This is also the season for CIA histories, and this one is both widely researched and readably short. It is strong in locating the CIA in its democratic context-the forbidding of CIA activities at home, for instance, reflected the fear of a police state, but it also made for ragged relations between the CIA and the FBI. Unfortunately, as it is preoccupied with the Iran-contra affair, the book misses the CIA story of the 1980s: once exceptional, the CIA has come to resemble the rest of the government in the character of its relations with that other branch, Congress.
