Based on previously classified documents, the true account of a top-secret Cold War operation: the CIA's failed attempt to spark rebellion in Albania.

In 1949, a newly minted branch of the CIA (the precursor of today's National Clandestine Service) hatched an elaborate plan to roll back the Iron Curtain: coordinate with the British Secret Intelligence Service to foment popular rebellion and detach Albania from Moscow's orbit. The operation resulted in dismal failure and was shut down by 1954.

In Operation Valuable Fiend, Albert Lulushi gives the first full accounting of this CIA action, based on hundreds of declassified documents, memoirs, and recollections of key participants, including Albanian exiles recruited for missions and their Communist opponents. Up until now, the story of the operation has been obfuscated and even distorted. Some blamed the Soviet mole Kim Philby for sabotaging it; the communists credited the prowess of their secret police; and CIA memoirs were heavily sanitized. Lulushi lists a range of factors that led to the failure, from inexperienced CIA case officers outsmarted in spy-versus-spy games by their ruthless Stalinist opponents to rivalries between branches of the CIA, and between the agency and friendly intelligence services, as well as conflicts among anti-Communist factions that included Albania's colorful exiled leader, King Zog.

This book also shows how this operation served as the proving ground for techniques used in later CIA Cold War paramilitary actions—involving some of the same agency operatives—including the coup d'états in Iran and Guatemala and the Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba.

"Lulushi has told a fascinating story well and made excellent use of untapped archival resources." —David Robarge, chief historian, CIA