Laughter in the Shadows

This memoir of a CIA operations officer captures the spirit of the early years of the Agency, a period sometimes described as its ''finest hours.'' Using the alias ''St. Martin,'' Stuart Methven served in the CIA from the 1950s through the 1970s. The book opens by describing the author''s training in the clandestine arts and subsequent assignment to Asia in a country he calls ''Bushido.'' There he...