![]() ![]() And you were a war correspondent in a lot of conflict zones. government, eventually became disillusioned with the policy approaches of the government and took an early retirement. ![]() You know, you write that your father, who worked for the U.S. Thanks for having me on.ĭAVIES: You lived abroad a lot as a kid, including a long time in Taiwan, where you kind of grew up on the edges of the Cold War. ![]() ![]() It's just come out in paperback.ĭAVIES: Well, Scott Anderson, welcome back to FRESH AIR. held in the developing world and led to a disastrous war in Vietnam.Īnderson tells the story through the lives of four young men who played important roles in the CIA in his book, "The Quiet Americans." I interviewed him last year when the book was published. Anderson concludes that the CIA's rigid commitment to anti-communism and willingness to topple democratically-elected governments squandered the goodwill the U.S. It was a time, Anderson writes, when Americans wielded great moral authority in the world, and nations struggling to throw off colonial rule looked to the United States as a beacon of freedom and democracy. Our guest today, writer Scott Anderson, has written a book about the early years of the CIA, when America was victorious in World War II and former soldiers were improvising a campaign of spying and covert operations to contain and undermine the nation's new adversary, the Soviet Union. We're used to a world in which American intelligence services operate with enormous power and reach. I'm Dave Davies in today for Terry Gross. ![]()
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