The Master of Disguise: My Secret Life in the CIA

While some details are glossed over. This is the author's story. It reads much like a spy thriller while still maintaining the coldness of a documentary. I found this book to bring back memories.

Good book, even better author.

This is the autobiography of Antonio Mendez, the CIA officer behind the exfiltration of six Americans during the Iran hostage crisis in the 1970s. This operation was the basis of the movie  Argo . Mendez describes his childhood, his early training as a graphic designer, and much of his career in the Central Intelligence Agency creating forged documents and disguises.The author describes CIA operations in locations around the world, including Indochina, the Middle East, and the then-intact Soviet Union. Three themes emerge from these accounts. One is the trust developed among CIA officers who spend much of their time deceiving others. It helps explain the anger and disgust they feel for moles, traitors and double agents. The second theme is an increasing sophistication in the technology used to create documents and disguises. Disguises remain challenging since they must be good enough to alter appearance but simple enough for agents to don quickly with little training. The final theme explores internal CIA politics. We hear about jealousies between wage-grade and white collar employees, jostling for overseas assignments, and the "pinball game" of gaining support for new initiatives.Each chapter is seasoned with tidbits of tradecraft and hard-won experience. Advice ranges from general strategies like "keep your options open" to more specific techniques like how to use the two-handed "forgers bridge" to do precision drawing. Some procedures seem obvious once you read about them, but were useful again and again in the field. For example, shipping containers equipped with automatic cameras sent through Warsaw Pact countries yielded volumes of information about routes, customs procedures, and security personnel. Buildings, vehicles and people were inspected repeatedly, but nobody thought to check the containers.Equally fascinating is the information the book does not present. Most CIA officers and agents are referred to only by code names or aliases. Times and locations are reported only generally. Readers also become conscious of a trend as the narrative proceeds. Details of all kinds are increasingly reduced, altered, or glossed over to protect techniques still in use and officers still on active duty. What we learn about spycraft becomes all the more impressive as we realize it must be out of date or we would not be reading about it.The book is an enjoyable read and teaches lessons about careful work as well as innovation under pressure. It is worth reading on its own merits, but will be especially intriguing to those who are familiar with the Argo movie.

Tony Mendez is undoubtedly "the real deal" in the world of U.S. espionage. He spent a lifetime traveling around the globe, facilitating covert operations by means of forged documents, physical disguises, and complex, carefully constructed ruses. However, an excellent writer he's not (as many other reviewers have here noted), and many readers are not particularly interested in the mundane details of working in a government bureaucracy that fill many of the book's pages. And, one grows weary of hearing over and over again about Tony's many prestigious citations and promotions as he ascends the career ladder within the CIA. So the book is a mixed bag overall.The strong point of the book is without a doubt the account of the "exfiltration" (rescue) of six Americans who remained hidden in the Canadian Embassy in 1979 - 1980 after the Iranian revolution and hostage-taking of U.S. diplomats when the U.S. Embassy in Tehran was overrun in 1979. That was a true intelligence victory and the story is worth telling.This book will be of greatest interest to those who: (1) have a very serious interest in U.S. intelligence operations and methods (including enemies of the United States who want to learn as much as possible about how the CIA does its business), (2) serious students of the cold war who are interested in U.S. intelligence operations in the 1960's and 1970's, and (3) current and past employees of the CIA who will recognize some of the names, places, and operations that he blabbed about in this book. Others will find the book tedious, poorly written, dated, and self-congratulatory.Tony is clearly a man of action -- talented, motivated, and planful -- yet he comes across as not a particularly introspective or self-aware individual. What I'm getting at is: I would have earnestly liked to hear more about what's inside the mind of a man who performs successfully as a spy - what motivates him, what keeps him at the top of his game, etc. Except for a few, sparse childhood anecdotes about putting one over on tourists to hustle a quick buck as a kid, there's no real hint as to how Tony Mendez became the successful CIA operative that he was, largely the book is a fairly dry exposition of one covert operation after another.Although the author notes that publication of this book was permitted by a CIA "publications review board" that screens manuscripts for potentially damaging secrets, nonetheless I find it ironic (if not frankly reprehensible) that someone whose life was sworn to secrecy finds the need to write a detailed account of his secret intelligence activities the moment he retires from his government career. I have to imagine Tony feels quite ashamed of himself - "all the way to the bank."

I really enjoyed it and learned a lot

Was recommended this book and it was fascinating- all about a man in the CIA who specialised in disguise and in producing paperwork for agents all over the world. Worth reading

I found this a really interesting book providing considerable insight into the activities of the CIA, and Tony Mendez in particular. The book provides a comprehensive history of Tony Mendez's background in childhood and how this experience helped him become one of the CIA's most successful agents.

Enjoyed reading it. Lots of stories are told, not just the Argo one and some of them are even more interesting I think. Go and buy it!

Useful counterpoint to the movie, Argo. Shows you how Mendez progressed through the CIA to a point where he was called upon to effect the rescue portrayed in Argo. Decidedly non-critical of colleagues so very much an "authorised" memoir