'SHAME IS LIKE OUR MOTHER'S MILK

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00965R000403040003-1
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: January 26, 2012
• Sequence Number: 3
• Publication Date: October 18, 1987
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

STAT
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/01/26: CIA-RDP90-00965R000403040003-1
'1n rvew York Times
`Shame Is Like Our Mot1ersj 'aShngn TmeThe WaN Street Jcurrial
T r
h
AGENTS OF INNOCENCE
A by David Ignatius
(W.W. Norton: $17.95; 444 pp.)
I f a reader is looking for flaws, he will
have difficulty finding any in David
Ignatius' first novel. "Agents of Inno-
cence," a fast-paced spy story set in Beirut.
The book is a first-rate achievement in the
best tradition of Graham Greene-historical-
ly accurate and fictionally engrossing.
Like Ignatius, a former Wall Street Jour-
nal reporter and now an editor at the
Washington Post, I spent a lot of time in
Beirut in 1982 and 1993, Our paths crossed
often. I thought I knew the Byzantine world
of Lebanon. but I must now admit that
Ignatius learned it better than I and that his
Portrayal of the Middle East's spy apparatus
adds a new dimension to MY fascination with
the forces that are pulling the region apart.
The novel covers the most turbulent years
in Lebanon's sad history, from 1968, when
Vietnam, not the Middle East, absorbed U.S.
diplomatic energies, to 198, when U.S.
foreign policy in the region lay in shambles
and Americans had been driven from Leba-
non by suicide bombers and wild-eyed
kidnapers.
Tom Rogers, an undercover CIA agent
who believes that honesty and openness still
count in the world of espionage, arrives in
Beim W SepLember, 1969, to take over the
account." With terrorism taking
on international dimensions, Washington is
desperate to penetrate the Palestine Libera-
tion Organisation, and Rogers' task is to
recruit a high-level operative within a Fatah
group rim by the Old Man, who, though not
identified as such, is Yaster Arafat.
n
o t
West and the bonds of his e
Arab cWture h
t
The man Roger, targets is Jamal Ramwali,
one of Arafat's rising Young stars, Ramwall is
27, bright, articulate an'bery much the
Palestinian nationalist When be's not in bed
with some diplomat's wife. But, like many
Arabs, he is torn between an attractio
t
h
e Etuopeans, the Israelis-has
R&iewW by between his hope that the Palestinians'
David ~b destiny can be saved by the Americans and little to do with ending Lebanon's
violence. What counts is minimiz-
his awareness that America is the enemy
Lamb is a nat1or4 con+a'sM" for The
Time based in Los At>
When Rogers and Ramwali finally meet in 'ng losses to malcmize intelligence
a CIA safe house in Kuwait, Ramwali is efforts in order to find out what
uncomfortable, feeling like a traitor to everyone else is up to. Lebanon is his cause. Though insisting that he will never be the playground for these interna-
an American agent, he pastes to Rogers. floral adventurer and the Leba-
the Old Man's with nese are the pawns.
responsible for the hvsi' a t of Palestinian, When Roger tracks down the
Munich. He has grossed et the of a plane in Bombmaker, his inclination is to
line, and-in have him killed. Hoffman cautions
that trying will to stripe affect a separate deal with Ramwali him that the best approach is
Isra~ and the simply to get out of the way
Palestinians
-so has
Ropm
"How can I not feel ashamed!" self-
"all destruct anyway. Says Hoffman: because going asks Roger,. "Meeting with an American spy "Saving the world isn't our job. We
in secret in the chat. It is ahamehnL But aren't priests and we aren't asaas-
don't worry. We Arabs have grown used to slnt,"
shame. It is like our mother's milk, We live Beirut
on it was the most frightening,
" disturbing place I have ever been
Ignatius has done a skillful job of revealing in, and Ignatius captures the flavor
in finest detail the inner workings of inteW- of the place and its people beauti-
gence agencies in the Middle East. He fly. In the process, he carries us
doesn't lose control of the drams or the through an important phase of the
characters for a moment. Into the web of Middle East's contemporary histo-
intrigue, of dealing and double-dealing ry, from Black Se tember-in
brought the nervous, efficient Israeli spy, which the Palestiniare dnven
Yakov Levi; Samir Fares, the suave head of out of Jordan-to the he di disintegra-
Lebanon's intelligence agency; Frank Hoff- tton of Lebanon and finally to the
man, the crusty CIA Station chief who has destruction of the American Em-
lost his innocence but not his sense of bassy by terrorislexPlosives.
decency, and the Bombmaker, a Christian The events ents o of Lebanon entwine
PalesthMan who, for fun and money, teaches R'ogue' and . As Ramwah'I lives-and
~co meeting Lebanese factions how to rig seal track their fates. As the Israelis
against each other . Ramwali, believing that he
may be America's secret contact
The Bombmaker is a symbol of Lebanon within the PLO, Roger must de-
ttself killing is acceptable if for no other cide what obligation a spymaster
reason than that it has become a way of life. has to a recruited agent who essen-
The only interests that matter are self-in- tially represents the other side.
tercets, and the agenda of the foreigners in What he and represents the i, the two
this stricken little country-the Americans, agents of innocence, learn is that in
the Middle East one pays dearly for
innocence.
?
e .,hnstian Science Monitor
New York Daily News
USA Today
The Chicago Tribune
1-.8.. Ex eon t /l2v/E4,,
Date _/ it -,:VCZ' / -P
'As z
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/01/26: CIA-RDP90-00965R000403040003-1