Burn Before Reading Presidents, CIA Directors, and Secret Intelligence

In this, groundbreaking book, former CIA director Stansfield Turner offers a riveting, insider's view of the complicated relationship between U.S. presidents and their chiefs of intelligence since the post was first established at the end of World War II. From the beginning of the Cold War era through the Bay of Pigs, the Cuban Missile Crisis, the U-2 spy plane flyovers, the Iran hostage crisis, and September 11, 2001, this history tracks the role that intelligence has played in each of these significant events and gives readers the story behind the headlines.

Admiral Stansfield Turner served as director of central intelligence from 1977 to 1981, heading both the Intelligence Community and the CIA. Previously, as an admiral in the U.S. Navy, he served as the commander of the U.S. Second Fleet and president of the Naval War College, and as the commander in chief of NATO's Southern Flank. Admiral Turner is on the faculty of the University of Maryland's Graduate School of Public Policy. He lives in Washington, D.C.