Company Man

October 21, 2013
A long career as lawyer at the CIA warrants Rizzo’s lively memoir of life and work inside the nation’s intelligence headquarters. Starting as a junior officer on Soviet espionage matters, Rizzo became privy to most of the agency’s major post-1975 cases and often found himself in the presence of its most senior officers until early in the 21st-century. Major figures—many of whom are legendary in intelligence circles—fill the book’s pages: like James Jesus Angleton, William Casey, John Deutsch, George Tenet, Robert Gates, and Porter Goss. Rizzo’s close-up accounts of Iran-Contra, the hunt for Osama bin Laden, post-9/11 events, and “enhanced interrogation” add texture to what’s already known about these events and issues. The problem is that Rizzo, who failed to gain congressional confirmation as the CIA’s general counsel, scarcely meets a CIA figure he doesn’t respect and defend, scarcely a member of Congress or agency outsider whom he doesn’t knock about. Nor does he add to his credibility by recording word-for-word conversations three or four decades old. Nevertheless, the book is likely to draw attention for its immediacy and its insider knowledge of the policies and workings of the nation’s major clandestine service, not to mention the fact that Rizzo, as the CIA’s acting general counsel during the War on Terror, was involved in the Agency’s defense of torture tactics and the use of drones.