-- The inner workings of the Central Intelligence Agency are the stuff of legend, and have formed the basis for scores of successful movies, books, and TV shows.

-- Since the horrific events of 9/11, Washington has given the CIA a virtual blank check to improve their intelligence gathering capabilities. The public's awareness of CIA activities is at an all-time high; people want to know how their government is working to protect them-and the CIA is at the forefront.

It's been said that spying is the world's second oldest profession. The Central Intelligence Agency is without a doubt the most mysterious of all US law enforcement agencies. The CIA's primary mission is to collect, evaluate, and disseminate foreign intelligence to assist the President and senior U.S. governmental policymakers in making decisions relating to national security. To this end, the Agency recruits the finest minds in the fields of science, engineering, economics, linguistics, mathematics, and computer science. The Complete Idiot's Guide "RM" to the CIA will also detail the origins of the agency, its often colorful and sometimes even comical missions (.i.e., poisoning Fidel Castro's beard); its evolution from the O.S.S.; its failures and successes, the key players past, present, and future; the CIA's role in wartime and in peacetime; and where the rapidly unfolding events of a very unstable world will take the Agency in the 21st century.