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"A doozy of a dossier on Allen Dulles and his early days spying during World War II." – Kirkus Reviews said of Scott Miller's book Agent 100: An American Spymaster and the German Resistance in WWII.
Allen Dulles led a "doozy" of a life. Nowadays, he's a name most likely to turn up in government textbooks or, perhaps, in a trivia question at a cocktail party for the historically inclined.
But he was, in fact, a man who made headlines in the Eisenhower and Kennedy administrations. Before that public existence, however, he operated in the cloak of America's clandestine services with the mission of monitoring the Third Reich. Former Wall Street Journal correspondent Scott Miller has revisited the headlines and the history in his latest book Agent 110: An American Spymaster and the German Resistance in WWII.
His research found a fascinating story about this man who would eventually become first civilian director of the Central Intelligence Agency. Apparently a master at orchestrating coups in nations at odds with the United States, Dulles had a critical mission while working as an operative for the Office of Strategic Services: He was "charged with helping to keep tabs on Hitler and his Nazi henchmen."
Dulles was appointed to lead the CIA by President Eisenhower in 1953. President Kennedy, after the politically disastrous Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba, accepted spymaster Dulles' resignation in 1961. (Later, Dulles would make more headlines by being named to the Warren Commission to investigate the assassination of President Kennedy in Dallas.)
Miller, who spent most of two decades reporting from Asia and Europe, had two postings in Germany, the backdrop for Agent 110. He is also the author of The President and the Assassin: McKinley, Terror, and Empire at the Dawn of the American Century — a Newsweek magazine “must read” summer selection when it debuted in 2011.
The author earned a Master of Philosophy in international relations from the University of Cambridge and holds degrees in economics and communications. He now lives in Seattle.