Mexico City was the Casablanca of the Cold War—a hotbed of spies, revolutionaries, and assassins. The CIA’s station there was the front line of the US’s fight against international communism. And its undisputed spymaster was Winston Mackinley Scott. This traces Scott’s remarkable career from his humble origins in rural Alabama to wartime G-man to OSS London operative, to right-hand man of CIA Director Allen Dulles, to his remarkable reign for more than a decade as virtual proconsul in Mexico.

Mexico City was the Casablanca of the Cold War—a hotbed of spies, revolutionaries, and assassins. The CIA’s station there was the front line of the US’s fight against international communism. And its undisputed spymaster was Winston Mackinley Scott. This traces Scott’s remarkable career from his humble origins in rural Alabama to wartime G-man to OSS London operative, to right-hand man of CIA Director Allen Dulles, to his remarkable reign for more than a decade as virtual proconsul in Mexico.