by George Crile
First published 2007
George Crile reveals how an unlikely Texas congressman orchestrated one of America's most successful covert operations. Charlie Wilson enjoyed cocktails and beauty pageants, but in the early 1980s he quietly funneled hundreds of millions of dollars to Afghan resistance fighters battling Soviet forces. Working from his position on the House Appropriations Committee, Wilson partnered with CIA operative Gust Avrakotos, who bent agency rules to procure and distribute weapons. Their clandestine network stretched from Washington backrooms to Langley's secret chambers, from arms dealers' meetings to the Khyber Pass. Together they helped the mujahideen achieve an improbable victory over Russian invaders. Crile chronicles this overlooked chapter in Soviet collapse and traces the emergence of radical Islam as a new threat. The book became a bestseller and inspired a major film starring Tom Hanks, Julia Roberts, and Philip Seymour Hoffman.
Genres: history, 20th-century, non-fiction, biography-memoir, military-history, american-history
Vibes: suspenseful, thought-provoking
Tropes: based-on-true-events, unlikely-hero
Setting: Afghanistan, Khyber Pass, Langley, Texas, Washington
Period: 1980s
560 pages · Kindle Edition · Grove Press