The Devil's Chessboard

Allen Dulles, the CIA, and the Rise of America's Secret Government

De: David Talbot

Narrado por: Peter Altschuler

An explosive, headline-making portrait of Allen Dulles, the man who transformed the CIA into the most powerful—and secretive—colossus in Washington, from the founder of Salon.com and author of the New York Times bestseller Brothers.

America’s greatest untold story: the United States’ rise to world dominance under the guile of Allen Welsh Dulles, the longest-serving director of the CIA. Drawing on revelatory new materials—including newly discovered U.S. government documents, U.S. and European intelligence sources, the personal correspondence and journals of Allen Dulles’s wife and mistress, and exclusive interviews with the children of prominent CIA officials—Talbot reveals the underside of one of America’s most powerful and influential figures.

Dulles’s decade as the director of the CIA—which he used to further his public and private agendas—were dark times in American politics. Calling himself “the secretary of state of unfriendly countries,” Dulles saw himself as above the elected law, manipulating and subverting American presidents in the pursuit of his personal interests and those of the wealthy elite he counted as his friends and clients—colluding with Nazi-controlled cartels, German war criminals, and Mafiosi in the process. Targeting foreign leaders for assassination and overthrowing nationalist governments not in line with his political aims, Dulles employed those same tactics to further his goals at home, Talbot charges, offering shocking new evidence in the assassination of President John F. Kennedy.

An exposé of American power that is as disturbing as it is timely, The Devil’s Chessboard is a provocative and gripping story of the rise of the national security state—and the battle for America’s soul.

A must listen for anyone interned in factual info of the CIA

Really excellent and completely engrossing to anyone who grew up while all this was happening the general public never knew about. It tells many things, but between the lines is the CIA OWNERSHIP OF THE MEDIA AND TIES TO ALL WEALTHY FAMILIES. All were involved in what was ALLOWED to happen between the USA and foreign countries they had interests in. Rockefeller, DuPont, Hunt, Mellon, Cabot, Brown, Olin, Halliburton, and so many more ALL tied together for one simple reason...to keep things from changing and the most influential and important human linchpin of this from the 1920s with the support and rise of the Nazi Party to at least as far as the late 1970s. ... Allen Dulles!

I never considered a conspiracy.

I do now.
Outstanding tour de force of the era.
Having been 21 in 1963 Talbot makes it seem like yesterday.

Unreal

As I have heard rape victims describe the violence perpetrated against them they cannot wash off the filth thrust upon them. The scum which is the Intel orgs then and now stains us all, like it or not. As a country we are all held to account,like it or not. I feel wounded by a houseguest and regrettably now must face the responsibility.

Warning: Cautionary Truth

I wish all educated American’s knew this sad tale. This cancer on the American Experiment is still metastasizing.

Highly recommended

Thank you David Talbott!! Insightful view of real history that sets the record straight. Even if terrifying.