It’s easy to forget that long before the intelligence failures of 9/11, the misinformation about Iraq's WMDs and what has become almost the militarization of the CIA,  the agency had done well as the bulwark of American Intelligence efforts in the Cold War and in helping to define America's place in the world.  
Perhaps there is no better way to look back at that effort, than through the lens of the CIA’s most Zelig like character, Jack Devine.
Devine served eleven Directors of the CIA.  He was there when Allende fell in Chile,  in the effort to aid the Mujahedeen against the Soviets in Afghanistan, in the morass of Iran/ Contra, in the hunt for Pablo Escobar, during the Haitian coup in 1991, and he ultimately served as leader of the Directorate of Operations, the nerve center of America’s covert operations worldwide.  He tells his fascinating story in Good Hunting: An American Spymaster's Story
My conversation with Jack Devine:

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