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    A Time to Betray: The Astonishing Double Life of a CIA Agent inside the Revolutionary Guards of Iran
    A Time to Betray: The Astonishing Double Life of a CIA Agent inside the Revolutionary Guards of Iran
    A Time to Betray: The Astonishing Double Life of a CIA Agent inside the Revolutionary Guards of Iran
    Audiobook13 hours

    A Time to Betray: The Astonishing Double Life of a CIA Agent inside the Revolutionary Guards of Iran

    Written by Reza Kahlili

    Narrated by Richard Allen

    4/5

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    About this audiobook

    A true story as exhilarating as a great spy thriller, as turbulent as today's headlines from the Middle East, A Time to Betray reveals what no other previous CIA operative's memoir possibly could: the inner workings of the notorious Revolutionary Guards of Iran, as witnessed by an Iranian man inside their ranks who spied for the American government. It is a human story, a chronicle of family and friendships torn apart by a terror-mongering regime, and how the adult choices of three childhood mates during the Islamic Republic yielded divisive and tragic fates. And it is the stunningly courageous account of one man's decades-long commitment to lead a shocking double life informing on the beloved country of his birth, a place that once offered the promise of freedom and enlightenment-but instead ruled by murderous violence and spirit-crushing oppression.

    Reza Kahlili grew up in Tehran surrounded by his close-knit family and two spirited boyhood friends. The Iran of his youth allowed Reza to think and act freely, and even indulge a penchant for rebellious pranks in the face of the local mullahs. His political and personal freedoms flourished while he studied computer science at the University of Southern California in the 1970s. But his carefree time in America was cut short with the sudden death of his father, and Reza returned home to find a country on the cusp of change. The revolution of 1979 plunged Iran into a dark age of religious fundamentalism under the Ayatollah Khomeini, and Reza, clinging to the hope of a Persian Renaissance, joined the Revolutionary Guards, an elite force at the beck and call of the Ayatollah. But as Khomeini's tyrannies unfolded, as his fellow countrymen turned on each other, and after the horror he witnessed inside Evin Prison, a shattered and disillusioned Reza returned to America to dangerously become "Wally," a spy for the CIA.

    In the wake of an Iranian election that sparked global outrage, at a time when Iran's nuclear program holds the world's anxious attention, the revelations inside A Time to Betray could not be more powerful or timely. Now resigned from his secretive life to reclaim precious time with his loved ones, Reza documents scenes from history with heart-wrenching clarity, as he supplies vital information from the Iran-Iraq War, the Marine barracks bombings in Beirut, the catastrophes of Pan Am Flight 103, the scandal of the Iran-Contra affair, and more...a chain of incredible events that culminates in a nation's fight for freedom that continues to this very day.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherTantor Media, Inc
    Release dateMay 31, 2010
    ISBN9781400187577
    Author

    Reza Kahlili

    Reza Kahlili is a pseudonym to protect the author’s identity. Reza was born in Tehran, Iran, and served in the Revolutionary Guards and acted as a spy for the CIA. He now lives in California.

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    Reviews for A Time to Betray

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    • 4/5
      This is a true account of a spy—a man who for over a decade informed on the Islamic Republic regime to the American CIA. It is a human story, a chronicle of family and friendships torn apart by a terror-mongering regime, and how the adult choices of three childhood mates during the Islamic Republic yielded divisive and tragic fates. This is suspenseful and interesting—an inside look at the real world of international espionage showcasing the risks and the reasons one would risk everything.
    • 4/5
      An interesting and absorbing account; although some of his accounts of unverifiable conversations seem a bit too convenient to the image of himself he is trying to present (e.g. confronting his friend about the morality of his role in the regime right before the friend gets killed).
    • 1/5
      To me, the whole book sounds like a bad novel, pretending to be for real, and riding on the scare for Iran, in order to get good publicity. A waste of time.
    • 4/5
      Reza Kahlili (whatever his real name might be) is no James Bond. Bond was equipped with an arsenal of clever weapons that could be depended upon to protect him from his country’s enemies. Reza Kahlili had only a code book, coupled with a deep desire to overthrow the murderers that rule his country. Yes, Bond, if captured, might face torture and death. But Reza Kahlili, if recognized as an agent of the CIA, would be forced to watch the rape and torture of his wife before she and his young son would finally be allowed to die. Only then would Kahlili’s interrogators turn to him. Yes, Reza Kahlili is no James Bond."A Time to Betray" is Kahlili’s account of how he came to “betray” Iran in an attempt to save the country from its radical and murderous leadership. Because of his position as a computer expert for Iran’s Revolutionary Guards and his childhood friendship with Kazem, one of those now in charge of security issues inside the Guards, Kahlili is able to gather and transmit details that are otherwise unavailable to U.S. intelligence agencies. He will finally come to realize that the cover provided by his well known connection to Kazem is almost certainly the only reason he was able to survive for so long as a CIA agent – and, by the time he realizes this, he will be searching frantically for a way to escape Iran for good.As a child, Reza Kahlili had two close friends, Naser and Kazem. Naser and Reza lived in the same upscale neighborhood, each of them part of a family within which the requirements of Islam were not strictly followed. Their friend Kazem was their opposite in several ways. He lived in a poor neighborhood, had to make regular meat deliveries from his father’s butcher shop, and, what would prove to be most important regarding the futures of the three boys, he came from a devout Muslim family. As young men, the boys would take separate paths but they would remain close friends even during the years Reza studied computer science at the University of Southern California. Things would forever change, however, with the revolution of 1979 and the ascendance to power of the Ayatollah Khomeini, a religious fanatic who would ultimately be responsible for the deaths of hundreds of thousands of his people. One would wholeheartedly support Khomeini, one would march in protest of Khomeini’s policies, and the other would choose a middle road from which he hoped to bring positive change."A Time to Betray" is a thrilling story, one filled with vivid images of the atrocities witnessed by Kahlili at the infamous Evin Prison and on the streets of the city. Readers will be horrified by Kahlili’s description of what countless young women were forced to endure in Evin before being marched to the firing squad, a death many of them came to welcome. And they will find it difficult to forget the details of the stoning of a woman convicted of adultery, a “crime” she committed only because she had no other way to feed her children. They will be angered that the culture’s built-in hypocrisy demands death for such women but seldom even punishes the men involved. Reza Kahlili has told a dramatic story, one so dramatic that I have to question the timing of some of the events recounted in the book. On at least three occasions, timing is too convenient not to arouse suspicion that some events were placed in Kahlili’s timeline at the most dramatic points possible in order to maximize their effect. I do not question that they happened, just when they happened. Despite this misgiving about "A Time to Betray," I believe the book is a worthy read, one to which Western readers would do well to allocate some reading time.Rated at: 4.0