John Prados is a senior fellow of the National Security Archive, where he directs the CIA Documentation Project and the Vietnam Documentation Project and helps in other areas. He writes books on aspects of intelligence, diplomatic, military and national security. His works include Storm Over Leyte: The Philippine Invasion and the Destruction of the Japanese Navy, Normandy Crucible, and Islands of Destiny: The Solomons Campaign and the Eclipse of the Rising Sun. His books on the CIA-some of which have been on CIA recommended reading lists-include The Ghosts of Langley: Into the CIA's Heart of Darkness (The New Press), Safe for Democracy, The Family Jewels, William Colby and the CIA, Presidents' Secret Wars, and The Soviet Estimate. He has consulted on historical aspects of film projects and his papers, articles, and reviews have appeared widely. Prados also designs board strategy games.

From the writer Kai Bird calls a "wonderfully accessible historian," the first major history of the CIA in a decade, published to tie in with the seventieth anniversary of the agency's founding