From the shadows

by Robert Michael Gates

The only person to rise from entry-level analyst to Director of the Central Intelligence Agency and to serve on the White House staffs of four Presidents, Robert M. Gates knows firsthand the deepest secrets of the Cold War. Drawing on his personal experiences in the CIA and on the National Security Council staff in the White House, as well as on intimate knowledge of CIA documents and activities never before revealed, Gates tells how the Cold War was really fought. From Nixon's detente policy to Reagan's arming of the Mujahedin in their war against the Soviets in Afghanistan, he tells the true story of American policy toward the Soviet Union, placing special emphasis on the White House and the CIA. Gates shows that, contrary to conventional wisdom, there was extraordinary continuity of policy from one President to the next, most strikingly from Carter to Reagan: the former laid the foundations for many of the latter's policies, including CIA covert action in the Third World, efforts to