A Time to Betray: The Astonishing Double Life of a CIA Agent Inside the Revolutionary Guards of Iran by
Reza Kahlili
My rating:
3 of 5 stars
This is narrated by
Richard Allen who I really enjoyed narrating
Uncle Tom's Cabin and I think he would do a great
The Adventures of Tom Sawyer. He sounds to me like a West Indian background with a jovially expressive delivery that in this work at emotional parts and with Farsi words strikes me as distractingly mawkish, like having
Jar Jar Binks handle the material.
As for the spy memoir itself, covering the 80s and the Iran-Iraq war, etc. it is a fascinating view into Iran-U.S. relations or lack of them as well as lack of understanding at the time. By necessity, this is an anonymized account with fake names, including that of the author. That means perhaps significant parts cannot be independently verified. Also, it convenient for the author to depict himself as jumping in as a spy for the CIA betraying his country with little struggle and, of course, no interest for money or less lofty goals. Perhaps that is true, I would think motivations would be more complex and even contradictory on some level.
Parts of the actual spycraft: code books, radios, letters, and losing tails is all fascinating. It is hard for me to believe his wife could be misled that his regular late night radio and headphones time was legit work for Iran's Revolutionary Guard where he worked as a computer specialist.
These interesting things came out of this to me:
1.
The secret sale of arms to Iran despite a U.S. arms embargo to, hopefully, free hostages so close after revealing Iran's role in
the 1983 Beirut barracks bombings and the belief Iran was behind the death of
William Buckley really seemed outrageous and nonsensical at the time.
2. In context, but not explicitly stated here, it seems like the downing of
Iran Air Flight 655 was part of a tit-for-tat escalation of actions between the U.S. and Iran.
3. This makes at least two Iranian spies that say
Iran was involved in downing Pan Am 103 in revenge for Iran Air Flight 655.
4. On 23 August 2009, ex-CIA analyst, Robert Baer, claimed that the CIA had known throughout that the bombing of Flight 103 had been orchestrated by Iran, and that a secret dossier was to be presented as evidence in Abdelbaset al-Megrahi's final appeal which was to prove this, suggesting that the withdrawal of the appeal to allow
release on compassionate grounds was encouraged to prevent this information from being presented in court. This author makes the same claim.
View all my reviews
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