Ringwalt Press

"A pithy and readable account of some extraordinary experiences." -Former Secretary of State George Shultz "A fascinating read by a lone operator whose vital service to our nation contrasts with those of us in uniform or civilian life." -Brigadier General Harold Hyde, AUS (Ret.) At the height of the Cold War, after a successful international career with Bechtel, James Waste was recruited to serve as a covert observer for the CIA. Over the course of the next three decades, he reported to the agency both as a case officer and as an independent contractor, first behind the Iron Curtain and later along the ancient Silk Road of Central Asia. In his fast-paced memoir-from the mangled hulk of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant, to the violent ungoverned reaches of Tajikistan, to the Tbilisi office of former Soviet Foreign Minister and Georgian President Eduard Shevardnadze-Waste combines a vivid collage of first-hand experiences with a compelling behind-the-scenes portrait of a changing world.

James Waste was born in Berkeley, California, a third-generation Californian. During his twenty-year career with the Bechtel Corporation, he worked as a field construction engineer and project manager on major power plants, refineries, and pipelines in the United States and abroad. Later, while pursuing a more leisurely livelihood as a dealer in high-end antiques, Waste was recruited by the CIA to help evaluate the physical collapse of the Soviet infrastructure and the changing political and economic climate of the post-Cold War world.