Errand into the Wilderness of Mirrors

Michael Graziano investigates the religious conceptions of those who shaped and worked for the CIA, arguing that the Catholicism of key CIA figures--such as Wild" Bill Donovan and Edward Lansdale--was decisive in establishing the agency's concerns, methods, and understandings of the world. In part this was because the Roman Catholic Church already had global networks of people and safe places that American agents could use to their advantage. But conversely, American agents were overly inclined to viewother powerful religions and religious figures in the same framework as Catholicism--misconceptions that led, too often, to tragedy and disaster"--