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Agents of Innocence
A "superlative spy novel" (New York Times) by the author of the bestselling espionage thrillers Body of Lies and The Director.
Agents of Innocence is the book that established David Ignatius's reputation as a master of the novel of contemporary espionage. Into the treacherous world of shifting alliances and arcane subterfuge comes idealistic CIA man Tom Rogers. Posted in Beirut to penetrate the PLO and recruit a high-level operative, he soon learns the heavy price of innocence in a time and place that has no use for it.
Agents of Innocence is the book that established David Ignatius's reputation as a master of the novel of contemporary espionage. Into the treacherous world of shifting alliances and arcane subterfuge comes idealistic CIA man Tom Rogers. Posted in Beirut to penetrate the PLO and recruit a high-level operative, he soon learns the heavy price of innocence in a time and place that has no use for it.
448 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1987
507 people are currently reading
2798 people want to read
About the author
David Ignatius
33 books721 followersDavid Ignatius, a prize-winning columnist for the Washington Post, has been covering the Middle East and the CIA for more than twenty-five years. His novels include Agents of Innocence, Body of Lies, and The Increment, now in development for a major motion picture by Jerry Bruckheimer. He lives in Washington, DC.
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December 6, 2017
”Gaze not too long into the abyss, lest the abyss gaze back at you.” Beyond Good and Evil Nietzsche
But before there was an abyss in Lebanon there was this:
Lebanon’s Liberal past. Will it ever return? Photo circa 1965.
Tom Rogers is a CIA agent working out of the Beirut offices in Lebanon in the late 1960s and early 1970s. He is trying to establish useful contacts that will help the CIA to continue to protect American lives around the world. Lebanon is a mix of cultures divided by religious beliefs. Tom’s son Mark closely follows the soccer league. The team players are recruited by their religious beliefs serving to illustrate the segregation that make Lebanon ripe for a civil war.
”Religion was so embedded in the life of the nation that it even dominated athletics. If you asked any soccer fan--even one in grade school, like Mark--he would break down the first division of the Lebanese Soccer League by religious sects: a Druse Moslem team; a Shiite Moslem team; two Sunni Moslem teams from West Beirut; three Maronite Christian teams from East Beirut; a Greek Orthodox team; a Sunni team from Tripoli; a Maronite team from Zgharata; and two Armenian teams, one leftist and one rightist.”
We have our own religious issues here in the United States, but at least we aren’t recruiting ball players by whether they are Catholic, Lutheran, Baptist or Jehovah Witness. I bet I could find a Protestant or two even on the Notre Dame Fighting Irish. Mixing, is always a good thing. I would like to think that someone is a friend you can count on or a good neighbor or a committed player or a hard worker before he is a Jew or Sunni Muslim or a Mormon.
I would advocate tolerance, but that doesn’t seem to be fashionable. Knowing human nature I’m sure we would find other ways to divide ourselves that are even crazier than along religious lines. There seems to be an inherent need left over from the hunting and gathering era that makes us want to form tribal units. I want my tent bigger than that. I want a kaleidoscope of cultures, skin colors, and traditions.
David Ignatius really does a wonderful job taking us right into the nuts and bolts of recruiting agents. In a country so splintered it isn’t hard finding potential spies, but it is difficult finding the right spies. Tom Rogers instinctively knows how best to handle these maverick agents, but his bosses, those back in Washington, have procedures that must be followed that may or may not work well in the loose alliance structure of Lebanon. Ignatius does balance out the conflicts between field operatives and the suits behind desks. It is easy for field operatives to be dismissive of the Langley suggestions, after all they aren’t on the ground seeing the situation, but by the late 1960s the head office does have a fair amount of information gathered from operations in countries all over the world.
Those damn Americans, after all, are everywhere.
Americans in Lebanon at this point in time don’t really have any enemies. In fact, quite the opposite. It is probably the last era of neutrality that we ever enjoyed in the Middle East. Rogers’s right hand man in Lebanon, Fuad, explains the hope we brought to the region and how we felt short of expectations.
”When you first met me, I was in love with America. I was only twenty. America is an easy country to fall in love with at that age. When we are twenty, we think that anything is possible, and we don’t worry about failing because we will always have a second chance. That was what seemed so liberating about America--the sense of possibility--but perhaps I was just in love with being young.”
“I thought, maybe there is a chance. Maybe these Americans have the toughness. I thought: These men are cynical enough to do good. And that was when I began to think that America truly could liberate the Arab world.
I was wrong.
You want so much to achieve good and make the world better, but you do not have the stomach for it. And you do not know your limitations. You are innocence itself. You are the agents of innocence.”
The frustrating part for Tom Rogers is that he routinely received good intel that he can’t do anything with. There is a man known as The Bombmaker who is going around to the various splinter groups showing them how to make bombs, including the more advanced radio activated car bombs. His purpose doesn’t seem to be anything beyond escalating the violence and destabilizing the region. The coveted neutrality ties Tom’s hands even though it doesn't take a lot of Xs and Os on the board to see the destructive path this man leaves in his wake.
Rogers recruits a high ranking Palestinian named Jamai Ramlawi who may have put the play in playboy. Women seem to fall to his feet, from French ambassador’s wives to German hookers, to gorgeous Lebanese women of all and any religious affiliation. When Rogers’s bosses learn of Jamai’s predilections for “pussy” (PC had not been invented yet) they are excited. Sex is one of the best blackmail wedge issues ever invented, except for the fact that Jamai is rather proud of his sexual prowess, and if presented with pictures of him mid-coitus would probably just tack them up around his apartment. He is to say the very least a wild canon.
And then there is Israel.
Ignatius also takes us inside the workings of Mossad through the eyes of Yakov Levi who has wonderful instincts. He is still working under the old guard, the men that made Israel. The men that came from all over the world to help form that country. What made the Israeli Intelligence so effective, so quickly, is the fact that they had recruits who spoke nearly every language from around the world. Israel will also be the stumbling block that eventually starts to unravel relations with the Arabs for the Americans.
The Mistress
”You seduce us to work for you, but you are not strong enough to protect us. Jamal said something to me once…. He told me that I shouldn’t trust the Americans, because they would never truly love the Arabs. I told him he was wrong….”
“Jamal answered me: ‘You are right. America loves us. But it is the love of a man for his mistress. We are fun for a night. Maybe for a whole month. But do not ever forget that this man America is married to someone else, and he will always go back to his wife in the end.’ And who is this wife? I said. But I knew the answer. The wife is Israel.”
The WIFE. You’ve been out with that Arab floozy again haven’t you?
Ignatius also covers the 1972 Munich Massacre at the Summer Olympic Games. Rogers will find himself caught in the middle of a justifiably vengeful Mossad and a valuable resource in Jamai. The decisions we make are rarely unequivocally right, but we hope they are the most right.
In one of the most iconic photos taken during the attack, a kidnapper looks down from a balcony attached to Munich Olympic Village Building 31, where members of the 1972 Israeli Olympic
team and delegation were quartered. This photograph gives me chills everytime I see it. I have never become inured to this menacing figure.
I absolutely love spy books, not thrillers. Thrillers long lost their appeal to me, but a good old fashioned spy book is still, oddly, a source of comfort to me. If I’m stressed I’m heading over to the espionage shelves (yes plural) and immersing myself as quickly as possible into spy craft. Generally spies are much more stressed than anything I could be stressed about. I knew a bit about the historical context of this novel, but certainly Ignatius tied together the most salient points that will help my future reading about this time period. He also drills down into the craft of recruiting agents that I found fascinating. It is such a delicate procedure. Years of work can be undone with a shifting alliance or a world event beyond your control. The fear that a handler feels for his agents is similar to the fear we all have when are children are finally turned loose on the world. Highly recommended to my fellow spymasters.
But before there was an abyss in Lebanon there was this:
Lebanon’s Liberal past. Will it ever return? Photo circa 1965.
Tom Rogers is a CIA agent working out of the Beirut offices in Lebanon in the late 1960s and early 1970s. He is trying to establish useful contacts that will help the CIA to continue to protect American lives around the world. Lebanon is a mix of cultures divided by religious beliefs. Tom’s son Mark closely follows the soccer league. The team players are recruited by their religious beliefs serving to illustrate the segregation that make Lebanon ripe for a civil war.
”Religion was so embedded in the life of the nation that it even dominated athletics. If you asked any soccer fan--even one in grade school, like Mark--he would break down the first division of the Lebanese Soccer League by religious sects: a Druse Moslem team; a Shiite Moslem team; two Sunni Moslem teams from West Beirut; three Maronite Christian teams from East Beirut; a Greek Orthodox team; a Sunni team from Tripoli; a Maronite team from Zgharata; and two Armenian teams, one leftist and one rightist.”
We have our own religious issues here in the United States, but at least we aren’t recruiting ball players by whether they are Catholic, Lutheran, Baptist or Jehovah Witness. I bet I could find a Protestant or two even on the Notre Dame Fighting Irish. Mixing, is always a good thing. I would like to think that someone is a friend you can count on or a good neighbor or a committed player or a hard worker before he is a Jew or Sunni Muslim or a Mormon.
I would advocate tolerance, but that doesn’t seem to be fashionable. Knowing human nature I’m sure we would find other ways to divide ourselves that are even crazier than along religious lines. There seems to be an inherent need left over from the hunting and gathering era that makes us want to form tribal units. I want my tent bigger than that. I want a kaleidoscope of cultures, skin colors, and traditions.
David Ignatius really does a wonderful job taking us right into the nuts and bolts of recruiting agents. In a country so splintered it isn’t hard finding potential spies, but it is difficult finding the right spies. Tom Rogers instinctively knows how best to handle these maverick agents, but his bosses, those back in Washington, have procedures that must be followed that may or may not work well in the loose alliance structure of Lebanon. Ignatius does balance out the conflicts between field operatives and the suits behind desks. It is easy for field operatives to be dismissive of the Langley suggestions, after all they aren’t on the ground seeing the situation, but by the late 1960s the head office does have a fair amount of information gathered from operations in countries all over the world.
Those damn Americans, after all, are everywhere.
Americans in Lebanon at this point in time don’t really have any enemies. In fact, quite the opposite. It is probably the last era of neutrality that we ever enjoyed in the Middle East. Rogers’s right hand man in Lebanon, Fuad, explains the hope we brought to the region and how we felt short of expectations.
”When you first met me, I was in love with America. I was only twenty. America is an easy country to fall in love with at that age. When we are twenty, we think that anything is possible, and we don’t worry about failing because we will always have a second chance. That was what seemed so liberating about America--the sense of possibility--but perhaps I was just in love with being young.”
“I thought, maybe there is a chance. Maybe these Americans have the toughness. I thought: These men are cynical enough to do good. And that was when I began to think that America truly could liberate the Arab world.
I was wrong.
You want so much to achieve good and make the world better, but you do not have the stomach for it. And you do not know your limitations. You are innocence itself. You are the agents of innocence.”
The frustrating part for Tom Rogers is that he routinely received good intel that he can’t do anything with. There is a man known as The Bombmaker who is going around to the various splinter groups showing them how to make bombs, including the more advanced radio activated car bombs. His purpose doesn’t seem to be anything beyond escalating the violence and destabilizing the region. The coveted neutrality ties Tom’s hands even though it doesn't take a lot of Xs and Os on the board to see the destructive path this man leaves in his wake.
Rogers recruits a high ranking Palestinian named Jamai Ramlawi who may have put the play in playboy. Women seem to fall to his feet, from French ambassador’s wives to German hookers, to gorgeous Lebanese women of all and any religious affiliation. When Rogers’s bosses learn of Jamai’s predilections for “pussy” (PC had not been invented yet) they are excited. Sex is one of the best blackmail wedge issues ever invented, except for the fact that Jamai is rather proud of his sexual prowess, and if presented with pictures of him mid-coitus would probably just tack them up around his apartment. He is to say the very least a wild canon.
And then there is Israel.
Ignatius also takes us inside the workings of Mossad through the eyes of Yakov Levi who has wonderful instincts. He is still working under the old guard, the men that made Israel. The men that came from all over the world to help form that country. What made the Israeli Intelligence so effective, so quickly, is the fact that they had recruits who spoke nearly every language from around the world. Israel will also be the stumbling block that eventually starts to unravel relations with the Arabs for the Americans.
The Mistress
”You seduce us to work for you, but you are not strong enough to protect us. Jamal said something to me once…. He told me that I shouldn’t trust the Americans, because they would never truly love the Arabs. I told him he was wrong….”
“Jamal answered me: ‘You are right. America loves us. But it is the love of a man for his mistress. We are fun for a night. Maybe for a whole month. But do not ever forget that this man America is married to someone else, and he will always go back to his wife in the end.’ And who is this wife? I said. But I knew the answer. The wife is Israel.”
The WIFE. You’ve been out with that Arab floozy again haven’t you?
Ignatius also covers the 1972 Munich Massacre at the Summer Olympic Games. Rogers will find himself caught in the middle of a justifiably vengeful Mossad and a valuable resource in Jamai. The decisions we make are rarely unequivocally right, but we hope they are the most right.
In one of the most iconic photos taken during the attack, a kidnapper looks down from a balcony attached to Munich Olympic Village Building 31, where members of the 1972 Israeli Olympic
team and delegation were quartered. This photograph gives me chills everytime I see it. I have never become inured to this menacing figure.
I absolutely love spy books, not thrillers. Thrillers long lost their appeal to me, but a good old fashioned spy book is still, oddly, a source of comfort to me. If I’m stressed I’m heading over to the espionage shelves (yes plural) and immersing myself as quickly as possible into spy craft. Generally spies are much more stressed than anything I could be stressed about. I knew a bit about the historical context of this novel, but certainly Ignatius tied together the most salient points that will help my future reading about this time period. He also drills down into the craft of recruiting agents that I found fascinating. It is such a delicate procedure. Years of work can be undone with a shifting alliance or a world event beyond your control. The fear that a handler feels for his agents is similar to the fear we all have when are children are finally turned loose on the world. Highly recommended to my fellow spymasters.
September 27, 2020
this is a terrific book ... it's amazing how much David Ignatius knows about all aspects of the intelligence world, the CIA and Mossad, and the Middle East impacting Lebanon in the years he writes about (1960s and 1970s) ... and the way he blends all that into a powerful emotional story
March 21, 2021
Here is the fundamental problem with this book: The author would rather take you through years of Middle East history, especially in Lebanon between 1969 and 1983, while weaving in characters caught up in the events who are neither heroes nor villains. The story is less driven by plot and more driven by the historical timeline.
One would think with the rich subject of Black September, the CIA, the Mossad, the Deuxieme Bureau, and others that a John le Carre or Gerald Seymour-type story could be woven around some specific event. But no, Ignatius prefers to draw the story out over more than a decade without a hook to keep the reader involved.
If I wanted to read about Lebanon's descent into chaos during that time, I'd look for good non fiction. With 'Agents of Innocence' - we get too much history and not too much else.
One would think with the rich subject of Black September, the CIA, the Mossad, the Deuxieme Bureau, and others that a John le Carre or Gerald Seymour-type story could be woven around some specific event. But no, Ignatius prefers to draw the story out over more than a decade without a hook to keep the reader involved.
If I wanted to read about Lebanon's descent into chaos during that time, I'd look for good non fiction. With 'Agents of Innocence' - we get too much history and not too much else.
September 19, 2011
A piece of paper with a few dots on it. There is no pattern to the dots, they are random on the pristine whiteness of the sheet. Start drawing lines connecting them without a thought as to where they will go. There, that should about do it. All crisscrossed with no idea as to what goes where.
This roughly could be a very juvenile representation of how the intelligence agencies of the world work. Somebody comes across a piece of information that they do not know how to use, they send it over to someone else so that the favor can be returned some other day. Here, the bedrock is the American CIA and field of play : Lebanon in the 1960-1980's.
A CIA case officer who runs an agent in Beirut and how the relationship changes over two decades is what lies at the heart of the story. If you know the history of the world at that point, you will slowly see the signs : the escalating conflict between the Palestinians & the Israelis, the rise of Fatah in Beirut & Jordan, the advent of the Black September Organization, the bloody aftermath of the 1972 Munich Olympics and how the Mossad lashed out at Black September later. Ultimately it is a story of frustration and the all powerful America helplessly watching as a Country destroys itself with time.
What clearly sets this book aside is the fact that the author knows what he is talking about. Being a journalist who worked in Beirut in this time frame, the pictures he paints are vivid and fresh. Every one of the intelligence agencies of the World comes into the picture for a piece of their pie. What is most brilliant though is the portrayal of the CIA, a once mighty behemoth that is slowly losing its teeth. Many a character is a tad predictable and like I said, if you know your World history, you know where it will all end up. But this did not stop me from savoring the plot line. The environ created by the book is first class and it is going to my favorites list !
There is an interesting line I picked up : An American tells a Palestinian : No one in will harm an American in the middle east.
Oh how the world has changed my fellow American !
This roughly could be a very juvenile representation of how the intelligence agencies of the world work. Somebody comes across a piece of information that they do not know how to use, they send it over to someone else so that the favor can be returned some other day. Here, the bedrock is the American CIA and field of play : Lebanon in the 1960-1980's.
A CIA case officer who runs an agent in Beirut and how the relationship changes over two decades is what lies at the heart of the story. If you know the history of the world at that point, you will slowly see the signs : the escalating conflict between the Palestinians & the Israelis, the rise of Fatah in Beirut & Jordan, the advent of the Black September Organization, the bloody aftermath of the 1972 Munich Olympics and how the Mossad lashed out at Black September later. Ultimately it is a story of frustration and the all powerful America helplessly watching as a Country destroys itself with time.
What clearly sets this book aside is the fact that the author knows what he is talking about. Being a journalist who worked in Beirut in this time frame, the pictures he paints are vivid and fresh. Every one of the intelligence agencies of the World comes into the picture for a piece of their pie. What is most brilliant though is the portrayal of the CIA, a once mighty behemoth that is slowly losing its teeth. Many a character is a tad predictable and like I said, if you know your World history, you know where it will all end up. But this did not stop me from savoring the plot line. The environ created by the book is first class and it is going to my favorites list !
There is an interesting line I picked up : An American tells a Palestinian : No one in will harm an American in the middle east.
Oh how the world has changed my fellow American !
May 23, 2012
A longtime Le Carre fan, I am always up for a good spy book. This is a very good one, similar to Le Carre in some ways, particularly in its ring of authenticity and its Hardy-esque feeling that things are going to end badly. Also as is often the case in Le Carre's books, the central characters are innocent, idealistic people drawn into a world where innocence and idealism are weaknesses to be trampled or exploited. Ignatius' writing is uncluttered and direct, with crisp declarative sentences. Lots to think about here, as he depicts the strife in Beirut in the 1970's and the conflicts among the Palestinians, Arabs, Israelis, Christians, Moslems -- and the Western attempts to intervene in a situation which they do not really understand.
July 6, 2011
Except for the really poorly written female characters, and a touch of naivete evidenced by the title, this is a spy novel that puts most others to shame. Pre-9/11 middle east - Lebanon to be exact, and filled with all the turmoil, double-dealing, trade-craft, and (my latest favorite word) mayhem, that you'd expect from the region. David Ignatius knows his subject well, plots very well, and writes more intelligently than you'd expect from anyone save le Carre.
Looking forward to a few more by Mr. Ignatius.
Looking forward to a few more by Mr. Ignatius.
February 11, 2009
I actually picked this book up because it was there and I had nothing better to do, otherwise I never would have read a story about the CIA and Lebanon in the 70's but OMG, it was really, really good! I got so wrapped up in how the CIA operative went about scouting out his Lebanese agents and carrying out his mission in a very turbulent time in the Middle East. The story is fiction but many of the events that take place are factual, which helps make the story feel more "real." It was really fascinating, well-paced and the characters were engaging despite some of them being terrorists.
August 10, 2016
This is an amazing story because it is based on real events that occurred in the CIA's operations in Beirut leading up to the bombing of the American embassy, including the recruitment of the PLO's director of intelligence. Mr. Ignatius tells the story as a novelist, not a journalist, but it is a fascinating read because it also has the ring of truth due to his work uncovering the facts behind the story. This is the first novel I've read by him, and I'm looking forward to reading more!
October 13, 2021
Never cared for any of the characters because the characters were never developed and had hardly any action. I would have written the ending with the terrorist and the adulterous US agent killing each other.
July 18, 2022
The beauty of this book is that it illustrates the subtleties of espionage in the middle east. Every hero and villain has his or her doubts and no one is perfect. Perhaps most intriguing, Ignatius manages to show the full lives of its characters. He seems to be making the point that just because these are people involved in international intrigue, they are still people--with mad personal schemes, habits, and aspirations. That doesn't take away from the plot, which is closer to historical fiction than most books in the genre. I often think of spy thrillers on a scale with Le Carre at one end and Mark Greaney/Brad Thor/Jack Carr at the other. Ignatius is much more to the Le Carre end but in my opinion better, since he is more down to earth. Big fan.
February 3, 2013
I thought this was very interesting, even more so after finding it was based on fact. Written in 1987, it tells the story of a CIA agent based in Beirut in the 1970s and early 1980s, and his recruitment of a man who creates the Black Septemberists who were responsible for the kidnapping and killing of the Israeli athletes at the 1972 Olympics, among other acts of violence and terror. The title Agents of Innocence, an apt description of Americans and their (our) dealings with foreign countries, and the things the author describes in a book that was written over 25 years ago, make me wonder if anything has changed or improved since then.
August 3, 2016
I tried to remain patient and stay with this book as I really like this author. But, after getting close to the halfway point, my patience waned. It just seemed like it was a slow moving story. How many chapters and pages does it take to describe Moore's efforts in recruiting Jamal to become an agent of the CIA? And, how many trips does it take to meet with Fuad and Jamal? It just seemed like it rambled on without any real action. I suppose the story was about secrecy, which I get. But, I was expecting more mystery and action since the first chapter was full of both. Maybe I'll come back to it again someday. Or, maybe not.
December 7, 2017
This is the first Ignatius book that I read and the first he wrote. It was tediously boring. I will try one more of his books to see if anything changes for the better with his writing.
Read
May 31, 2025David Ignatius published this book in 1987 and it established him as a master of espionage writing. It is still a primer on the enormous complications of the Middle East. Set primarily in Lebanon in 1969-84, it follows one CIA agent, Tom Rogers, as he negotiates shifting alliances of Arab governments and the terrorists they fight and work with. Everyone is both a friend and a foe. You get a real idea of the complexity of this morass of violence. It has some great characters who are torn between doing what is right for their friends and what is best for their country. I got a real education reading it. I highly recommend it. The book will help you understand the Palestinian and Israeli problem as well as the challenges the U.S. has in the region.
May 21, 2020
What we Americans know about Lebanon is sadly limited. Those of us who have followed international news since the 1960s are likely to have vague memories of the Lebanese Civil War, the massacre of Palestinians in the Sabra and Shatila refugee camps, and the bombing of the Marine barracks near Beirut in 1983. Few will remember more. But there is a long, sad story that undergirds this sketchy history. That’s the history Washington Post columnist and editor David Ignatius mines in his magnificent novel about the CIA and the PLO there, Agents of Innocence. And the novel is fully as nuanced and sophisticated a tale of espionage as the best of John le Carré.
The CIA and the PLO personified in two leading characters
After a Prologue set in Beirut in April 1983, the scene shifts abruptly to the fall of 1969. The following 400 pages tell the tale of CIA officer Tom Rogers and his relationship with the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) that grew to maturity over the ensuing years. Rogers is an attractive figure, a husband and father of two, a fluent Arabic speaker, and an intuitive spy who often grasps reality more readily than his bosses. His counterpart in the PLO comes across early as a playboy but, like Rogers, grows into his role as the years go by. Jamal Ramlawi is the organization’s deputy director of intelligence and a favorite of “the Old Man” (Yasser Arafat, 1929-2004).
The “quiet American,” updated
Like Alden Pyle, the “quiet American” of Graham Greene’s classic 1955 novel of Vietnam, Tom Rogers arrives in Beirut with little understanding of the country that is to preoccupy him for the rest of his life. In the course of the fourteen years over which this story unfolds, Rogers gains an impressive store of knowledge, even verging on wisdom. In the end, however, he remains naive in the judgment of the Lebanese who know him best. It’s worth quoting his longest-standing agent at length.
“You want to do good but don’t have the stomach for it”
“You [Americans] want so much to achieve good and make the world better,” he asserts, “but you do not have the stomach for it. And you do not know your limitations. You are innocence itself. You are the agents of innocence. That is why you make so much mischief. You come into a place like Lebanon as if you were missionaries. You convince people to set aside their old customs and allegiances and to break the bonds that hold the country together. With your money and your schools and your cigarettes and music, you convince us that we can be like you. But we can’t. And when the real trouble begins, you are gone. And you leave your friends, the ones who trusted you the most, to die.”
Though Ignatius wrote this book more than three decades ago, it would be hard to find a more poignant or relevant commentary on the American adventures in Afghanistan and Iraq.
No simple clash between black and white
Do not expect the simple clash of good and evil, black and white, Arab and Jew, from Agents of Innocence. There is evil aplenty, of course. It could hardly be otherwise in a tiny nation wracked by civil war and terrorist bombings. But the men and women of this story are complex, every one of them—Palestinian, American, Israeli, and Lebanese alike. Ignatius is a fine writer who stoutly resists pieties and platitudes.
About the author
David Ignatius was the Wall Street Journal‘s Middle East correspondent from 1980 through 1983, during which time he covered the wars in Lebanon and Iraq. Since 1986 he has worked at the Washington Post, first as an editor, and, starting in 1999, as a columnist, too, writing on global politics, economics and international affairs. Ignatius’s coverage of the CIA has been criticized as being defensive and overly positive, but that judgment reflects later developments in his thinking. In Agents of Innocence, depicting the evolving relationship of the CIA and the PLO, the Agency does not come across favorably despite the heroic efforts of the novel’s protagonist.
The CIA and the PLO personified in two leading characters
After a Prologue set in Beirut in April 1983, the scene shifts abruptly to the fall of 1969. The following 400 pages tell the tale of CIA officer Tom Rogers and his relationship with the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) that grew to maturity over the ensuing years. Rogers is an attractive figure, a husband and father of two, a fluent Arabic speaker, and an intuitive spy who often grasps reality more readily than his bosses. His counterpart in the PLO comes across early as a playboy but, like Rogers, grows into his role as the years go by. Jamal Ramlawi is the organization’s deputy director of intelligence and a favorite of “the Old Man” (Yasser Arafat, 1929-2004).
The “quiet American,” updated
Like Alden Pyle, the “quiet American” of Graham Greene’s classic 1955 novel of Vietnam, Tom Rogers arrives in Beirut with little understanding of the country that is to preoccupy him for the rest of his life. In the course of the fourteen years over which this story unfolds, Rogers gains an impressive store of knowledge, even verging on wisdom. In the end, however, he remains naive in the judgment of the Lebanese who know him best. It’s worth quoting his longest-standing agent at length.
“You want to do good but don’t have the stomach for it”
“You [Americans] want so much to achieve good and make the world better,” he asserts, “but you do not have the stomach for it. And you do not know your limitations. You are innocence itself. You are the agents of innocence. That is why you make so much mischief. You come into a place like Lebanon as if you were missionaries. You convince people to set aside their old customs and allegiances and to break the bonds that hold the country together. With your money and your schools and your cigarettes and music, you convince us that we can be like you. But we can’t. And when the real trouble begins, you are gone. And you leave your friends, the ones who trusted you the most, to die.”
Though Ignatius wrote this book more than three decades ago, it would be hard to find a more poignant or relevant commentary on the American adventures in Afghanistan and Iraq.
No simple clash between black and white
Do not expect the simple clash of good and evil, black and white, Arab and Jew, from Agents of Innocence. There is evil aplenty, of course. It could hardly be otherwise in a tiny nation wracked by civil war and terrorist bombings. But the men and women of this story are complex, every one of them—Palestinian, American, Israeli, and Lebanese alike. Ignatius is a fine writer who stoutly resists pieties and platitudes.
About the author
David Ignatius was the Wall Street Journal‘s Middle East correspondent from 1980 through 1983, during which time he covered the wars in Lebanon and Iraq. Since 1986 he has worked at the Washington Post, first as an editor, and, starting in 1999, as a columnist, too, writing on global politics, economics and international affairs. Ignatius’s coverage of the CIA has been criticized as being defensive and overly positive, but that judgment reflects later developments in his thinking. In Agents of Innocence, depicting the evolving relationship of the CIA and the PLO, the Agency does not come across favorably despite the heroic efforts of the novel’s protagonist.
November 18, 2016
This is now the third David Ignatius book I've read. I'm starting to see a pattern. The book contains an interesting and relatively believable account of CIA officers and their counterparts going about the business of recruiting and running agents. The events progress, and then there is a sudden wrap-up which doesn't really seem to resolve anything and seems to imply that all the events of the book were sort of a self-canceling series of problems that ended up having little net effect on the world.
This is one of David Ignatius's first books (maybe the first?), and I think it is not quite as exciting as his later ones that I've read. Also, the ending was perhaps more of a letdown than, e.g., Blood Money. The primary source of interest/enjoyment in this book is just to read a realistic-seeming (I won't say actually realistic since I have no personal basis by which to judge) account of the business of being an intelligence officer without the eye-rolling shootouts or improbable Hollywoodesque action sequences that characterize many popular "spy novels." Another source of interest when reading this book today is to see the Middle East described before the first Gulf War and the post-9/11 wars (the book was written in 1987 about events in the 1970s). The layman knows much more about this region today than he would have in the 1980s, but Ignatius's characterizations and descriptions of various factions largely stands up even thirty years later.
This is one of David Ignatius's first books (maybe the first?), and I think it is not quite as exciting as his later ones that I've read. Also, the ending was perhaps more of a letdown than, e.g., Blood Money. The primary source of interest/enjoyment in this book is just to read a realistic-seeming (I won't say actually realistic since I have no personal basis by which to judge) account of the business of being an intelligence officer without the eye-rolling shootouts or improbable Hollywoodesque action sequences that characterize many popular "spy novels." Another source of interest when reading this book today is to see the Middle East described before the first Gulf War and the post-9/11 wars (the book was written in 1987 about events in the 1970s). The layman knows much more about this region today than he would have in the 1980s, but Ignatius's characterizations and descriptions of various factions largely stands up even thirty years later.
November 16, 2018
This is a 5-star book if you pretend it's a work of narrative non-fiction. It's a 1-star book if you evaluate it as a novel, which is what it claims to be. So I'll split the difference.
December 26, 2017
Este é um livro que nos fala do conflito israelo-árabe e, mais concretamente, das transformações políticas do Líbano de setenta e do conhecido episódio dos Jogos Olímpicos de 1972, nos quais o grupo terrorista Setembro Negro assassinou vários membros da delegação israelita.
"Os Agentes da Inocência" retrata o ambiente político do Líbano de então, bem como o delicado equilíbrio da política externa norte-americana, com óbvios interesses em manter os israelitas como aliados, mas também com conveniência em apoiar não declaradamente o outro lado do conflito - a Palestina.
Feito o resumo, venha a análise, que é f��cil mas ingrata de fazer.
David Ignatius foi jornalista, e isso nota-se na sua escrita muito clara, bem como na sólida pesquisa histórica, que lhe garante a primeira estrela (pelo interesse do tema). Contudo, por ser um romance que não vai além da história factual, mas que também não é um livro sobre História, acaba a não conseguir conquistar mais que a segunda estrela.
De facto, as diversas personagens são demasiado passe-partout, sendo virtualmente impossível criar afinidades ou antipatias em relação a qualquer uma delas, o que não ajuda quando o enredo colocado em cima dos factos verídicos é bastante "chocho" para um romance dito de espionagem. Por outro lado, é com pena que se constata que não estamos perante um livro sobre o médio Oriente não ficcionado, o que é uma pena: falhando a parte romanceada, o conflito em questão teria mais que interesse para encher todo um livro.
"Os Agentes da Inocência" retrata o ambiente político do Líbano de então, bem como o delicado equilíbrio da política externa norte-americana, com óbvios interesses em manter os israelitas como aliados, mas também com conveniência em apoiar não declaradamente o outro lado do conflito - a Palestina.
Feito o resumo, venha a análise, que é f��cil mas ingrata de fazer.
David Ignatius foi jornalista, e isso nota-se na sua escrita muito clara, bem como na sólida pesquisa histórica, que lhe garante a primeira estrela (pelo interesse do tema). Contudo, por ser um romance que não vai além da história factual, mas que também não é um livro sobre História, acaba a não conseguir conquistar mais que a segunda estrela.
De facto, as diversas personagens são demasiado passe-partout, sendo virtualmente impossível criar afinidades ou antipatias em relação a qualquer uma delas, o que não ajuda quando o enredo colocado em cima dos factos verídicos é bastante "chocho" para um romance dito de espionagem. Por outro lado, é com pena que se constata que não estamos perante um livro sobre o médio Oriente não ficcionado, o que é uma pena: falhando a parte romanceada, o conflito em questão teria mais que interesse para encher todo um livro.
January 8, 2025
Journalistic fictional account of CIA ops in Beirut.
Ignatius was a DC-based journalist covering the CIA among other topics and his experience is reflected in Agents of Innocence, his debut work as a novelist.
Tom Rogers is a new CIA operative in Beirut, tasked with developing agents that can inform US policy on the Byzantine world of Middle Eastern politics. We get the usual blend of nail-biting tension of covert operations, frustration with bureaucratic meddling from DC-based staff, and exoticism of overseas diplomatic life.
There is much to like here for fans of spy fiction. Ignatius brings a high level of credibility to his account, which is solidly grounded in events of the 1970s and 80s. Some may find a pro-American bias in the generous treatment of the CIA’s operations: the story shows the Agency working alongside some very unpleasant groups but doesn’t suggest that the CIA ever crossed the line to become a bad actor itself.
If Agents of Innocence has a downside, it is that the novel is heavily journalistic at the expense of a strong fictional storyline - perhaps because Ignatius was still learning his craft as novelist. That said, it’s a breezy, engaging read (ideal for vacation purposes) and I’ll look for Ignatius’s other works.
Ignatius was a DC-based journalist covering the CIA among other topics and his experience is reflected in Agents of Innocence, his debut work as a novelist.
Tom Rogers is a new CIA operative in Beirut, tasked with developing agents that can inform US policy on the Byzantine world of Middle Eastern politics. We get the usual blend of nail-biting tension of covert operations, frustration with bureaucratic meddling from DC-based staff, and exoticism of overseas diplomatic life.
There is much to like here for fans of spy fiction. Ignatius brings a high level of credibility to his account, which is solidly grounded in events of the 1970s and 80s. Some may find a pro-American bias in the generous treatment of the CIA’s operations: the story shows the Agency working alongside some very unpleasant groups but doesn’t suggest that the CIA ever crossed the line to become a bad actor itself.
If Agents of Innocence has a downside, it is that the novel is heavily journalistic at the expense of a strong fictional storyline - perhaps because Ignatius was still learning his craft as novelist. That said, it’s a breezy, engaging read (ideal for vacation purposes) and I’ll look for Ignatius’s other works.
January 16, 2023
DNF 43%
I usually don't review books I ditched, but this would possibly have gotten four stars if I'd finished it, just because it's so well done. The evocation of Lebanon before the civil war, at least its political aspects, seems masterly and was very illuminating, and the spycraft is fascinating.
I just didn't care about the protagonist. He's a type rather than a character, and the author observes him as dispassionately as the brass back at Langley would have done.
I assume he's the Innocent and comes to grief therefore, but I'll have to read other reviews to find out.
Still planning to try subsequent books by this author to see if I find them more engaging.
I usually don't review books I ditched, but this would possibly have gotten four stars if I'd finished it, just because it's so well done. The evocation of Lebanon before the civil war, at least its political aspects, seems masterly and was very illuminating, and the spycraft is fascinating.
I just didn't care about the protagonist. He's a type rather than a character, and the author observes him as dispassionately as the brass back at Langley would have done.
I assume he's the Innocent and comes to grief therefore, but I'll have to read other reviews to find out.
Still planning to try subsequent books by this author to see if I find them more engaging.
April 14, 2023
This is a taut spy thriller set mostly in Lebanon. I really enjoyed it.
August 8, 2013
This was the first of David Ignatius's books. To relive what was going on in the 1970s as far as the Middle East was concerned was enlightening. It was difficult for me to really "get into" this book, but I'm glad I hung in there. The last half of the book became what I call a "satisfying page turner". Funny, but when I finished this book which, again, took place in the 70s, it struck me that nothing has changed. It's the same discourse today as it was then. His last book that I read, "Bloodmoney", 2012, supported this. I certainly learned a lot about the challenges of the Middle East and realize I was immensely ignorant of the complexities taking place there for the past 40-50 years. I'm paying more attention now. 4 Stars only because it took too long to "get into it".
January 31, 2021
The first half of the book set up the characters and political environment with little action or leads as to where the story was going. Fortunately I am familiar with the real life story on which the novel is based, so I didn't give up on reading. In the second half I enjoyed the moments of tension over the fate of some of the main characters, which is one of the reasons I read about espionage. Ultimately I thought the novel tried to cover too much of the complexities of the Middle East conflicts at the same time it illustrated the lack of American understanding of the region and the futility of thinking we have any control over events there.
May 20, 2012
I never give 5 Star reviews, but I could not help myself. The book is espionage fiction, but it reads much more like LeCarre than Ian Fleming. It is set primarily in the Beruit of the early 70's and that country's slow descent into anarchy. The protagonist is a CIA agent, but there are plenty of fascinating characters including Arabs, Israelis, Europeans and the Lebonese themselves. So many talented, honorable people trying to do what is right and they end up slowly, but surely, destroying the very thing they are trying so desperately to save. Highest recommendation!
August 21, 2013
I love a well researched book, a fictional account of events in our history. This book certainly fits the bill, the characters carefully brought to life and dreading the end when you knowwhat happened but you need to find out how.
My only fault with this book and others by David Ignatus are his gratuitous attempts at family and/ or sexual events. Either drop them or flesh them out, they served no real purpose only left unanswered questions.
Excluding that I loved the book and cheerfully read everything he writes. No synopsis from me, others have overhead it far better.
My only fault with this book and others by David Ignatus are his gratuitous attempts at family and/ or sexual events. Either drop them or flesh them out, they served no real purpose only left unanswered questions.
Excluding that I loved the book and cheerfully read everything he writes. No synopsis from me, others have overhead it far better.
April 27, 2014
This is one of those books that changes your perception of what is going on in the Middle East. While it is a work of fiction, I learned a lot about how things are not so black and white in the world of espionage and intelligence. It was wonderfully written and the characters were very real, making the story realistic. I would have given this 4 1/2 stars if I could. I can't wait to read more by this well-respected journalist. Who would have thought he was such an accomplished and entertaining author?!
June 4, 2009
This is a great spy novel set in Beirut in 70's and 80's. For those who have read Tom Friedman's 'From Beirut to Jerusalem", this is a companion piece, and in fact, Friedman and Ignatius were both journalists in Beirut in the early 80's. In addition to the mystery and intrigue it is a fascinating but depressing look at the cultural differences between Arabs and Americans that have made diplomacy so hard.
The CIA commented on this book by saying...."it is novel, but it is not fiction."
The CIA commented on this book by saying...."it is novel, but it is not fiction."
April 6, 2018
Insightful but not a page turner
The book reads more like a David Ignatius column in the Washington Post than A suspense novel. I read that people familiar with the CIA said the book was accurate. That made it worthwhile.
The book reads more like a David Ignatius column in the Washington Post than A suspense novel. I read that people familiar with the CIA said the book was accurate. That made it worthwhile.
October 27, 2018
It dragged in many spots. David Ignatius is good, but he's not Daniel Silva.
December 10, 2020
Outstanding
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