The Central Intelligence Agency was created by Congress with the passage of the National Security Act of 1947, signed into law by President Harry S. Truman. A civilian intelligence agency of the United States government responsible for providing national security intelligence to senior United States policymakers, the CIA also engages in covert activities at the request of the President of the United States of America. The CIA's primary function is to collect information about foreign governments, corporations, and individuals, and to advise public policymakers. The agency conducts covert operations and paramilitary actions, and exerts foreign political influence through its Special Activities Division.

For the first time in French, here are the CIA's secret operations, illustrated with hundreds of photographs and documents. From the end of World War II to the operations tracking Bin Laden in Pakistan in 2008, via the Cold War, the activities of the famous American secret service are analysed in this work.

CIA agents have been present for more than 60 years in all the operational theatres and the world's trouble spots. There is not a single war, not a coup d'etat where America's men in the shadows have not played a part. Never has a secret service been so powerful: its representatives in posts in a number of capitals dealt directly with the most highly placed politicians.