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Spytime
- The Undoing of James Jesus Angleton
- Narrated by: Raymond Todd
- Length: 7 hrs and 38 mins
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In a half century on the national stage, William F. Buckley Jr. achieved unique stature as a polemicist and the undisputed godfather of modern American conservatism. He knew everybody, hosted everybody at his East 73rd Street maisonette, skewered everybody who needed skewering, and in general lived life on a scale, and in a swashbuckling manner, that captivated and inspired countless young conservatives across that half century.
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Excellent...inspiring imagery!
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Over two grim nights in Los Angeles, the young followers of Charles Manson murdered seven people, including the actress Sharon Tate, then eight months pregnant. With no mercy and seemingly no motive, the Manson Family followed their leader's every order. Twenty years ago, when journalist Tom O'Neill was reporting a magazine piece about the murders, he worried there was nothing new to say. Then he unearthed shocking evidence of a cover-up behind the "official" story, including police carelessness, legal misconduct, and potential surveillance by intelligence agents.
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Don't fall for the negative reviews...
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The sound of paint drying.
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A lot of ink has been spilled covering the lives of history’s most influential figures, but how much of the forest is lost for the trees? In Charles River Editors’ American Legends series, readers can get caught up to speed on the lives of America’s most important men and women in the time it takes to finish a commute, while learning interesting facts long forgotten or never known.
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- By: William F. Buckley Jr.
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Overall
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Performance
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President Truman is nearing the end of his term in office, and Great Britain has a new queen. It is 1952; the Cold War is beginning to heat up, and vital Western military secrets are falling into Soviet hands. The CIA is faced with a delicate dilemma, for the source of the leaks to the KGB has been traced directly to the Queen's chambers.
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The Ghost
- The Secret Life of CIA Spymaster James Jesus Angleton
- By: Jefferson Morley
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- Length: 9 hrs and 51 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
In The Ghost, investigative reporter Jefferson Morley tells Angleton's dramatic story, from his friendship with the poet Ezra Pound through the underground gay milieu of mid-century Washington to the Kennedy assassination to the Watergate scandal. From the agency's MKULTRA mind-control experiments to the wars of the Mideast, Angleton wielded far more power than anyone knew.
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Flawed Superpatriot
- By Bubblehog on 11-23-17
By: Jefferson Morley
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A Torch Kept Lit
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In a half century on the national stage, William F. Buckley Jr. achieved unique stature as a polemicist and the undisputed godfather of modern American conservatism. He knew everybody, hosted everybody at his East 73rd Street maisonette, skewered everybody who needed skewering, and in general lived life on a scale, and in a swashbuckling manner, that captivated and inspired countless young conservatives across that half century.
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Excellent...inspiring imagery!
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Don't fall for the negative reviews...
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By: Tom O'Neill, and others
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Miles Gone By
- A Literary Autobiography
- By: William F. Buckley Jr.
- Narrated by: William F. Buckley Jr.
- Length: 18 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
In this autobiography, woven from personal pieces composed over the course of a celebrated writing life of more than 50 years, you'll meet William Buckley the boy, growing up in a family of 10 children; Buckley the daring young political enfant terrible, whose debut book, God and Man at Yale, was a shocking New York Times best seller; Buckley the editor of National Review, widely hailed as the founder of the modern conservative movement; and Buckley the husband and father.
-
-
The sound of paint drying.
- By Ray on 10-16-05
-
American Legends: The Three Stooges
- By: Charles River Editors
- Narrated by: Morley Shulman
- Length: 1 hr and 5 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A lot of ink has been spilled covering the lives of history’s most influential figures, but how much of the forest is lost for the trees? In Charles River Editors’ American Legends series, readers can get caught up to speed on the lives of America’s most important men and women in the time it takes to finish a commute, while learning interesting facts long forgotten or never known.
Publisher's summary
From his early involvement in the World War II underground to the waning days of the Cold War in Washington, D.C., Angleton pursued his enemies with a cool, calculating intelligence. Convinced that there was a turncoat within the CIA itself, he confused his enemy by misleading acts and deceptive feints to distort his real objective, to capture and expose a traitor. The result was near-victory for American Intelligence...and defeat for himself.
A brilliant re-creation of his world, Spytime traces the making, and tragic unmaking, of a man without peer and, in the end, a man without a country to serve.
Critic reviews
"The ultimate in spy novels, with real characters and studied speculation on certain events by Buckley, who met many of the key players, is is a tense, heroic tale of a real Cold-War legend." (New York Daily News)
"Spytime is a quiet-time read for those who like their espionage erudite and their intelligence intelligent." (USA Today)
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What listeners say about Spytime
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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Overall
- kurtzn
- 04-19-05
Ok story, weak predictable ending
I enjoyed much of the book, but felt very little developement for such an interesting time period.
And the ending was weak, made it difficult to really be able to recommend as a satisfying listen.
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3 people found this helpful
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Overall
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Performance
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- Joanne
- 12-30-15
Disappointing
The narrative lost focus. The section on Tony Cresti seemed to have no place in the story about James Jesus Angleton. I was expecting history and I got fiction.
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2 people found this helpful
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Overall
- James
- 05-05-05
3 star book with a 1 start reader
I like William F. Buckley, his later works are very satisfying. This book is not his best and the monitone perfomance of the reader makes for a very hard "read".
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4 people found this helpful
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Overall
- Daniel
- 03-06-05
No Second Chance for Spytime
You know, one often picks up a book and within the first 15 - 20 pages realizes that -- perhaps -- choosing that particular book was a mistake. However, if the author has demonstrated good writing in the past, one might stick with it for a while longer, assuming that the writer was just having the equivalent of opening night jitters.
That is not the case with Spytime. I didn't like the book. However, I find myself to be somewhat challenged in expanding upon that opinion because of the strictures placed on reviewers by Audible's Review Guidelines, among which is the following: "What not to include: Harsh, profane or discriminatory language." This presents me with a classic exercise in subjectivity perspicacity. For example, if I were to opine that the book is a stinkeroo; would adherence to the Guidelines oblige me to enjoin that tack in favor of something more banal, such as "this book has odiferous undertones?" In the same vein, would the Guidelines spike characterizations of the book as being abysmal, appalling, or atrocious in favor of "lacking any redeeming literary value?" I can not help but wonder what verbiage might be used by one of the Algonquin?s luminaries under similar circumstances.
Well, guidelines be darned, I didn't like the first 10 minutes of Spytime. In fact, I did not like the first 10 minutes of the book so much that I abandoned any further torture to my little grey cells and consulted the TV schedules to see if one of the Three Stooges movies was on the tube.
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4 people found this helpful
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Overall
- Steve
- 03-22-05
Try another Spy Novel
I am a fan of William Buckley's books and thought I would enjoy this one. I was wrong. The story did not flow and the monotone narration was boring. If you are looking for a good spy novel try "The company" instead.
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1 person found this helpful
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Overall
- Jeff
- 03-15-05
This book is not worth a minute of your time
William Buckley should stick to political interviews and commentary if Spytime is a good example of his novel writing. His characters, at least two of whom, James Jesus Angleton and Kim Philby, are two of the most fascinating spies and counterspies of all time, never leave their cardboard images. Buckley's sex scenes are laughable, but perhaps laudable in a man of his conservative stripe. You can easily mistake them for massage therapy sessions. He violated the first rule of sex writing: if you cannot write the scene at least as erotically as Henry Miller, skip it. But the worst sin of Spytime is that it is incredibly dull, leaving out some of the most explosive incidents in the wonderful world of espionage from 1950 to 1974 and the exciting conversations that surrounded them. Buckley could have easily gleaned these exciting incidents from public records and embued them with dynamite suspense and interest, if he were John Le Carre. He is not even close, alas. Don't make my mistake and listen to this book.
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8 people found this helpful
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- Victoria Talbot
- 01-27-15
Understanding History
James Angleton and Bill Buckley are legendary icons of the twentieth century. Reading Buckley's words describing Angleton during the historic years of the Cold War is not only an exploration of that era and the events that remain a mystery, but an mesmerizing insight into the author as well.
These are the men who shaped the world as it is today and whose giant personalities will be recalled in tony DC bars for decades to come. Their names are the stuff of legend. Buckley must have been so much more insightful and self aware to be so ready to access the empathy he portrays as an author describing another such giant.
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4 people found this helpful