Man in the shadows - Efraim Halevy

From Operation Desert Storm to the beginning of US incursions into Iraq, Efraim Halevy was Deputy Director and then Director of Israel's Mossad, arguably the most developed and, sometimes, ruthless intelligence service in the world. MAN IN THE SHADOWS is Halevy's memoir of that period from his vantage point inside the Mossad, as well as a look at what lies ahead for a world transformed by Islamic terrorism. Having served as the secret envoy to Prime Ministers Rabin, Shamir, Netanyahu, Barak and Sharon, Halevy was privy to, and collector of, some of the most sensitive information coming out of the region. Beginning with a prologue that describes a visit he made to Jordan in 1993, Halevy looks back to Desert Storm, an event he calls 'an epic of unfinished business' and brings the reader up to the present day through 9/11 and the WMD crisis in Iraq. Informed by his extraordinary access from the beginning of his Mossad career in 1961, he writes frankly of the Israeli PMs he worked under as well as most of the other major players in the region and around the world: Yasir Arafat, Saddam Hussein, Hafez Assad, Hosni Mubaraq, Crown Prince Abdullah, Mu'amar Qadaffi, Presidents Clinton and Bush, as well as former CIA director George Tenet and counter-intelligence chief James Angleton. Though Halevy looks to the past, he also looks to the future and talks bluntly about how the world might achieve peace in the region and elsewhere. Much of what he has to say will surprise and shock even those readers well versed in the complexities of the region. Some will disagree violently with what he has to say, but everyone will have to pay attention.