by Kai Bird
First published 2014
Pulitzer Prize winner Kai Bird reconstructs the life of Robert Ames, a CIA operative who transformed American intelligence work in the Middle East through personal relationships rather than coercion. Bird chronicles how Ames cultivated genuine friendships with Arab intelligence figures, most notably Ali Hassan Salameh, Yasir Arafat's intelligence chief known as "The Red Prince." The author traces Ames' unconventional methods of building trust and finding common ground in a region dominated by suspicion. Bird documents how the April 18, 1983 bombing of the American Embassy in Beirut killed Ames along with 62 others, marking the emergence of Hezbollah and eliminating America's most effective Middle East intelligence asset. The book draws on interviews with Ames' widow, hundreds of his private letters, and conversations with American, Israeli, and Palestinian intelligence officers. Bird, who knew Ames as a childhood neighbor in Beirut, provides an hour by hour account of the embassy attack and reveals the current whereabouts of its mastermind. The work demonstrates how the deaths of both Ames and Salameh severed a promising channel for Arab-American understanding.
Genres: historical-fiction, 20th-century, non-fiction, biography-memoir, 21st-century, military-history, espionage
Vibes: emotional, intimate, suspenseful, thought-provoking
Tropes: based-on-true-events, character-driven, redemption
Setting: Beirut, Middle East
Period: 1983
448 pages · Hardcover · Crown