Overview

Civil Air Transport (CAT), founded in China after World War II by Claire Chennault and Whiting Willauer, was initially a commercial carrier specializing in air freight. Its role quickly changed as CAT became first a paramilitary adjunct of the Nationalist Chinese Air Force, then the CIA's secret ""air force"" in Korea, then ""the most shot-at airline in the world"" in French Indochina, and eventually becoming reorganized as Air America at the height of the Vietnam War. William M. Leary's detailed operational history of CAT sets the story in the perspective of Asian and Cold War geopolitics and shows how CAT allowed the CIA to operate with a level of flexibility and secrecy that it would not have attained through normal military or commercial air transportation.

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Reviews

Insiders often portray the 1950s as a golden age for the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). The first successful Soviet nuclear test in 1949 precluded a direct American clash with the USSR and inaugurated two generations of conflict by proxy. In this frequently covert struggle, the Agency became an instrument of choice for the US government. Fortified by an influx of veterans from its wartime predecessor, the Office of Strategic Services (OSS) embarked on a broad covert campaign against communists and perceived communist sympathizers. From the literary salons of Paris to the grizzled brotherhood of international mountaineers, the CIA's influence came to permeate almost every avenue of human endeavor. In the field of clandestine military operations, however, it is increasingly clear that the Agency's record during the early Cold War years was almost entirely disastrous. Leary's meticulously researched study helps underscore the limitations of secret warfare. Perilous Missions still constitutes our best resource on the origins of Civil Air Transport. It offers a rich treasury of oral testimony and documentary evidence. - Journal of Military History

Insiders often portray the 1950s as a golden age for the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). The first successful Soviet nuclear test in 1949 precluded a direct American clash with the USSR and inaugurated two generations of conflict by proxy. In this frequently covert struggle, the Agency became an instrument of choice for the US government. Fortified by an influx of veterans from its wartime predecessor, the Office of Strategic Services (OSS) embarked on a broad covert campaign against communists and perceived communist sympathizers. From the literary salons of Paris to the grizzled brotherhood of international mountaineers, the CIA's influence came to permeate almost every avenue of human endeavor. In the field of clandestine military operations, however, it is increasingly clear that the Agency's record during the early Cold War years was almost entirely disastrous. Leary's meticulously researched study helps underscore the limitations of secret warfare. Perilous Missions still constitutes our best resource on the origins of Civil Air Transport. It offers a rich treasury of oral testimony and documentary evidence. - Journal of Military History

Author Information

William M. Leary is E. Merton Coulter Professor Emeritus at the University of Georgia and author/editor of 14 books, including Under Ice: Waldo Lyon and the Development of the Arctic Submarine and Project Coldfeet: Secret Mission to a Soviet Ice Station.

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