Havana in 1960, to Washington and Moscow in 1974, to Afghanistan in 1983, to Moscow in 1991, with a brief coda somewhere in Virginia in 1995. The main fictional characters are three CIA agents who join at the beginning and then rise through the ranks. They are two-fisted action man Jack McAuliffe, honourable attorney (sic) Winstrom Ebbitt III and efficient organiser Leo Kritzky. An additional character who plays an important role is drunken and deadly Harvey Torriti, the Sorcerer, head of Berlin base at the beginning of the Cold War. Their counterparts are a KGB operative named Yevgeny Tsipin and spymaster Starik (the Old Man). Each of the episodes follows all these characters as the CIA spooks try to outsmart the KGB spies, and vice versa. Many historical figures drop by, some of them in a clearly ficionalised take on their lives. Thus, Martin Bormann is introduced to Yevgeny as a Communist hero who fed Hitler's paranoia and led him to eventually lose the war, Pope John Paul I is shown to have been murdered by a KGB operative for stepping too close to the truth of the dreaded Kholstomer, a far-ranging operation to bring the West to its knees, and statesmen such as Harold Wilson and Henry Kissinger are shown to have been nothing more than KGB agents.
Some of the best parts of the book concern the author's obvious delight in spy craft. Many familiar devices such as cypher books, dead box drops, barium meals and all types of bugs turn up, and we learn a few new ones, such as walking back the cat (don't ask). Littell's spies are thoroughly professional and their work is hard, dangerous and unappreciated. Old spies such as The Sorcerer, the historic James Jesus Angleton or Starik die alone, forgotten by all, or almost all. The set pieces (the Soviet invasion of Budapest in 1956, the Bay of Pigs fiasco in 1960 or the attempted coup in Moscow in 1991) are very well put together and hugely exciting. Political leaders, both American and Soviet (Eisenhower, Bobby Kennedy, Ronald Reagan, Leonid Brezhnev, Yuri Andropov, Mijail Gorbachev) come out particularly poorly as they misunderstand the very valuable intelligence information they receive and abandon their agents and allies whenever expedient. A recurrent motif, in fact, is how US governments have usually abandoned local allies to the wolves whenever things got nasty (the Hungarians in 1956, the anti-Castrista Cubans in 1960, the Czechs in 1968, the Taiwanese in 1972, friendly Vietnamese in 1975 and friendly Cambodians in that same year).
The book is definitely a must read for any fan of conspiracy theories, as it sets out quite a few that are literally mindboggling. And the leitmotiv (Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass) is apposite and never distracting.
Does the book have any weaknesses? Contrary to what may initially appear it's too damn short! Operation Kholstomer, which is built up very nicely as the standard issue mortal threat to global democracy unravels too quickly. Surely there could have been an additional chapter describing how it would have worked and specifying how it was defeated? Starik's perverted liking for pre-pubescent girls is probably unnecessary and contrived to make him the obvious baddy (although it is a nice touch since it shows a sort of malignant reflection on the historic Lewis Carroll). And the discovery of über KGB mole Sasha is too easy because Littell does not really create memorable characters and so his hints of the mole's real identity are somewhat transparent.
But these are minor quibbles. Markus Wolf once said that the only really competent intelligence services were East Germany's Stasi, Israel's Mossad and Cuba's SIC. They all turn up in this book, plus the big guys we love to see (KGB and CIA). How can you lose with this lineup?
Rating: 3
Summary: Action ficton or the CIA exposed?
Comment: Is it a spy thriller or a veiled history of the CIA mixing real players with substitute and made up characters? Littell should have picked one or the other and cut the book in half.
In the fiction story three Yale roommates go into the intelligence service in 1950. Jack McAuliffe and his pal Leo Kritzky go to the CIA while Yevgeny Alexandrovich Tspin, son of a Russian undersecretary to the UN, is pulled into the KGB. Unfortunately, these characters are merely painted into scenes from the Cold War. The substance it would take to make them believable is missing from Littell's journey through four decades of espionage.
As for the expose, the controversial James Jesus Angleton is squarely in the author's crosshairs. If you don't know much about him (I didn't), do a Google search and read a couple of articles to set the scene. The details of Littell's fictional narrative are drawn from similar facts reshuffled enough to satisfy the publisher's lawyers. Even more interesting is the hard-drinking character of the Sorcerer, Harvey Toritti. Like the real William Harvey, he was a holdover from the OSS and the Agency's chief in Berlin in the early 50s. He also told Angleton that Philby was a spy long before he accepted it, was called America's James Bond by JFK and was the link to hitman Johnny Roselli and the Chicago Mob. Angleton manipulates and bumbles while Toritti swaggers through crisis after crisis until they're put out to pasture in the early 70s. The question is what's real and what isn't?
Thirty-plus years and hundreds of pages later the three Yale roomies retake center stage. The final act runs from the early 80s through '91 and the fall of Gorbachov. Jack cals on his long retired mentor Toritti who stirs up an improbable series of events to stop the coup they know is coming. It happens, of course, with Littell using this part of his saga to float the notion that Putin grew out of the dark unofficial operations that drew together CIA, KGB, Mossad and some well financed free lancers.
Littell did succeed in arousing enough of my curiosity to go back and review some of the history he touched on and some that he didn't. I doubt if I'll dig too deep into it, however. "The Company" pretty much wore me out.
Rating: 5
Summary: The ultimate spy novel
Comment: At first, I though 1200 pages (I have the UK paperback) was a bit long. Very long. But once I got into this book, I couldn't put it down. There are dozens of characters, and the plot follows the great events of the second half of the 20th century, with a drive that is rare in spy novels. Littell is a master at creating atmosphere, and his characters stick with you like chewing gum from a hot sidewalk.
I read this in just a few days, in spite of its length, staying up far too late to do so. I'm looking forward to his next book.
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Title: The Defection of A. J. Lewinter: A Novel of Duplicity by Robert Littell ISBN: 1585673471 Publisher: Overlook Press Pub. Date: 10 October, 2002 List Price(USD): $24.95 |
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Title: The Amateur by Robert Littell ISBN: 1585674699 Publisher: Overlook Press Pub. Date: 23 October, 2003 List Price(USD): $24.95 |
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Title: Walking Back the Cat by Robert Littell ISBN: 0879517646 Publisher: Overlook Press Pub. Date: May, 1997 List Price(USD): $23.95 |
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Title: The Once and Future Spy: A Novel by Robert Littell ISBN: 1585673889 Publisher: Overlook Press Pub. Date: 10 February, 2003 List Price(USD): $24.95 |
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Title: The Sisters by Robert Littell ISBN: 1585674184 Publisher: Overlook Press Pub. Date: 15 June, 2003 List Price(USD): $24.95 |
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