Reviews

"Should be considered essential reading for anyone interested in gaining an understanding of the political, historical, and theoretical background to the establishment of the CIA."--Library Journal"Rudgers has written a provocative, well-documented assessment of the founding of the CIA."--H-Net Reviews"The book is highly recommended, a model of historical research on intelligence policy as well as on World War II and Cold War domestic and bureaucratic politics."--History: Reviews of New Books"[Rudgers] uses the declassified records skillfully and weaves them together with contemporary observations of the same events to craft a coherent narrative that can be used profitably by university undergrads and graduate students studying American intelligence. Creating the Secret State is a readable primer--and the only full-length one--on CIA's origins."--Studies in Intelligence"Working extensively in a variety of archives--the CIA, the State, Navy, and War Departments, the Franklin Roosevelt and Harry Truman papers--Rudgers shows how the CIA emerged from the interplay among a good many elements in the federal bureaucracy, including the Bureau of the Budget."--Choice

"This book is a gem. It out-trumps Thomas Troy's Donovan and should easily achieve the status of the standard account of CIA origins. Anyone with a serious interest in the history of U.S. intelligence will have to be aware it. I am filled with admiration for Rudgers's research and the forensic skill he displays in putting the pieces of the debate into such clear perspective."--Wesley Wark, author of The Intelligence Revolution: Espionage and International Relations Since 1900