Cristmas Vacation Reading Testq

Mike Vickers is an integral part of Gust Avrakotas’ operations group that dealt with the CIA operation in Afghanistan. When Gust first met Vickers he described him as “…the only nerdy-looking guy in the whole group; most of those guys are Neanderthals, and he looked like a bookworm.” (pg. 289). Despite his nerdy appearance Mike Vickers, would become an integral part of the Afghan conflict. Before joining the CIA, Vickers already had a distinguished portfolio, he was a Green Beret for 10 years, five of which were spent studying Soviet tactics on the front line, he spent 3 years working counterterrorism in Panama; and multiple citations like Special Forces Soldier of the year. Thanks to this background Vickers became an expert in guerilla warfare and weaponry. “It’s initially disorienting to listen to Vickers talk about guerilla warfare. He makes it sound as if it were a business school course.” (pg.293). Avrakotas describes talking to Vickers in that quote. From that quip during the first interview with Vickers, Gust realizes just how important having a man like Vickers on his staff would be. It it even stated in the novel that “He seemed to have studied guerilla warfare like others study medicine. He seemed to know exactly what to prescribe and in what dose…”

Once Vickers was part of Avrakatos’ “dirty dozen” changes in the plans for Afghanistan be gan immediately. Vickers examined what the CIA had done so far and knew what was needed to give the mujahideen that could defend against the Red Army. Vickers “prescription” for the Soviet infection was a meshing of light and heavy machine guns, surface to air missiles, RPGs, and mortars. Vickers believed that, “the way to defeat the Soviet air power was by introducing a symphony of different weapons, that when put together, would change the balance in favor of the mujahideen. Once the weapons were in the pipeline, Vickers realized his work with the CIA was over and the weapons expert left the agency

Charles Wilson had a habit of always doing something to ruin things, just as everything was going well. In the novel, Charlie Wilson’s war, chapter 12 and chapter 13 are centered on two such actions on Wilson’s part that nearly destroyed his career. At one point Charley Wilson was brought under scrutiny for drug use charges, as depicted in Chapter 12. For his entire career Wilson always had a public image as a playboy. When allegations that Charlie had been using cocaine. These accusations caused Charlie to begin drinking heavily. As the investigation continued and things were getting worse, the people surrounding Wilson rallied to his aide. His “Angels” the group of women working for him began to run the office and many of Charlie’s friends outside of the political world stepped up and defended Wilson from the FBI’s best investigators. Eventually the charges were overturned when no one would come forward to provide testimony.

Soon after Charlie “beat the rap” it was time to accompany Doc Long on a junket to the Middle East to convince the ornery representative to support the CIA. However on his way to the airport “Good Time Charlie” was in an accident where he hit another car into a side rail and fled the scene. Just after he had escaped drug charges, the playboy representative from Texas had to face another potentially career ending event. Lucky for Charlie a loop hole allowed him to slide out of harms way. This loophole was that the site of the accident was under Washington DC jurisdiction and Charlie was a big donator to the DC police, so they helped him out of the problem. By sheer luck Charlie Wilson had dodged another bullet.