Sallie Pisani tells the story of the top CIA operatives who were instrumental in developing the nonmilitary covert intervention policies of the early Cold War years and the Office of Policy Coordination that carried them out. Through interviews with Deputy Director of Plans Richard Bissell (Bay of Pigs), OSS officer and later CIA official John Bross, CIA General Counsel Lawrence Houston, CIA field operative Kermit Roosevelt, and Frank Lindsay, head of paramilitary operations for OPC, Pisani traces covert operations from their roots in the New Deal and World War II through the years of the Marshall Plan.