PMCI - March 2021

PMCI
BOOK REVIEW
I'd like to take the time to introduce
you to our model featured left, a
friend of mine named Travis Partyka,
affectionally known as 'Big Red', being
6'4" and 240lbs. He was the real
deal, 2-14INF 10th MTN DIV Sniper,
contractor and my friend.
Well remembered and sorely missed
27/6/84 - 24/01/21 RIP TP.
Baz, PMCI Team.
RISK TAKER, SPY MAKER:
TALES OF A CIA CASE
OFFICER
Sometimes you come across a factual story that reads just like a
novel, and Risk Taker, Spy Maker: Tales of a CIA Case Officer by
Barry Broman is one of them, and it’s a story that I personally
found hard to put down!
Broman has led a remarkable life, and met some remarkable
people along the way of his years at a Central Intelligence
Agency case officer. He was a teenage photographer for the
Associated Press in Southeast Asia, then a Marine Corps infantry
officer in combat in Vietnam before spending a quarter century
as a “head-hunter” with dozens of recruits for the Clandestine
Service in operations around the world. A lifelong photographer
and traveller, he has published many articles and books.
Broman received a BA in Political Science in 1967 followed by an
MA in Southeast Asian Studies a year later. Immediately following
his service in the Marine Corps, he was recruited by the CIA and
spent his first posting in Cambodia at war. He was present at
the fall of Phnom Penh in 1975, escaping just before the Khmer
Rouge took power.
He subsequently served in other Asian postings, one in Europe,
and one in the Western Hemisphere. During his career, Broman
was twice a CIA chief of station, once a Deputy Chief of Station,
and supervised an international para-military project in support of
the Cambodian resistance to Vietnamese invaders. He was actively
involved in several assignments in counter-narcotics operations in
Southeast Asia including a major “bust” that yielded 551 kilograms
of high-grade heroin from a major drug trafficker!
His “favourite agent” against a variety of “hard targets” was a
fellow whose only demand was that his assignments be “life
threatening”; he survived them all. At times, the memoir reads
like a travel book with tales of visits to little-known and rarely
seen places like the Naga Hills on the India-Burma border, the
world-famous but off limits jade and ruby mines of Burma, and
the isolated Banda Islands of Indonesia, the home of nutmeg.
The book is strengthened by many photos by the author. They
include Marines in action in Vietnam, the ravages of war in
Cambodia at war, and opium buyers forcing growers to sell in
Burma. If you want to know more about changing times on a
worldwide stage, of the evolution between real war and the
“shadow war” and the part of one astonishing individual in all of
it, then this is a “must read”.
Publisher : Casemate Publishers (15 Aug. 2020)
Language : English
Hardcover : 312 pages
ISBN-10 : 1612008968
ISBN-13 : 978-1612008967
BOOK REVIEW
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