This is the incredible story of Charlie Wilson, the Congressman from Texas who used his position on the Defense Appropriations Committee to funnel millions of dollars to the CIA to fight the proxy war in Afghanistan in the 1980's. The Afghan warriors so romanticized by Charlie and indeed the whole of Congress later turned up as Islamic jihadists who used their CIA weapons and training against the United States. Crile, a seasoned journalist, doesn't try to explain this turn of events; rather he wants to tell the story of Charlie and how he helped cause the collapse of the USSR through his Afghan intervention. The details of how Charlie got the United States, the Pakistanis, the Saudis, Israelis, and of course the Afghans to bend to his obsession to arm the Mujahideen are nothing short of amazing.

One of Charlie's "co-conspirators" featured prominently in the book is Gust Avrakotos, the agent in charge of Charlie's War at the CIA. Working with Wilson, Avrakotos eventually controlled more than 70 percent of the CIA's annual expenditures for covert operations. Another of Crile's heros, Gust is described as coarse, "brutally worldly wise," and undeservedly obscure. Unfortunately he had, as aptly put in his Washington Post obituary from 2005, a "thermonuclear approach to internal politics" in the CIA. His protest against Oliver North's arms-for-hostage scheme cost him his career.

Particularly enlightening is the elucidation of the back-room politics - in both Congress and the CIA - that played such a large role in getting this covert war funded. It is one thing to know that trading of favors "goes on" but quite another to see it in action, and to realize with astonishment how many lives can be so glibly bartered. (per W. H. Auden: "When he laughed, respectable senators burst with laughter, And when he cried the little children died in the streets.")

Crile tries hard to hide his hero-worship for Charlie as well as for Charlie's CIA accomplices, but he can't do it, in spite of a brief reference at the end to the blowback from the operation. Although Crile talks about Charlie's boozing, womanizing, and lack of responsibility, in the end, it is Lawrence of Arabia the author evokes in his portrayal of the apparently very charismatic Charlie. Even Zia-ul-Haq, the Pakistani dictator, comes off as a good guy - "like a dad" to Charlie, after all. The dewy-eyed slant does not obscure the "extraordinary" nature of the story however; it is well-worth reading.

(JAF) ( )