Contragate: The Swill of Empire

Over the past twenty-two months, almost since the day of President Reagan’s second inauguration, the foreign policy of the United States has been controlled by a handful of military officers and their pals: freelance spies, itinerant jobbers from think tanks, adepts of “sailing close to the wind” in the illegal export of arms. The president is not, exactly, part of this company, though nobody has ever been better at toasting them, with a wink and a nod. But it was his office...