Ghost: Confessions of a Counterterrorism Agent
by Fred Burton
List Price:
Our Price: $4.90
You Save: $21.10 (81%)
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Buy Used: from $0.85 (click here)
Category: Book
See more book details and other editions
Book Summary Information
Author: Fred BurtonEdition: Hardcover
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 2008-06-03
ISBN: 1400065690
Number of pages: 288
Publisher: Random House
Summary of Ghost: Confessions of a Counterterrorism Agent
For decades, Fred Burton, a key figure in international counterterrorism and domestic spycraft, has secretly been on the front lines in the fight to keep Americans safe around the world. Now, in this hard-hitting memoir, Burton emerges from the shadows to reveal who he is, what he has accomplished, and the threats that lurk unseen except by an experienced, world-wise few.In the mid-eighties, the idea of defending Americans against terrorism was still new. But a trio of suicide bombings in Beirut?including one that killed 241 marines and forced our exit from Lebanon?had changed the mindset and mission of the Diplomatic Security Service (DSS), the arm of the State Department that protects U.S. embassy officials across the globe. Burton, a member of DSS?s tiny but elite Counterterrorism Division, was plunged into a murky world of violent religious extremism spanning the streets of Middle Eastern cities and the informant-filled alleys of American slums. From battling Libyan terrorists and their Palestinian surrogates to having facing down hijackers, hostages, and Hezbollah double agents, Burton found himself on the front lines of America?s first campaign against Terror.
In this globe-trotting account of one counterterrorism agent?s life and career, Burton takes us behind the scenes to reveal how the United States tracked Libya-linked master terrorist Abu Nidal; captured Ramzi Yusef, architect of the 1993 World Trade Center bombing; and pursued the assassins of major figures including Yitzhak Rabin, Meir Kahane, and General Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq, the president of Pakistan?classic cases that have sobering new meaning in the treacherous years since 9/11. Here, too, is Burton?s advice on personal safety for today?s most powerful CEOs, gleaned from his experience at Stratfor, the private firm Barron?s calls ?the shadow CIA.?
Told in a no-holds-barred, gripping, nuanced style that illuminates a complex and driven man, Ghost is both a riveting read and an illuminating look into the shadows of the most important struggle of our time.
Praise for GHOST
?With spy thriller suspense and the clarity of a police report, former special agent Burton?s State Department saga reads like a brewing-storm prequel to the current war on terror ... Of obvious interest to anyone with an eye on world affairs.... Most striking is the material?s relevance twenty years later; Burton?s clashes with Hezbollah in Beirut and prickly diplomacy with Iran could almost be pulled from present-day newspapers??Publisher's Weekly
?In many ways, this book reads like a le Carré spy novel: it?s not flashy, not filled with pyrotechnics, not full of chase scenes and derring-do. Rather, it?s the story of a working man whose job involved trying to prevent people from attacking his country. Shorn of ideological rights and wrongs, it?s a fascinating look at what counterterrorism really means on a day-to-day level.? ?Booklist
?The world of counterterrorism is like that old jigsaw puzzle in the back of the closet: its many missing pieces and extra parts jumbled in from other puzzles make it almost impossible to assemble. But in Ghost, Fred Burton manages to join together enough pieces to give us a discerning look at that world. This is a story, told in human terms, that will help make sense of the great puzzle of our times.? ?Eric L. Haney, author of Inside Delta Force and executive producer of The Unit
?Burton?s memoir of fighting the defensive fight against the burgeoning terrorist threat in the 1980s and beyond is a revealing personal journal of the stress and boredom involved in putting the pieces of the puzzle together to obtain justice. Fred Burton was there, and you will be as well.? ?Bobby R. Inman, admiral, United States Navy (retired), former director of National Security Agency and former deputy director of the Central Intelligence Agency
"This memoir is all at once hard-hitting, well-researched, and an easy read. Organized into thirty-six chapters, with thoughtfully-placed transitions between each, Ghost becomes ones of those books that is easy to put down and return to in a few days." ?SmallWars Journal.com
Political Books
Book Subjects
- Arts & Photography
- Biographies & Memoirs
- Business & Investing
- Children's Books
- Comics & Graphic Novels
- Computers & Internet
- Cooking, Food & Wine
- Entertainment
- Gay & Lesbian
- Health, Mind & Body
- History
- Home & Garden
- Horror
- Law
- Literature & Fiction
- Mystery & Thrillers
- Nonfiction
- Outdoors & Nature
- Parenting & Families
- Professional & Technical
- Reference
- Religion & Spirituality
- Romance
- Science
- Science Fiction & Fantasy
- Sports
- Teens
- Travel
Most talked about in Political Books
Peter the Greatby Robert K. Massie
Ballantine Books; Published: 1986-01-12; Mass Market Paperback; Book
Best price: $45.29
Dreams from My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritanceby Barack Obama
Crown; Published: 2007-01-09; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $13.75
Price in other shops:
Mussolini's Shadow: The Double Life of Count Galeazzo Cianoby Mr. Ray Moseley
Yale University Press; Published: 2000-02-09; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $30.00
Price in other shops:
Theodore Roosevelt: A Biographyby Henry F. Pringle
Mariner Books; Published: 1956-02-23; Paperback; Book
Best price: $2.20
Price in other shops:
Godfather of the Kremlin: The Decline of Russia in the Age of Gangster Capitalismby Paul Klebnikov
Mariner Books; Published: 2001-09-14; Paperback; Book
Best price: $5.86
Price in other shops:
Chasing the Flame: One Man's Fight to Save the Worldby Samantha Power
Penguin Books; Published: 2008-12-02; Paperback; Book
Best price: $3.44
Price in other shops:
Autobiography (Penguin Classics)by John Stuart Mill
Penguin Classics; Published: 1990-04-03; Paperback; Book
Best price: $8.86
Price in other shops:
Going Rogueby Sarah Palin
HarperAudio; Published: 2009-11-24; Audio CD; Book
Best price: $3.83
Price in other shops:
First They Killed My Father: A Daughter of Cambodia Remembers (P.S.)by Loung Ung
Harper Perennial; Published: 2006-04-04; Paperback; Book
Best price: $3.49
Price in other shops:
Trusted Moleby Milos Stankovic
Harpercollins Pub Ltd; Published: 2001-03; Hardcover; Book
Price in other shops:
Similar Books and other products
Her Majesty's Spymaster: Elizabeth I, Sir Francis Walsingham, and the Birth of Modern Espionageby Stephen Budiansky
Plume; Published: 2006-07-25; Paperback; Book
Best price: $7.93
Price in other shops:
The Spy Who Came in From the Coldby John le Carre
Walker & Company; Published: 2005-09-01; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $13.48
Price in other shops:
The Thirty-Nine Steps (Dover Thrift Editions)by John Buchan
Baker and Taylor; Dover Publications; Published: 2010-10-18; Paperback; Book
Best price: $0.01
Price in other shops:
Spymaster: My Thirty-two Years in Intelligence and Espionage Against the Westby Oleg Kalugin
Basic Books; Published: 2009-03-03; Paperback; Book
Best price: $8.70
Price in other shops:
The Spies of Warsaw: A Novelby Alan Furst
Random House Trade Paperbacks; Published: 2009-06-09; Paperback; Book
Best price: $3.53
Price in other shops:
Spy Handler: Memoir of a KGB Officer: The True Story of the Man Who Recruited Robert Hanssen and Aldrich Amesby Victor Cherkashin, Gregory Feifer
Basic Books; Published: 2005-11-01; Paperback; Book
Best price: $4.50
Price in other shops:
Venona: Decoding Soviet Espionage in America (Yale Nota Bene)by John Earl Haynes, Harvey Klehr
Yale University Press; Published: 2000-08-11; Paperback; Book
Best price: $9.80
Price in other shops:
Agent Zigzag: A True Story of Nazi Espionage, Love, and Betrayalby Ben Macintyre
Broadway; Published: 2008-08-12; Paperback; Book
Best price: $4.36
Price in other shops:
See No Evil: The True Story of a Ground Soldier in the CIA's War on Terrorismby Robert Baer
Broadway; Published: 2003-01-07; Paperback; Book
Best price: $4.97
Price in other shops:
Chasing Shadows: A Special Agent's Lifelong Hunt to Bring a Cold War Assassin to Justiceby Fred Burton, John Bruning
Palgrave Macmillan; Published: 2011-04-12; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $6.99
Price in other shops: