Conversations with a Masked Man: My Father, the CIA, and Me

by John Hadden

For forty years John Hadden and his father of the same name fought at the dinner table over politics, art, and various issues concerning America. One was haunted by what he had witnessed during his long CIA career, from Berlin to Tel Aviv; the other retreated to the Vermont woods to direct Shakespeare until finally he confronted his father at the table one last time with a tape recorder. Conversations with a Masked Man is a series of conversations Hadden had with his father about the older man’s thirty-year career as a CIA officer and how American policy affected the family and the world.Father and son talk about John senior’s early life as a kid in Manhattan, his training at West Point, the stench of bodies in Dresden after the war, Berlin and Vienna in the late forties and fifties at the height of the Cold War, the follies of the Cuban missile crisis, how he disobeyed orders to bomb Cairo while he was station chief in Israel during the Six-Day War, and treacherous office politics in Washington. The story unfolds in dialogue alternating with the writer’s own memories and reflections. What emerges is hilarious, unexpectedly candid, and deeply personal.Combining the candid descriptions of the world of the CIA with intimate conversations between a father and son, this book is written for the political junkie, the psychologist, the art lover, or anybody who wonders who the hell their father really is.

Genres: Memoir, Nonfiction, History, Biography, Politics

259 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 5, 2016

Reviews

[Richard Croner · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is well written and describes perceptions and conversations between a father, who spent a career in intelligencee work for the US, and his son. Having 2 sons myself and knowing the kind of pitfalls that exist in those relationships, I am very interested in the topic. I was also a "hard-liner" father when my boys were young and have "mellowed" as I have aged but I am sure that there are many of their perceptions about me that are mirrored by the author of this book. I liked and enjoyed the concept of this book and appreciated the depth of the sharing written by the author. It is a good book. My standard disclaimer is that if the topic interests you, you need to read it.

[Thom · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a lovely searching book. An artist writes about his father, a spy, and conducts interviews to seek some resolution to a troubled relationship. His father is a deeply interesting and complex man, as is he. The writing is not always able to escape the sentimentality of the project, but it does a damn credible job aspiring to do so. Hadden frames the interviews well, and sheds real light on a very broad spectrum of 20th century American men. I enjoyed it.

[Beverly Hollandbeck · Rating 2 out of 5]

I had a hard time following the father's tales, as the time period jumps all over, and the language is sometimes jargon. For example, he says he "winkled" somebody. What does that mean? The definition might be in one of the dozens of footnotes, but advancing back and force between footnotes and the text really slows down the reading, so I did not read very many footnotes. If there is something I need to know to understand the story, it needs to be in the text.

[Alberto Tebaldi · Rating 1 out of 5]

I didn't get this as a biography but a pure glorification of his dad's figure.

[Brian · Rating 4 out of 5]

John Hadden's father was an officer for the CIA. The son became an actor and director. This book is based on a series of interviews between father and son revealing the father's ultimately evasive and cynical world view and the son's wisdom.
The older Hadden describes espionage as a dastardly game in which intelligence operatives both literally and figuratively stab each other. Between transcripted conversations, Hadden writes about family life and his experience of his father. But he writes early on, "I have no moral resolutions or answers of any kind. Therefore I can offer no inside knowledge about what the fabricators and guardians of the secrets have done to us or to themselves. No one will ever know, and none of it will make any sense."

[Helen · Rating 3 out of 5]

A son interview his father, a former CIA, on his life. A son tries to understand his father and his life working for CIA. His father often did not answer his son's questions but changed the question to him. His father did mention that he enjoyed his work since he saw it as a game to convince people to trust him enough to divulge information that would be better kept out of the hands of foreigners. He did not seem to have any regrets how he played a part in some deaths.
What stood out for me was how the CIA goes to a country, recruits people in that country to start unrest and if anything goes wrong they leave or eliminate certain people so they will never appear that they are at fault. Something to keep in mind when we see unrest in the world - who is actually behind it?

[Dorian · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fascinating memoir.