The Recruiter

Spying and the Lost Art of American Intelligence

By: Douglas London

Narrated by: Robert Petkoff

Length: 17 hrs and 13 mins

Publisher's summary

This revealing memoir from a 34-year veteran of the CIA who worked as a case officer and recruiter of foreign agents before and after 9/11 provides an invaluable perspective on the state of modern spy craft, how the CIA has developed, and how it must continue to evolve.

If you've ever wondered what it's like to be a modern-day spy, Douglas London is here to explain. London’s overseas work involved spotting and identifying targets, building relationships over weeks or months, and then pitching them to work for the CIA - all the while maintaining various identities, a day job, and a very real wife and kids at home.

The Recruiter: Spying and the Lost Art of American Intelligence captures the best stories from London's life as a spy, his insights into the challenges and failures of intelligence work, and the complicated relationships he developed with agents and colleagues. In the end, London presents a highly enjoyable insider’s tale about the state of espionage, a warning about the decline of American intelligence since 9/11 and Iraq, and what can be done to recover.

©2021 Douglas London (P)2021 Hachette Books

Critic reviews

"Douglas London draws the reader deeply into the world of CIA operations officers, and in his well-written, clear-eyed account he sheds considerable light on the hitherto murky world of CIA operatives in the field. It is a fascinating read." (Peter Bergen, author of The Rise and Fall of Osama bin Laden)

What a whiner

This is the reason why the US intelligence system is screwed up. This guy is a huge whiner and complainer. He’s perfect his bosses are idiots according to him. It was a waste of a purchase.

Interesting story dampened by authors politics

Author constantly injected his own Elitist political views which ruined the otherwise interesting messages he was trying to get across

Don’t waste a credit on this book.

I would give zero stars if that was an option.
The title is extremely misleading. It should be titled my abysmal career as a case officer.

10 % Tradecraft 90% bitching

I’d say there’s 10% of information on the trade craft of spying and there’s great tidbits there. Problem is that it’s sprinkled into 90% of whining about being white and Jewish and getting passed by on promotions not to mention an entire last chapter bitching about trump. My god this dude is as insurance Dylan Mulvaneys on a political kick. Ps there’s no conclusion to the book or anything on it.

Not enough spying, too much whining.

This book is maybe 10% (redacted) stories pertaining to operations during the author's career. Another 50% is whining about his bosses and coworkers (apparently the author is the only person at CIA who is competent, and not racist/xenophobic/sexist/etc...), 30% whining about Trump, and 10% whining about everything else.

But at least the narrator did a good job conveying his full whineyness.

Skip.

Boring with a liberal bias

Exceptionally tedious and wordy. London is an obvious left-wing agenda – driven author. What a waste of time; I kept waiting for it to get better and it only got worse

Partisan with workplace score to settle

Some interesting stories and insights to share, but the author is an obvious partisan. At the same time he explains there is no deep state, he describes the CIA should not serve the agenda of the elected chief executive, the definition of the deep state. A good percentage of the book is complaining and whining about people he has worked with to seemingly settle old scores and this destroys his credibility completely.

Laundry list of personal grievances

I purchased this book after I heard the author on a podcast where he was great. I’ve read and enjoyed a lot of memoirs from former intelligence professionals and thought this would be up my alley. Most authors in this genre tend to mix in a few anecdotes where a colleague was less than great or give a somewhat biased account of a controversial event. This books is essentially a laundry list of grievances suffered over a decades-long career. The book makes it appear that Mr. London was the only good officer in the entire CIA, with nearly all of his colleagues being inept, drunk bigots. In the rare instances where he does acknowledge positive attributes to his colleagues it is usually followed by some criticism.

It was tiring to listen to a meandering series of seemingly unconnected depictions of how one CIA officer after another failed personally or professionally and suffered no consequences because CIA leadership is similarly inept (or worse). The excessive criticism detracts from the good parts of the story and undermined the author’s credibility.

I hope this author puts out another book that doesn’t focus on his past grievances as I think he likely has a lot of wisdom to share, and overall his message about why the IC benefits from more diversity is a good one.

The narration was good.

Overall, I would skip this book and instead try “The Art of Intelligence” by Henry Crumpton.

OPS Primer with a good dose of Political Intrigue

Great description CIA approach to human intelligence operations by a lifelong practitioner. Unfortunately, the author serve it up with a dose of internal and external political commentaries. More interesting is what is not said, than what is said regarding political appointee vs careerist interaction. His introduction make this very clear in describing the CIA’s bureaucratic review, redactions and (I suspect) insertions. Well worth the read/listen for understanding CIA human intelligence operations. I hope the author found this cleansing, so as to land back into open society.

Complaining

Bone to pick with personnel by author. Could have been good if not primary focus.