The Puzzle Palace

Inside the National Security Agency, America's Most Secret Intelligence Organization

By: James Bamford

Narrated by: Paul Boehmer

In this remarkable tour de force of investigative reporting, James Bamford exposes the inner workings of America's largest, most secretive, and arguably most intrusive intelligence agency. The NSA has long eluded public scrutiny, but The Puzzle Palace penetrates its vast network of power and unmasks the people who control it, often with shocking disregard for the law. So sensitive was the information uncovered that the agency twice attempted to suppress the book, threatened the author with prosecution, and even raided one of the libraries he used.

This is a brilliant account of the use and abuse of technological espionage.

©1982 V. James Bamford (P)2018 Tantor

Still relevant today

It is mind blowing to think that this was put out in 1982 and topics discussed in the book are still relevant nearly 40 years later. The Narrator is OK, I needed to keep coming back to the book periodically in order to finish the book.

Complete and Authoritative

In depth presentation of the NSA up to 1982, the date of publication. It's almost as though the reader is present at historic milestones of the NSA.

Fascinating and a great intro into the authors multiple books on the subject.

I got this because I wanted to read his last book SoyFail which covers a host of some famous and some not so famous HUMNIT and a host of other failures. From Aldrich Ames to Asian and Cuban spy’s he covers a whole host of them. Some of these stories were swallowed up by large events like 911. I wonder if he covers the same ground Peter Lance covered about Ali Mohamed in his work Triple Cross. He has about 4 books before his last. I’ve enjoyed this one immensely and I can’t wait to get through all his other books.

Fantastic Work

I understand why this book made so many people uncomfortable. Not much has changed I'm afraid. The technology has advanced, but all the relationships have advanced along with it. Excellent work. If you're interested in this specific field of national security, this is definitely worth your time.

Not bad, just dated

Didn’t realize this book was published in 1982. My mistake, not a bad listen. Gave a good history up to the early 1980’s about the NSA.