Quite a comprehensive account of the clandestine war between the superpowers by a leading participant of the US side. While setting the record straight on a couple of US presidents to whom posterity has not been kind, Mr Gates' account deals with more of the minutiae of espionage - of unearthing information and agents, the turf fights, the battles over interpretation and especially the key issue of legislative oversight of overt and covert operations - in the struggle to counter the Soviet Union and its designs around the world but specially in the Caribbean, Middle East, Africa and Afghanistan. In this, however, he usually refrains - except in passing in context of Afghanistan where he acknowledges it would be a savage mess - from focus on what the US wanted to have when Soviet-backed regimes were defeated. I doubt they had any answers too.... bring back Somoza or his like in Nicaragua? And posterity will tell us how lasting was the victory in the Cold War...

Interesting perspective, from behind the scene's.

A dense, straightforward and lengthy memoir.

Gates covers his time at CIA, from 1969 to 1991. The title implies a focus on presidents and their decisions, but most of Gates’ book deals with the CIA and the national security bureaucracy. He does note a general continuity in America’s Soviet policy from Nixon to Bush (the similarities between Carter and Reagan might be striking to some readers). The book usually reads like an outline of events rounded out with personal anecdotes. Much of the book deals with the Soviet collapse. Gates spent his CIA career as an analyst, and he defends the CIA’s record in analyzing the Soviets’ internal stresses in their latter years, noting that the Agency was warning of these problems since the 1970s.

Much of the book deals with Soviet issues, and whatever role Gates may have played in, say, Chinese or Middle Eastern intelligence targets is barely covered. There is surprisingly little on Iran. Gates writes with humor, and his sketches of people are perceptive. The book can be a bit dry at times, though. The book does, however, describe numerous CIA covert actions in detail, such as Poland, Afghanistan, Nicaragua, and Angola. I’m not sure I’ve read so much about covert action in a CIA director’s memoir before.

A detailed, engaging and well-written work.