Company Man

From a former top-level insider — whom the Los Angeles Times
has called ‘the most influential career lawyer in CIA history’ — comes
an unprecedented memoir filled with revelatory stories about the US
government’s intelligence program.

In 1975, fresh out of law school and working in a mind-numbing job at
the US Treasury, John Rizzo took ‘a total shot in the dark’ and sent
his résumé to the Central Intelligence Agency. He had no notion that,
more than 30 years later, he would become a notorious public figure —
both a symbol and a victim of the toxic winds swirling in post-9/11
Washington.

From approving the rules that governed waterboarding and other
‘enhanced interrogation techniques’ to serving as the CIA’s spokesperson
during the Iran–Contra scandal, Rizzo witnessed and participated in
virtually all of the significant operations of the CIA’s modern history.
He was the agency’s top lawyer in the years after the 9/11 attacks, and
oversaw actions that remain the subject of intense debate today.

In Company Man, Rizzo charts the CIA’s evolution over the
course of his career, and offers a direct window into the organisation
during some of its biggest controversies. In doing so, he has produced
the most comprehensive insider account of the CIA ever written — a
groundbreaking, timely, and remarkable personal history of American
intelligence.