Annie Jacobsen, “Surprise, Kill, Vanish“

Annie Jacobsen discusses her book, “Surprise, Kill, Vanish“, at Politics and Prose. In bestsellers such as Area 51, The Pentagon’s Brain, and Operation Paperclip, Jacobsen has given riveting, eye-opening glimpses of some of the government’s more shadowy corners. Her new book is a detailed look at the risky and morally-ambiguous terrain of the CIA’s Special Activities Division. Known as the most effective black operations force in the world, SAD is responsible for hostage rescues, sabotage, and assassinations, and has been used for top-secret maneuvers by almost every president since World War II. Charting this unsettling territory from the Cold War to today, Jacobsen draws on unprecedented access to nearly fifty individuals involved at all levels of SAD activity, from Senior Intelligence Service (equivalent to the Pentagon’s generals), to counterterrorism chiefs, targeting officers, and Ground Branch operators, revealing SAD as not just a paramilitary and intelligence branch but a col