Accurate portrayals of the CIA in fiction

October 25, 2011 8:59 PM

What fiction-genre books/movies are the most accurate in their depiction of the CIA and/or CIA-related activities?
posted by KChasm to Media & Arts (9 answers total)

Two of my favorites which have gotten decent marks for accuracy (although obviously this is going to be a subject on which opinions are very divided [and necessarily underinformed; if someone has a really accurate view of what the CIA is like they're probably not commenting about it on AskMe]) are The Company by Robert Littell (and others of his) and Harlot's Ghost by Norman Mailer.

There are also those authors who were themselves spies like John Le Carre and Frederick Forsyth, although I think you get a lot more realism and accuracy from the former than the latter.
posted by villanelles at dawn at 10:13 PM on October 25, 2011 [1 favorite]

Do you have a specific historical era in mind? The 50's vs the 00's are going to be very different. Le Carre is fantastic, though more geared toward British spy stuff. Len Deighton was also pretty damn fantastic.
posted by Chekhovian at 11:24 PM on October 25, 2011 [1 favorite]

Just mentioned this in the "behind the scenes" AskMe:

Syriana actually got rather mixed reviews primarily because its portrayal of the oil/war/terrorism/espionage nexus was so true-to-life (i.e., incredibly convoluted and confusing).

It's an ensemble film with a few intertwining storylines, but the main character (played by George Clooney) is a CIA operative. It's (loosely) based on the book See No Evil by ex-CIA officer Robert Baer.
posted by Rhaomi at 12:09 AM on October 26, 2011

Anything by Charles McCarry.
posted by Ideefixe at 6:56 AM on October 26, 2011 [1 favorite]

I would second The Company, particularly if you're interested in CIA cold war-era history, rather than modern-day CIA. Although fiction, several of the characters are actual CIA "legends" -- most significantly James Jesus Angleton. Great book.
posted by pardonyou? at 6:58 AM on October 26, 2011

Thirding The Company. It's a novel/drama that is basically a history of the CIA. Very well-written. Do not watch the miniseries. It sucked.
posted by Thistledown at 7:35 AM on October 26, 2011

The movie The Good Shepherd covers roughly the same ground as The Company but manages to feel longer than that thousand page book. I'll cautiously second Charles McCarry (who was a CIA officer); I really enjoyed The Miernik Dossier and, somewhat less, The Tears of Autumn, but it's hard to say exactly how realistic they are (although the latter does purport to offer a serious theory behind JFK's assassination) and a lot of his later work gets into weird, angry right-winger territory.

You might also want to check out some books by Ward Just, maybe Forgetfulness or Echo House. He's mostly a DC novelist but a lot of his characters work in intelligence. Also A Geography of Secrets by Frederick Reuss, I haven't read it but my brother recommends it.
posted by villanelles at dawn at 8:20 AM on October 26, 2011

I'll just add one more thing, and I don't know how I forgot to mention this earlier because I was just recommending it to another user but Mortals by Norman Rush is very much not a spy novel but its protagonist does some work for the CIA, and will give you a good idea of the kinds of jobs a guy like that might do in a rather neglected third world country.
posted by villanelles at dawn at 8:29 AM on October 26, 2011

Slightly less covert, but George Crile's 2003 book Charlie Wilson's War: The Extraordinary Story of the Largest Covert Operation in History is supposed to be pretty good. It focuses (duh) on the USA's semi-covert support for the Afghan fores fighting the USSR occupation in the 1980s. (It's also very enlightening about why things there turned out the way they have.)
posted by Wretch729 at 12:38 PM on October 26, 2011 [1 favorite]