A Table for Fortune is astir September 11th. As it grew, tracing the roots of that transgression successful 1 absorption and its poisoned harvest successful another, the publication bifurcated. The archetypal portion is, oregon means to be, a caller of ideas. The 2nd turned retired to beryllium a caller of feelings. I tried to marque some halves cohere, until I realized that they could not, should not—except that they must.
Reader, my anticipation is that the densely cerebral acheronian of the archetypal portion (whose memo-based narration of 1 CIA analyst’s semi-plausible deskbound half-century tin beryllium justified lone by the patterns frankincense revealed) volition beryllium relieved by (1) sparkles of archival fascination and (2) S E C R E T loomings of geopolitical substructure possibly exposed, on with (3) a fewer fun doings of this selfsame spook and his sister-in-law Lorene. As for the 2nd part, I worked successful capable daylight, adjacent if sometimes of a rainy sort, to transportation you done respective sentences and possibly adjacent into an under-subsection. (Needless to say, the seventh level prefers to dainty some parts arsenic 1 product.)
I committedness that A Table for Fortune is arsenic existent arsenic I could marque it. The taxable was hateful but I could not flight it. Once I was fortunate capable to marque friends with Juan Tomas, a writer from Equatorial Guinea, who addressed a colloquium arsenic follows: “It is the work of the writer to talk retired not due to the fact that helium is simply a writer but due to the fact that helium is simply a subordinate of the community.” It follows that I indispensable talk retired not due to the fact that I tin talk but due to the fact that I americium an American.
(Who so americium I to justice American overseas argumentation from 1966 done 2022?—Nobody, excepting an American.)
I tried to correspond the travel of decisionmaking implicit that interval arsenic accurately arsenic my unCLASSIFIED misinterpretations permitted; and if immoderate of my judgments were acid, that was simply due to the fact that ACIDITY SELLS. How did we get to September eleventh, and into however galore feculent sloughs did we crawl from there? My idiosyncratic reply (this book) has to bash with lessons not learned, with expediencies of power, of course, and astir surely with consciences disabled connected each sides, but besides with chance, whose effects successful operation with mean quality fallibility, peculiarly during crises, tin beryllium malevolent—as erstwhile the U. S. authorities got panicked by the atrocities of Islamic terrorists into committing torture and launching an unjust warfare for which it saw the possibilities. As I said, I did my champion to beryllium accurate, but fto maine convey Fortune that this is simply a enactment of fiction, truthful that my mistakes tin walk themselves disconnected arsenic imagination! Besides, the causes and effects of ever truthful galore circumstantial events stay successful controversy. For instance, did the Soviets invade Afghanistan retired of (a) fearfulness of Muslim insurgency, (b) Iran-cognizant Realpolitik oregon (c) lust for a larboard connected the Persian Gulf? Then travel inactive much S E C R E T matters: What mortal tin illustration the ever-altering narration betwixt the Red Army Fraktion and the Stasi, oregon betwixt Donald Rumsfeld and Saddam Hussein?
I felt obligated to astatine slightest effort to fig retired wherever we came from and wherever we seemed to beryllium going. Why not maunder and meander connected astir it, astatine almost indispensable length?
In its CIA sections this publication resembles a 1940s science-fiction caller astir Venus. In different words, I did my champion to extrapolate from what small I knew, needfully erring successful astir of my Earthbound suppositions arsenic to the aboveground temperature, climate, fauna and flora of Langley—which pathetic guesses I volition with high probability ne'er beryllium capable to VERIFY or INVALIDATE. (Were the “blue” elevators ever blue, and what colour are they now? What precisely was the East Germany Desk called successful 1968 and which consequent names has it borne?) My gratitude to the CIA-affiliated radical who helped maine spot a fewer kilometers deeper into Venus’s never-clearing mist is spelled retired successful the acknowledgments. And present fto maine accidental that contempt loathing torture, assassinations, invasions based connected dishonest premises, longterm S E C R E T surveillance of harmless citizens, betrayals of allies and dependents and an each excessively wide deficiency of accountability, I americium not against the CIA oregon the “intelligence community” arsenic such. We play dirty; truthful bash our competitors and adversaries. I privation that the CIA and FBI had prevented September eleventh. I americium grateful they tried. What particularly troubles maine astir the American lawsuit is overreach by the Executive branch, peculiarly erstwhile it occurs successful the darkness. Whoever seeks to blasted the CIA exclusively for covert actions ought to work the suppressed (but fortunately leaked) Pike Report, successful which 1 tin spot a domineering White House coercing a protesting CIA into different long, needless bloodbath. As for the “War connected Terror,” well, my opinions request not fell themselves.
*
Certain Venusian latitudes are truthful darkly occluded that erstwhile trying to recognize Bush Two’s stubborn negligence conscionable earlier September eleventh, oregon his idiotically evil pranks of “enhanced interrogation,” oregon for that substance Obama’s S E C R E T drone strikes, ne'er caput the fun small ways successful which Trump aka MOGUL made America large again, each I tin comprehend are acts and effects. Miscellaneous whys and hows I committedness to conjecture arsenic cautiously arsenic possible, arsenic erstwhile I imagination up medium-probable motives for the fictional quality named Cheney.
*
Reader, bash you find War and Peace excessively long? What astir that hundred-page effort astatine the extremity astir the insignificance of heroes successful narration to the humanities existent they ride? I person been told that Tolstoy “needed an editor.” If you deliberation the same, past you volition not similar this book.
Recently respective of my chap judges connected a literate sheet declined to work submissions that were much than 2 100 pages long. Maybe it “was ever similar that.”
As for me, I decided that remembering the crimes of Cheney’s America was my work (although Cheney with high probability would person preferred little odious applications of my subnormal intelligence). I felt obligated to astatine slightest effort to fig retired wherever we came from and wherever we seemed to beryllium going. Why not maunder and meander connected astir it, astatine almost indispensable length? You see, torturers and counter-torturers, victims, ideologues and perjurers, not to notation ignorant radical who are good, bully radical who chopped motivation corners and suchlike known unknowns, should all get their due. So to show respect I inserted a trifle, and possibly adjacent accidentally expanded present and there. After grubbing up other facts, opinions, interpretations, I past people had to pattycake, oh, conscionable a fewer much 100 pages of livid wordflesh onto my characters’ alphanumeric skeletons, due to the fact that different what benignant of Venusians would they be?
My exertion astatine Viking, who had indulged maine for decades, grew ever little enthusiastic the much of this publication helium read. He ne'er could see the relevance of the Angola parts. He moreover reminded maine (as helium had been doing ever since 1986) that the outgo of insubstantial was rising. Worse yet, helium informed me, the assorted fonts I had been deploying for years portion constructing my ocular grammar for A Table for Fortune (typewriterish for spook reports, italic for newscast, etcetera) could nary longer beryllium permitted to the likes of me. I replied that Viking could spell connected paying maine twenty-odd cents an hour, for I had ne'er cared astir my alleged “income”; but owed to immoderate pathetic, entitled delusion (I continued), I besides did not attraction (I genuinely didn’t!) astir the outgo of insubstantial and fonts! He was soundless astir that, meaning that I would with medium-high assurance suffer that battle. Meanwhile I promised to reread the manuscript with an unfastened mind, to spot if it could beryllium shortened, if lone by 5 100 pages, oregon amended yet 2 thousand. Didn’t I mean arsenic good arsenic Kissinger himself? So I chopped and hacked and amputated and abbreviated; I really really did, but successful the people of these excisions, A Table for Fortune someway grew, oh, I hide precisely however galore 100 manuscript pages longer. So I was justly fired. I inactive see my erstwhile exertion a friend, arsenic I anticipation helium does me. He did effort to prevention maine from myself. You see, I could person made a living and expanded my readership. Well, I had to combat against some of those dangers. And successful the large words of Bush Two: MISSION ACCOMPLISHED!
Truth to tell, Viking and I some (and, reader, possibly adjacent you) would person wished A Table for Fortune to beryllium a sporty small extremity array with a candy crockery connected it—instead of the monolithic triumph of banquet-furniture that it astir lamentably is (cobwebs and bloody chalices GUARANTEED—watch retired for the poison-tipped silverware!). And if you find this imaginable arsenic drearily, obsessively overbuilt and adjacent overstuffed arsenic did my erstwhile editor, fto maine reassure you arsenic I did him: “Don’t worry; I promise that my real leader volition beryllium calved by possibly astir leafage 8 hundred!” Set up successful frugal benignant by a hypothetical printer, Matthew (who of people is nary much real than his father) whitethorn with medium-high probability prevention insubstantial by coming to airy adjacent sooner than that—unless I driblet successful different megadigression time (the terrorists made maine bash it!).
*
My CIA protagonist DAVE began his beingness arsenic a precise fewer lines successful the September eleventh report. You see, idiosyncratic with his codename erstwhile did thing REDACTED. In lawsuit helium ever reads A Table for Fortune, I would similar to accidental that though my quality indispensable carnivore tiny resemblance to him, I person go (unlike Matthew) precise fond of DAVE. Should I ever enactment successful an quality bureau (for aft my occurrence astatine Viking I americium successful medium-high demand, astatine slightest among cockroaches), I, too, would purpose astatine expressing the information arsenic I saw it, not arsenic the Executive demanded that it looked.—Here the seventh level expresses medium assurance that I, too, could beryllium manipulated into turning retired a dishonest product done (a) my ain inclination to delight others, and (b) my preexisting loyalties (for instance, to “America” arsenic I construe her). On the different hand, I mightiness beryllium saved by my ain pigheadedness, arsenic already happened erstwhile I refused to fto Viking mutilate this publication into coherence and readability. DAVE arsenic I ideate him was besides ethical according to his lights, and moreover dared to persist against his superiors some astatine the bureau and downtown; aft all, helium erstwhile had been Crazy Elliott the combat chopper pilot. Since I would ne'er knowingly conscionable the real-life DAVE (who whitethorn for each I cognize beryllium scratching his bald spot close present portion chuckling implicit these idiocies), I fashioned him according to my ain inclination: (1) vastly much intelligent than I, (2) acold much collegial (at slightest until the Berlin Wall fell), (3) definitely a amended comparative and neighbor, for helium tolerated abuse, mediocrity and adjacent tiny talk, portion unceasingly accomplishing applicable kindnesses; (4) mechanically skilled, arsenic were my begetter and some grandfathers, astatine what I bash suboptimally, and of people (5) ultra-wonderful astatine keeping S E C R E T S. How, I wondered, mightiness a DAVElike idiosyncratic acquisition the abrupt extremity of the Cold War, our nonaccomplishment to forestall September eleventh and the crimes we committed successful our War connected Terror, thereby GUARANTEEING (I sincerely judge this) more coercion against us?* And however would helium adjust to working up insights which helium could ne'er impart to his family?
Of people his trick memory, hyper-long vocation and borrowings of Pravda from the workfellow codenamed CYCLOPS are frankly ridiculous, particularly since the second (don’t archer Venusian Cheney) bore 2 functional eyes. Mea culpa. His colleagues’ sometimes parodic bureau personalities, however, bash deduce from my intermittent survey of quality hives, successful 1 oregon 2 of which I person been forced to swarm, if ne'er each the mode to the seventh floor’s honeycomb; and connected a similar subject, fto maine present curse that each of the champion insanities uttered by patriots successful this caller were really bestowed upon maine verbatim by real-life Amcits.
When constructing his bureau beingness arsenic a CIA analyst, I expected that erstwhile DAVE archetypal began working up East Germany AKA the German “Democratic” Republic, his assigned mentor-boss was a kindred intelligent sort, who taught, loved, pushed, trusted and sometimes protected him, enlivening his mindflights implicit a teeming observational tract (call it the Night Land) and nourishing his knowing of the big picture. Once helium switched to analyzing Iraq, I saddled him with a doctrinaire and domineering boss, and abandoned him to an observational tract of misdirection and hopelessness. Again, I cognize thing astir the existent radical who did this work. Nor volition I ever larn (not my department!) which if immoderate CIA team leaders willingly oregon passively facilitated the slander astir Saddam Hussein’s transportation to September eleventh. Was our 2nd penetration of Iraq different Angola-like adventure, with the Executive dragging the CIA into error? Or did existent believers, specified arsenic my invented COULSON, facilitate hostilities with transgression zeal? All a novelist tin bash erstwhile representing Bush Two’s accomplices is to embody plausible ideologies successful circumstantial fictional characters. None of my invented time-servers, kill chain feeders and petty tyrants are meant to impugn the employees of Iraq Issue oregon immoderate different peculiar department.
*
Now what astir DAVE’s lad Matthew? I made him adjacent stupider than I, and cheerfuller, physically hardier, nobler successful his sincere hunt for America and arsenic brave, ethical and mechanically talented arsenic his father. In the archetypal draught helium was susceptible of carrying connected a governmental statement with DAVE, but the much I spied connected his doings, the worse that accorded with his destiny, due to the fact that Matthew, you see, had limitations.
I myself besides aspire to beryllium brave. I tin whistle past immoderate fig of graveyards—but however would I consciousness if I outlived my savings? Like DAVE, I came down with colon cancer, and paid for my endurance with a 3rd of my intestinal tract (a hyper-fun value nonaccomplishment method recommended by REDACTED). At the opening of 2025 the illness returned successful an incurable form. My archetypal absorption was relief, for I pity those who indispensable unrecorded connected successful the big picture we are making. And should anybody privation to punish maine for this book’s not precise sycophantic views, I request not endure long. Like Cassandra, I spell connected predicting the worst and not being believed. We person acceptable a array for Fortune, truthful I expect evil, ever hoping to beryllium wrong. Meanwhile I get to enactment brave, but whitethorn ne'er request to be so, unless my opioid pills tally out.
*
I utilized to person a girl named Lisa. She was the love of my life. When I obtained portion of my FBI record (700 pages long, 500 of which are REDACTED), I was astatine archetypal amused by the preposterously hostile distortions of my motives, actions, accomplishments and hopes. The FBI had been investigating maine for terrorism. After they caught the Unabomber, I became an anthrax fishy because, well, due to the fact that I had been a Unabomber suspect. Once I stopped laughing, it occurred to maine that since the record was truthful viciously unfair, and they had already detained maine twice, my state mightiness beryllium astatine risk. What if I went to situation and ne'er came back? Lisa was past a child. I told her: “Please retrieve that adjacent if they instrumentality your Daddy away, Daddy ne'er did thing wrong.” I wanted her to cognize this not for maine but for herself.
(To this time my incoming message is delayed, stolen, torn open. Sometimes a container of overseas translations volition get with the spine of each past publication slit open. My Japanese translator gave up penning maine years agone due to the fact that I ne'er answered her. I ne'er answered due to the fact that her letters ne'er came.)
In 2022, Lisa completed her bulimic and alcoholic self-destruction by means of a encephalon bleed. She was twenty-three. At the memorial work her pious aunt assured me: “Bill, don’t worry; she’s successful a amended place.”—“She definite is,” said I. “She’s successful a container connected the piano.”—So I request not interest astir myself oregon Lisa. It truly is benignant of fun, the mode Fortune takes attraction of us. (I mean, don’tcha think?) And connected that note, I judge I volition chew up different opioid.
Lisa was acold smarter than Matthew, so wickedly articulate, but little effectual astatine manual labor, for which she cared nothing, though she utilized to beryllium athletic. Unlike him, she was apolitical, and truthful lacked his consciousness of indispensable and righteous purpose. He became stateless for rather a agelong time. She was stateless lone briefly. Once Matthew got distant from his parents, helium recovered happiness, on with addiction and death. Lisa suffered truthful overmuch that I tin hardly endure to retrieve her past years. I accidental it is brave of maine to beryllium grateful that I outlived her, alternatively of failing her adjacent more, by dying first.
As mentioned, Matthew’s rupture with his begetter implicit Abu Ghraib I primitively envisaged arsenic an intelligence debate. This began to look unnecessary, due to the fact that 1 either feels and believes that torture is wrong, oregon other 1 is damaged. Matthew did not request to beryllium smart to beryllium successful the right. Nor did helium request to achieve results. So wherefore not constitute his pathology into his ideology? With the big picture truthful acold beyond his comprehension, helium indispensable person begun his quest retired of rancor, self-loathing and achy bewilderment—never caput that helium was innately loving, which made him compassionate, and that helium aspired to larn astir America, successful bid to amended love her. That was however I thought to marque him live. But successful each draught of A Table for Fortune I tinted Matthew’s household calamity ever much horribly with Lisa’s hopeless blood, and conscionable for fun sprinkled successful immoderate of her parents’ anguish—for this volition beryllium a fun publication each the way.
Should anybody privation to punish maine for this book’s not precise sycophantic views, I request not endure long. Like Cassandra, I spell connected predicting the worst and not being believed.
(I would not person mentioned household matters present astatine all, but for the information nary backstage grief is backstage anymore. I americium not DAVE, and Matthew’s parent is not Lisa’s. Matthew is not Lisa, though I person clothed immoderate of his wretchedness successful her sorrows. He would person disgusted her, loved her and pronounced her really truly nice. I privation she could person shambled arsenic cheerfully arsenic helium into the poisonous Venusian fog of homelessness. And portion I americium engaged wishing, wherefore not tendency nary September eleventh, nary Iraq War and a decent, honorable President?)
*
Most places mentioned (Angola being an exception; I privation I could person gone there) instrumentality their descriptions from notes I made connected the spot. (For example, my skepticism astir Saddam Hussein’s expected weapons of wide demolition was formed for fantabulous crushed connected my archetypal sojourn to Iraq, successful 1998, which I person related successful my effort Rising Up and Rising Down. Descriptions of Baghdad travel from unused passages successful my notebooks for that project.) Many interviews, etcetera, including the ones successful expected CIA reports, are likewise my work, arsenic elaborate successful the “Sources” section, which tries to bespeak not lone wherever I got my facts and speculations but besides however and wherefore I diverged from the humanities record. The reports themselves are with medium-high probability much snarky than the CIA would allow, though lone the seventh level tin accidental for sure.
While immoderate of the vilest ISIS acts successful Volume 4 were worked up based connected circumstantial atrocity videos (for instance, the unrecorded burning of the captured Jordanian aviator Lieutenant Muath al-Kaseasbeh successful 2015 genuinely happened, and I person described arsenic accurately arsenic imaginable what I saw successful that disgusting footage), astir of the CIA’s targeted killings successful that “caliphate” are invented, being inactive CLASSIFIED. That 2010 “drone onslaught successful Yemen, which was expected to take out an al-Qaeda nest but alternatively terminated the Deputy Governor of Marib Province” truly happened (see the source-notes). The S E C R E T liquidations by the U. S. of anonymous Muslims, and these operations’ seemingly predominant “collateral damage,” I person tried to correspond done looking astatine photographs of section radical successful these areas, and imagining (based connected what I person seen successful morgues, warfare zones & c) however they would look aft being detonated, burned, pulverized, etc. For the involvement of his reputation, anyone whose likeness appears successful this publication gets VETTED and pronounced guiltless by DAVE.
Even marred by my ain communicative “embellishments,” discussions of Iraqi-East German relations stay (I hope) realistic-ish—which arsenic mediocre DAVE had to larn differs from being on point. Equal attraction (and incompetence) went into my descriptions of the GDR’s S E C R E T constabulary (the Ministerium für Staatssicherheit der DDR, aka MfS oregon “Stasi”), whose prosodies** and opinions connected the CIA, Angola and different topics I did my champion to represent. Two formerly Stasi-affiliated fellows (who similar their CIA-related counterparts person acknowledgment successful the Acknowledgments) were benignant and unfastened with me; acknowledgment to them I was fortunate capable to spot immoderate of the Cold War from their constituent of view. Because their federation failed, rendering S E C R E T documents unexpectedly disposable to overseas civilian researchers specified arsenic myself, I mightiness successful definite particulars person attained a amended “feel” for the Stasi’s reasoning than for the CIA’s—but surely reached immoderate perceptual clarity astir the CIA oregon the illusion thereof. Most Stasi documents successful this publication are reality-derived—such arsenic the fascinating worldly connected Otto Skorzeny—although I shortened, embellished, etcetera.
(I privation you could person been with maine successful that white-walled speechmaking room, which was lukewarm and dormant silent, with the apical of the H2 Hotel disposable done the blind-subdivided model pane, and the blonde Rubenesque librarian, successful bluejeans, socks, sandals and a shortsleeved blouse, dilatory skimming leafage aft leafage of the documents successful a manila folder; respirations of traffic, two-tone whine of an ambulance; past different lawsuit idiosyncratic came successful wheeling a dolly of documents, including for lawsuit yet different brittle folder, brownish-orange with age, multiply torn astatine its bottommost edge, and to its beforehand screen a necktie-shaped paperclip holding a achromatic gaffe made retired to my archive tigress Killinger, Eva, code REDACTED by WTV, Tgb-Nummer 000229/19Z.)
Since nary Stasi worldly connected my sub-hero Dr. Gerald Bull (or, for that matter, connected DAVE) was available, wherefore not fabricate it? The grade of GDR activities successful Angola is likewise Venus-misted to individuals with my benignant of SECURITY clearance, but I cognize that GDR cadres did tally the docks astatine Luanda, and besides trained Angolan paratroopers and S E C R E T police. The occasional bloody clashes which I person imagined betwixt FAPLA’s Stasi partners and their enemies (SADF and UNITA) are the astir plausible guesses I could marque fixed the dearth of root documents (from what I understand, galore overseas argumentation records person been vacuumed up by the CIA). GDR activities successful Afghanistan are truthful besides poorly documented successful the Stasi archive, truthful I person been compelled to invent my ain anti-socialist innuendoes. Real radical specified arsenic East German Ambassador Kurt Krüger and VERIFIED GDR deeds successful Afghanistan are cited successful the root notes.
My descriptions of homelessness, riding the rails, hitchhiking, moonshine manufacture, godforsaken living, lurking successful flood tunnels, camping connected Delta islands and time labour are taken somewhat from my occasional experiences and a large woody much from listening to practitioners who person done those things for survival. Getting to beryllium friends with immoderate of them has brightened my life, and besides darkened it erstwhile I spot what they tin suffer. Supposed CIA interviews with Iraqi Kurds and ISIS refugees were done by maine successful Iraq, successful California (thanks to my angel Alana Levinson-Labrosse) and Austria (with the assistance of my beloved person Georg Bauer, who was 1 of this book’s diligent aboriginal readers). In each 3 places I person changed people’s names for their protection.
To assistance the reader, names of force organizations, weapons und sofort person been boldfaced into contradistinction to our ain oregon allied counterparts: a Soviet T-34 vessel versus an American B-52 bomber, Stasi HV A arsenic opposed to the CIA, the “terrorist” Kurdish enactment the PKK but not the “pro-American” Kurdish PUK. Frequently appearing evident cases specified arsenic the USSR person been near successful roman. Location numbers and letters arsenic successful “NW N Street” oregon “the I-5 freeway” are bolded to marque them much DAVE-ish.
For verisimilitude this publication preserves the German missive ß, which sounds awfully adjacent to “ss.” Thus, “Straße” [pronounced shtrasseh] equals “Strasse,” “street.” An umlaut (¨) implicit a vowel should beryllium work arsenic an instantly pursuing “e.” Hence “Thälmann” [tehl munn] is the aforesaid arsenic our transliterated “Thaelmann.” Meanwhile, successful our language, “POTUS” whitethorn ever beryllium (S E C R E Tly) pronounced Cheney.
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*For instance, I judge with high assurance that the drone exertion we person carelessly, greedily dispersed volition soon beryllium visited upon us. Artificial “intelligence” volition marque wide execution adjacent much wonderful.
**Stasi style, I indispensable pass you, is astir stunningly opaque. And this informing comes aft I person completed the laborious work of cutting and cutting again, lone to find immoderate hypothetical lattice of meaning still draped with creeping abstrusities! But to trim an “operational operation” to an casual work would beryllium pandering — successful different words, a simply divine idea. Please console yourself that your efforts to recognize Stasispeak volition springiness you a glimpse into an alien humanities reality. (And whitethorn I merchantability you a discreetly microfilmed transcript of racier force S E C R E T S? Just nonstop 50 1000 Deutschemarks to the nearest dormant drop.)
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From the author’s enactment to A Table For Fortune by William T. Vollmann. Copyright © 2026. Available from Arcade Publishing, an imprint of Skyhorse Publishing.
English (US) ·