A Look Over My Shoulder; A Life in the Central Intelligence Agency

New York: Random House, 2003. First Edition [stated]. Hardcover. Very good/Very good. xvi, 478, [2] pages. Illustrations. Index. Foreword by Henry A. Kissinger. Richard McGarrah Helms (March 30, 1913 - October 23, 2002) served as the United States Director of Central Intelligence (DCI) from June 1966 to February 1973. Helms began intelligence work with the Office of Strategic Services during World War II. Following the 1947 creation of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) he rose in its ranks during the Truman, Eisenhower, and Kennedy administrations. Helms then served as DCI under Presidents Johnson and Nixon. As a professional Helms highly valued information gathering and its analysis. He also prized counterintelligence. Although a participant at planning such activities, he remained a skeptic about covert and paramilitary operations. Helms understood the bounds of his agency role as being able to express strong opinions over a decision under review, yet working as a team player once a course was set by the administration. While DCI, as a result of earlier clandestine operations in Chile, he became the only DCI convicted of misleading Congress. His last post in government was Ambassador to Iran, 1973-1977. He was a witness during the CIA investigation by the Church Committee in the 1970s. "A Look over My Shoulder" begins with President Nixon's attempt to embroil the Central Intelligence Agency, of which Richard Helms was then the director, in the Watergate cover-up. Helms then recalls his early career as a foreign correspondent in Berlin, during which he once lunched with Hitler; and his return to newspaper work in the United States. Helms served on the German desk at OSS headquarters in London; subsequently, he was assigned to Allen Dulles's Berlin office in postwar Germany. On his return to Washington, Helms assumed responsibility for the OSS carryover operations in Germany, Austria, and Eastern Europe. He remained in this post until the Central Intelligence Agency was formed in 1947. At CIA, Helms served in many positions, ultimately becoming the organization's director from 1966 to 1973. He was appointed ambassador to Iran later that year and retired from government service in January 1977. It was often thought that Richard Helms, who served longer in the Central Intelligence Agency than anyone else, would never tell his story, but here it is-revealing, news-making, and with candid assessments of the controversies and triumphs of a remarkable career.