And, you know, they're really not part of the government. You know, the death squads are, you know, are not nearly as active as they once were. But by 1984, the Reagan administration's whole attitude was, well, the war is winding down. And perhaps over the previous four years, something like 60,000 people died in this war, and the vast majority of them killed by - not in combat, but by right-wing death squads that were part of the government.ĭAVIES: You know, it was a leftist insurgency against a right-wing government, right? Yeah.ĪNDERSON: That's right, and a right-wing government being supported by the Reagan administration. And in 1984, the so-called dirty war in El Salvador was really starting to wind down a bit.
I was an aspiring journalist at that point. Do you want to share that with us?ĪNDERSON: Sure. commitment to anti-communism and its effect. And you tell a story of a moment in Central America that kind of captured your own reckoning with the U.S. You went on to become a journalist, and you were a war correspondent in a lot of conflict zones. government, eventually became disillusioned with the policy approaches of the government and took an early retirement. You know, you write that your father, who worked for the U.S. Thanks for having me on.ĭAVIES: You lived abroad a lot as a kid, including a long time in Taiwan, where you kind of grew up on the edges of the Cold War. Well, Scott Anderson, welcome back to FRESH AIR. In 2016, he authored a story about the modern history of the Middle East which took up an entire issue of The New York Times Magazine called "Fractured Lands: How The Arab World Came Apart." He spoke to me from his home in Fleischmanns, N.Y., about his new book, "The Quiet Americans." Scott Anderson is the author of two novels and four books of nonfiction.
held in the developing world and led to a disastrous war in Vietnam.Īnderson tells the story through the lives of four young men who played important roles in the CIA. Anderson concludes that the CIA's rigid commitment to anti-communism and willingness to topple democratically elected governments squandered the goodwill the U.S. It was a time, Anderson writes, when Americans wielded great moral authority in the world and nations struggling to throw off colonial rule looked to the United States as a beacon of freedom and democracy. Our guest today, writer Scott Anderson, has a new book about the early years of the CIA, when America was victorious in World War II and former soldiers were improvising a campaign of spying and covert operations to contain and undermine the nation's new adversary, the Soviet Union. We're used to a world in which American intelligence services operate with enormous power and reach. I'm Dave Davies, in today for Terry Gross.
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