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Secrecy, Spooks and Ghosts: Memoirs and Contested Memory at the CIA

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  08 January 2020

RICHARD ALDRICH  and
JULES GASPARD
RICHARD ALDRICH
Affiliation:
PaIS, University of Warwick. Email: [email protected].
JULES GASPARD
Affiliation:
Strand Campus, King's College London. Email: [email protected].
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Abstract

The CIA is increasingly symbolic of major controversies in American foreign policy. It also presents the academic researcher with a fascinating paradox – since it is simultaneously secret and yet high-profile. In part, this is due to the CIA's willingness to allow former operatives to write memoirs. We argue that the memoir literature, authored by CIA personnel both high and low, together with others who worked alongside them, is now so dense that this allows us a degree of triangulation. Yet these memoirs are increasingly collective productions, involving censors, ghostwriters and teams of researchers, introducing conflicting voices into the text, and adding layers of separation between author and reader. We suggest that these ghosted memoirs, therefore, operate on several levels. For good or ill, these books shape the American public's perception of the CIA and should be studied closely, especially by those interested in the subjectivities of image management. This essay seeks to explore these issues by comparing four memoirs by CIA directors and acting directors who have served since 9/11.

Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of American Studies , Volume 55 , Issue 3 , July 2021 , pp. 551 - 575
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Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press and British Association for American Studies 2020

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