Review of Surprise, Kill, Vanish: : The Secret History of CIA Paramilitary Armies, Operators, and Assassins by Annie Jacobsen

We all have them; Youtube holes we fall into when we shouldn't. One of mine is covert operations—the world of secretly gaining information, agent handling, and, when “needed”, clandestine action—the James Bond stuff of the real world. The Spy and the Traitor by Ben Macintyre is a great example of such history, and so it was with gusto I dove into Annie Jacobsen's Surprise, Kill, Vanish: : The Secret History of CIA Paramilitary Armies, Operators, and Assassins (2019).

Suprise, Kill, Vanish is a combination of content. A historical overview, the book is structured to cover the phases of the CIA's existence. Jacobsen highlights the changes in president, American culture, presidential policy, and world events which directed the moral compass of the CIA, from underhanded to overhanded, justified to quasi-justified, and its growth, development, and evolution as an organization. From its inception in WWII to its iteration under Barrack Obama, that's the period the book covers.

The second type of content are individual cases of surprising, killing, and vanishing. Gleaned from interviews with numerous former CIA operatives, the book is a treasure trove of anecdotes with atypical trajectories. Perhaps most interesting is that Jacobsen does not cherry pick for patriotism. The successes and failures of the CIA over the years, from the Korean War to Afghanistan, are presented, which goes a long way toward imbuing the book with legitimacy. The grand failure of the Bay of Pigs is presented in the same detail as the takedown of several infamous personages.

Stories told include the trailing, capture, or killing of The Jackal, Che Guevara, several Middle Eastern terrorists, double-agents, Bin Laden, and more. Likewise included in the first-hand accounts are breakthroughs in tradecraft—aspects of covert operations we now take for granted, things like HALO jumping, dual roles, foreign agent training, and others. It's a sampling; the reader can feel a myriad of stories are untold, but those which are, are engaging.

The biggest gap I noticed in Surprise, Kill, Vanish is the lack of info around the paramilitary action in Central & South America during the Reagan administration. While I understand there is a significant gray area to this day around how much the CIA was actually involved in Reagan's program, that period of America's history in the region is precisely what the book was designed for given the actions undertaken there were often of the covert nature. Seems a strange oversight if one ignores the ambiguity of the CIA's role.

The other challenge I have with the book is the title; it doesn't do the content justice. Sounding rather juvenile, I wish Jacobsen had thought of another way of representing a decade+ of research and writing that didn't sound so Bond-ish.

In the end, Surprise, Kill, Vanish is an excellent overview of the evolution of the CIA, including the key inflection points defining its history. Content is pulled from declassified operational info, recorded history, and interviews with numerous people who worked throughout the US's most secretive organization. There are books out there which dig into the major events related in more detail, and the reader is recommended to look there if they are interested in a true deep dive. What's here are the salient details with an excellent sampling of covert missions to stir the Youtube doom-scroller in you.