Central Intelligence Agency – The Intelligence Officer’s Bookshelf

Compiled and Reviewed by Hayden B. Peake

Hayden Peake is curator of the CIA Historical Intelligence Collection. He served in
the CIA’s Directorate of Science and Technology and the Directorate of Operations.

A Time to Betray: The Astonishing Double Life of a CIA Agent Inside the Revolutionary Guards of Iran, by Reza Kahlili. (New York: Threshold Editions, 2010), 240 pp.

Details in his book have been changed for security reasons—Reza Kahlili, for example, is a pseudonym—but that hasn’t diminished the punch of this unusual story. Kahlili grew up in Iran but in the early 1970s went to college at the University of Southern California where he lived with relatives. He returned with a masters in computer science in time for the revolution that brought Ayatollah Khomeini to power. Motivated by the end of the shah’s oppressive regime and visions of a Persian renaissance, Kahlili joined the Revolutionary Guards’s computer division. He might have remained an obscure programmer had not one of his childhood friends joined the operational element of the Guards and sought his assistance setting up a database of dissidents. When several of his dissident friends defied the regime, Kahlili witnessed the cruelty they endured, especially the women, who were routinely executed. When the US embassy was seized and its occupants taken hostage in 1979 he learned of the brutal treatment the Americans received at the hands of the Revolutionary Guards and discovered that the incident was anything but a spontaneous act of students. Such events convinced him he was witnessing the creation of a corrupt, unjust, iniquitous, Islamic fundamentalist Iran.

Kahlili decided to tell the world the truth about life in Iran and took leave to visit a “terminally ill” relative in Los Angeles. Once there, he contacted the FBI and through them the CIA. He writes that his intent was merely to ask their help in revealing what was happening in Iran. To his surprise, the CIA offered him an alternative opportunity—become an agent and penetrate the Revolutionary Guards. And that is what he did.

After training in the United States and London, Kahlili returned to Iran and began reporting. In this book he describes the communication techniques he used and outlines the kind of details he provided and the methods he employed to avoid detection. Despite his careful adherence to procedure, he did come under suspicion, but he survived, thanks to the fortuitous death of his accuser. He also married but did not tell his wife about his secret life. Sometime in the 1990s—he does not date his experiences—the stress became evident to himself and his family. He got permission to visit London and from there, with CIA help, he took his family to the United States. Living under a new name, he became a citizen. His son graduated from the University of California, Berkeley, in 2001. By then his wife knew of his former clandestine life.

In his review of A Time to Betray, David Ignatius said he initially doubted this incredible story. But after using his impressive contacts and eventually speaking with Kahlili by phone, Ignatius suggested the CIA should view the book as “a virtual recruitment poster.”¹ But the book is also a very important contribution to the understanding of contemporary Iran and the role of intelligence in the struggle against Islamic fundamentalism.

The Intelligence Officer’s Bookshelf

Also see:

Studies in Intelligence

Journal of the American Intelligence Professional
Unclassified articles from Studies in Intelligence Volume 54, Number 3