The Good Spy is a fascinating look at just how hard it actually is, to be a good spy. The most fascinating aspect of it may have been the hard stance the author took on Israel. We are so used to the United States always backing Israel and considering the Arabs to be nothing but bloodthirsty terrorist. But Bob Ames was able to form strong relationships, even friendships, with high ranking members of the PLO. Ames was convinced that the PLO wanted to reach some kind of peace accord with Israel. But Israel always took a hard stance and seemed unwilling to make any concessions. And I have to say I was quite surprised to read of just how harsh the Israeli Mossad could be when seeking out vengeance against the PLO. Talk about ruthless. The Mossad often crossed the line and were downright brutal, often killing innocent people along with their intended victims.The hardest part about reading this book was detailed account of how, Ames despite all his efforts to achieve peace in The Middle East, was himself a victim of yet another act of senseless terrorism. ( )

Fascinating book, it was very hard to put down. This is a biography of Robert Ames, a CIA operative but it is also a story of the Middle East during the 1970s, 1980s. Very sad to read in one part due to the tragic death of Robert Ames but also due to the failure of the parties involved to seize any of the opportunities presented to them for a just solution to the problems of the Palestinians. Highly recommend to anyone wanting to learn more about the Middle East during this period, but also to learn how the consequences of these failures brought about the rise of Islamic Fundamentalists and eventually the events of 9/11. ( )

Bird accomplishes the impressive yet dubious feat of writing the dullest book about spies I have ever read. Spies and their exploits, fictional or otherwise, are endlessly fascinating to me. But not the ones depicted in this book. It was well written enough I suppose, but the level of engagement the book fosters is minimal. One of the main hurdles the author is unable to overcome is the utter blandness of Robert Ames the man. We are told about a hundred times that he likes basketball. That is about the extent of the personality. For me the book was an air ball. ( )

Books about Israeli-Palestinian strife are way down on my list of interests. However, this was a book about a CIA agent who, while unknown to the world, was a major player in Middle Eastern politics for a while, so I was mildly interested.

It’s possible this book may incite some strong feelings for those who dear care about those politics.

For the record, my own biases are that Israel has way too much influence in American affairs. It is not the 51st state. It has not been a staunch ally. It is capable of taking care of itself. On the other hand, I really don’t care what Israel does with their Palestinian or Arab neighbors. The necessity for America to insert itself in this conflict is non-existent in a post-Cold War era where America produces so much of its own oil.

Robert Ames, a CIA employee from 1960 to his violent death on April 18, 1983 when the United States embassy in Lebanon was bombed, was not a neutral in that conflict. He sympathized with the Palestinians. He was a romantic Arabist, a lover of the Arab street though, in his later days, he did empathize with Israeli concerns too.

The book starts on September 13, 1993 with Ames’ CIA colleagues going to his grave as a peace accord is about to be signed by Yitzhak Rabin and Yasir Arafat at the White House. They privately tell some CIA young recruits that Ames made that moment possible. But, as the book notes, that, like every other attempt at settling the Israeli-Palestinian question, came to naught.

Bird seems to think the effort was worthwhile. Yet, it has still come to nothing. It’s hard to think that this book is not the story of an unusually talented agent who devoted his career to a futile cause. Bird acknowledges that possibility by quoting others.

I must say that, especially for someone who is not very interested in the background to this story, Bird makes Ames’ story compelling. Bird received absolutely no help from the CIA with this biography, but Ames’ former colleagues (many on record but a few hiding behind italicized pseudonyms) as well as Mossad agents, Palestinians, and Lebanese were happy to co-operate with Bird. And Bird doesn’t just quote those who agreed with Ames but those critical of him too. An amazing amount of detail was put together to provide a picture of Ames on and off duty.

Additionally, there is an unusual connection between Bird and Ames. Bird, as a young boy, met Ames when he posted to Saudi Arabia where Bird’s father served as a Foreign Service officer. To Bird, he was a handsome, affable man always happy to play basketball with the American kids, and Ames’ wife was friends with Bird’s mother. (Bird, of course, did not know until years later that Ames was not a Foreign Service officer but a CIA agent under diplomatic cover).

Ames career eventually took him from an agent in the CIA’s Directorate of Operations to a senior analyst to a man who had input in President Reagan’s speeches on the Palestinian-Israeli conflict and U.S. attempts at a peace process. He became an intelligence agent who self-consciously tried to influence policy, generally considered bad practice. Director of Central Intelligence, Stansfield Turner, did not think highly of CIA field agents – in fact he fired many, but he regarded Ames highly and helped in his promotion.

Ames interest in Arab matters started with his posting, in 1951 as an Army serviceman to the highlands of Ethiopia at a CIA listening post. He started to teach himself the language. After he joined the CIA, he loved to drive around and talk with Bedouin and street Arabs. It sharpened his language skills and knowledge of Arab history and cultures. He genuinely sympathized with what he considered the Arab world’s struggle against colonialism, and he considered Israel as a colonizer. An example of what that attitude and knowledge is shown when he quashed a rumor that Russian pilots were flying planes over North Yemen planes in a civil war. After all, a body recovered from a crash had red hair according to report. Ames bluntly pointed out the pilot was an Arab returned from the haj, his hair colored with henna, a frequent occurrence in returning pilgrims.

Ames never really recruited many agents – many CIA case officers never recruit foreign agents. Ames had sources, many sources, whom he genuinely liked, but they weren’t formal agents.

The most significant of these in Lebanon was Ali Hassan Salameh. Salameh was a high ranking member of the PLO, closely tied to Arafat, and Ames knew he was involved in several acts of international terrorism though there is some dispute whether he was involved in the Black September terrorist operation at the 1972 Munich Olympics. Essentially, Salameh was an unacknowledged diplomatic channel from the U.S. government, starting with the Nixon administration, to the PLO. The CIA tried to recruit Salameh who always refused. He was willing to pass information and frank statements about PLO policies and goals, but he would not be bought off.

The Mossad operation to kill Salameh for his alleged part in the Munich Olympics incident resulted in the death of an innocent waiter in Norway and ended the revenge operation by Israel. However, after the CIA failed to explicitly list him as a US asset, the Mossad did get Salameh – and his driver, two bodyguards, a British secretary, a German nun, and two Lebanese bystanders – on November 22, 1979 with a car bomb. (Detonated by Erika Chambers, a British citizen, who was chosen because she didn’t delay – due to moral or psychological reasons or simply better reaction times isn’t clear– pushing the button unlike the men the Mossad tested.)

The book is full of violence: kidnappings, public executions, assassinations, suicide bombers, massacres in refugee camps, and good old-fashioned conventional warfare. However, Bird doesn’t dwell too much on the gory details except a detailed accounting of the bombing that killed Ames and 62 other people. It is clear is Bird is interested in memorializing the career of a man he knew briefly and providing some comfort to the Ames family.

Personally, I was interested for the background to news stories I heard in my youth.

While he doesn’t overstress it, Bird points out the moral and personal ambiguities of espionage. Did Ames become too friendly to those who supplied him information? Did he empathize too much with men he knew to be terrorists and with the Arabs in general?

Espionage involves dealing with bad people. Ames wasn’t under illusions about who he was dealing with in the PLO – though he probably was too incredulous in believing the PLO’s claim they would recognize Israel’s right to exist as anything more than a temporary concession.

Epitomizing that truth is that Ali Reza Asgari, the Iranian intelligence agent that planned the bombing that killed Ames, ended up coming to America, the guest of the CIA. ( )

As an active consumer of spy novels, I couldn't wait to get my hands on The Good Spy. It's always interesting to me to see how the real world that I'm not privy to matches up with what a fiction writer serves up. In this case, I learned quite a bit, particularly in how the major players in the Middle East played with one another in that part of the world. At a more granular level, I was able to follow the career of a guy who had a significant impact on events in the Middle East and could have had an even greater effect had he lived.

Robert Ames seemed to be a man generally good at heart who operated with people who weren't, some of whom were either real terrorists or who would be considered terrorists because of their beliefs. This, to me, was the crux of the book- the tension between a 'good' CIA man operating in the gray areas surrounding the Israeli Mossad, the PLO, Hezbollah, his own organization and country, and the various conflicts and negotiations that occurred in that time frame.

The book is a little slow, not extremely well written, and the writer does use a lot of speculation and hearsay, so those criticisms are valid. On the other hand, The Good Spy is a fascinating look at how real-world 'spying' actually works. It also provides extremely interesting inside views of important periods and moments in history. It's far removed from James Bond or even Jason Bourne, but that makes it a little more believable to me. ( )