Ghost: Confessions of a Counterterrorism Agent

*****Ghost: Confessions of a Counterterrorism Agent. By Fred Burton; published by Random House, www.randomhouse.com (Web); 288 pages; $26.

Put yourself in the role of a frontline agent in the war on terrorism, a “spook.” Meet the informants, put together pieces of the intelligence puzzle, and plan the next move in the high-stakes game of international counterterrorism. This dramatic narrative plays out in this memoir from Fred Burton, a former agent in the Diplomatic Security Service (DSS), the U.S. State Department’s security arm.

Burton describes DSS agents as the “redheaded stepchildren” of the U.S. counterterrorism community: far less-known than their high-profile counterparts in the FBI and CIA, but responsible nonetheless for the security of our embassies and diplomats as well as for preventing and investigating terrorist incidents.

A former Maryland police officer, Burton joined DSS in 1986 and was immediately thrown into the era’s maelstrom of terror attacks and threats, finding himself in many of the most interesting corners of the global fight: debriefings with hostages released from Beruit, hunting for evidence of Libyan involvement in the La Belle disco bombing in Berlin and the Pan Am Flight 103 bombing, and monitoring the capture of perpetrator Ramzi Yousef after the first World Trade Center bombing in 1993.

Somewhat distracting is Burton’s use of cliché phrases like “eyeballing,” “hand cannons,” and “this dude has a bad vibe,” which make some passages read more like pulp crime fiction than serious memoir. The author may be trying to spice things up in hope of generating a screenplay.

Overall, Burton gives us a window into the workings of an often understaffed, but intensely dedicated, cadre of agents, who play a critical role in national security. While the criticality of Burton’s personal role in some of the events might be questioned, the incidents offer plenty of good tactical lessons on terrorist targeting, planning, surveillance, and execution methodologies.

Ghost is an interesting book with good content for security professionals seeking an agent-level view of terrorism investigations.

Reviewer: Col. Britt Mallow, (U.S. Army, Ret.) is a Middle East and counterterrorism specialist with MITRE Corp. Following 9-11, he commanded the Department of Defense Criminal Investigation Task Force and directed terrorism investigations for the Military Commissions. He is vice chair of the ASIS Council on Global Terrorism, Political Instability, and International Crime.