Mark M. Lowenthal has held several senior U.S. government positions, including deputy assistant secretary of state for intelligence, assistant director at the CIA, and staff director of the House Intelligence Committee. He lives in Reston, VA.

“This readably artful masterwork embodies Lowenthal’s unique qualification—the ideal combination of professional historian and experienced practitioner—for interpreting the complex story of intelligence and foreign policy.”—Richard K. Betts, author of Enemies of Intelligence“This book is the authoritative account of why U.S. intelligence has the shape that it has, with a revealing account of its successes and an honest account of its failures.”—Sir David Omand, author of How Spies Think “Mark Lowenthal’s magisterial history of U.S. intelligence drives home what James Bond movies distort: intelligence is a service function, and all the spying and eavesdropping are means to the end of helping political leaders frame wiser policies. And as a sometime insider, he knows that whether intelligence matters depends very much on the proclivities of senior officials, especially the president, from George Washington, who ‘outspied’ the British in winning the Revolutionary War, to Donald Trump, who mostly ignored intelligence.”—Gregory F. Treverton, University of Southern California and former chair of the National Intelligence Council

Mark M. Lowenthal has held several senior U.S. government positions, including deputy assistant secretary of state for intelligence, assistant director at the CIA, and staff director of the House Intelligence Committee. He lives in Reston, VA.

“This readably artful masterwork embodies Lowenthal’s unique qualification—the ideal combination of professional historian and experienced practitioner—for interpreting the complex story of intelligence and foreign policy.”—Richard K. Betts, author of Enemies of Intelligence“This book is the authoritative account of why U.S. intelligence has the shape that it has, with a revealing account of its successes and an honest account of its failures.”—Sir David Omand, author of How Spies Think “Mark Lowenthal’s magisterial history of U.S. intelligence drives home what James Bond movies distort: intelligence is a service function, and all the spying and eavesdropping are means to the end of helping political leaders frame wiser policies. And as a sometime insider, he knows that whether intelligence matters depends very much on the proclivities of senior officials, especially the president, from George Washington, who ‘outspied’ the British in winning the Revolutionary War, to Donald Trump, who mostly ignored intelligence.”—Gregory F. Treverton, University of Southern California and former chair of the National Intelligence Council