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Showing 141 - 160 of 1225 items
By David Hebditch. 2021
“A treasure of a book…An authentic adventure saga [and] a very human story generously seasoned with ingenuity, technology and hardy…
individualism.” —K9YA TelegraphIncludes photos and mapsClandestine radio operators had one of the most dangerous jobs of World War II. Those in Nazi-occupied Europe for the SOE, MI6, and OSS had a life expectancy of just six weeks. In the Gilbert Islands, the Japanese decapitated seventeen New Zealand coastwatchers.These highly skilled agents’ main tasks were to maintain regular contact with their home base and pass vital intelligence back. As this meticulously researched book reveals, many operators did more than that. Norwegian Odd Starheim hijacked a ship and sailed it to the Shetlands. In the Solomon Islands Jack Read and Paul Mason warned the defenders of Guadalcanal about incoming enemy air raids, giving American fighters a chance to inflict irreversible damage on the Japanese Air Force. In 1944 Arthur Brown was central to Operation Jedburgh’s success delaying the arrival of the SS Das Reich armored division at the Normandy beachheads. The author also explains in layman’s terms the technology of 1940s radios and the ingenious codes used.Most importantly, Covert Radio Agents tells the dramatic human stories of these gallant behind-the-lines radio agents. Who were they? How were they trained? How did they survive against the odds? This is a highly informative and uplifting history of World War II’s unsung heroes.By Neil R Storey. 2020
“A compelling examination of an aspect of World War II that always has a rapt audience: espionage . . . With a…
cast of colorful characters.” —Library Journal (starred review)Beating the Nazi Invader is a revealing and disturbing exploration of the darker history of Nazis, spies and “Fifth Columnist” saboteurs in Britain, and the extensive top-secret countermeasures taken before and during the real threat of invasion in 1940.The author’s research describes the Nazi Party organization in Britain and reveals the existence of the Gestapo headquarters in central London. The reader gains vivid insights into Nazi agents and terrorist cells, the Special Branch and MI5 teams who hunted them and investigated murders believed to have been committed by Third Reich agents on British soil.Accessing a host of recently declassified files the book explores the highly classified measures taken for the protection of the Royal Family, national treasures and gold reserves. The British government made extensive plans for the continuation of government in the event of invasion including the creation of all-powerful Regional Commissioners, “Black Lists” of suspected collaborators and a British resistance organization. We also learn of the Nazis’ own occupation measures for suborning the population and the infamous Sonderfahndungsliste G.B, the Nazi “Special Wanted List.”The result is a fascinating insight into the measures and actions taken to ensure that Great Britain did not succumb to the gravest threat of enemy invasion and occupation for centuries.“Provides fresh and incisive answers to some intriguing 80-year-old mysteries about wartime espionage.” —Britain at War“A truly engrossing work.” —History of War MagazineBy Andrei Soldatov, Irina Borogan. 2019
The authors of The Red Web examine the shifting role of Russian expatriates throughout history, and their complicated, unbreakable relationship…
with the mother country--be it antagonistic or far too chummy.The history of Russian espionage is soaked in blood, from a spontaneous pistol shot that killed a secret policeman in Romania in 1924 to the attempt to poison an exiled KGB colonel in Salisbury, England, in 2017. Russian émigrés have found themselves continually at the center of the mayhem.Russians began leaving the country in big numbers in the late nineteenth century, fleeing pogroms, tsarist secret police persecution, and the Revolution, then Stalin and the KGB--and creating the third-largest diaspora in the world. The exodus created a rare opportunity for the Kremlin. Moscow's masters and spymasters fostered networks of spies, many of whom were emigrants driven from Russia. By the 1930s and 1940s, dozens of spies were in New York City gathering information for Moscow.But the story did not end with the collapse of the Soviet Union. Some émigrés have turned into assets of the resurgent Russian nationalist state, while others have taken up the dissident challenge once more--at their personal peril. From Trotsky to Litvinenko, The Compatriots is the gripping history of Russian score-settling around the world.By Helen Fry. 2023
A groundbreaking history of women in British intelligence, revealing their pivotal role across the first half of the twentieth century…
From the twentieth century onward, women took on an extraordinary range of roles in intelligence, defying the conventions of their time. Across both world wars, far from being a small part of covert operations, women ran spy networks and escape lines, parachuted behind enemy lines, and interrogated prisoners. And, back in Bletchley and Whitehall, women&’s vital administrative work in MI offices kept the British war engine running. In this major, panoramic history, Helen Fry looks at the rich and varied work women undertook as civilians and in uniform. From spies in the Belgian network &“La Dame Blanche,&” knitting coded messages into jumpers, to those who interpreted aerial images and even ran entire sections, Fry shows just how crucial women were in the intelligence mission. Filled with hitherto unknown stories, Women in Intelligence places new research on record for the first time and showcases the inspirational contributions of these remarkable women.By Andro Linklater. 2009
Historian uses Spanish archives and first-person accounts to portray the life of the Revolutionary War general, first governor of the…
Louisiana territory--and spy for Spain. Details Wilkinson's double-dealing life, which the author asserts four presidents overlooked because of his influence. 2009When Neville Chamberlain made his famous Peace in Our Time statement in 1938, after the Munich Agreement with Hitler, he…
may, or may not, have been aware that the new Section D of the Secret Intelligence Service was already making plans to mount an all-out political and sabotage war against Nazi Germany. This was a new form of warfare, encompassing bribery, black propaganda and sabotage by agents described as having no morals or scruples. To the horror of many, it disregarded the conventions of neutrality and was prepared to hit the Nazi state wherever it could do most damage. Malcolm Atkin reveals how Section D's struggle to build a European wide anti-Nazi resistance movement was met with widespread suspicion from government, to the extent of a systematic destruction of its reputation. It was, however, a key pioneer of irregular warfare that led to the formation of the famous Special Operations Executive (SOE). His study is the first in-depth account of it to be published since the release of previously secret documents to the National Archives.By Nima Zamar. 2003
"Un document unique. Une aventure humaine exceptionnelle. Celle d'une jeune Juive française que rien ne prédestinait à ce genre d'aventure…
avant qu'elle soit embrigadée dans une unité spéciale israélienne, initiée à la guerre de l'ombre, au grand jeu. Sous le nom de code de Nima Zamar, elle subit un entraînement rigoureux pour intégrer un camp du Hezbollah en Libye, où, formée aux méthodes impitoyables et sanguinaires des terroristes, elle tue. Nima Zamar fait revivre pour la première fois dix années de l'incroyable violence d'une guerre qui continue chaque jour au Proche-Orient. Infiltrée dans les réseaux de combattants palestiniens, elle découvre les manipulations médiatiques de l'Intifada, subit les tortures syriennes, participe à la formation de troupes américaines trop sûres d'elles-mêmes et se heurte à des Russes discrets mais omniprésents." -- 4e de couvChronicles the quest of Scottish botanist Robert Fortune, who in 1848 was dispatched to China by the British East India…
Company to steal the plants and the secrets of growing and brewing tea. Discusses the impact of Fortune's endeavors on England's health and on the world economy. 2010By John Dinges, Saul Landau. 2013
Edgar Award Finalist: The gripping account of an assassination on US soil and the violent foreign conspiracy that stretched from…
Pinochet&’s Chile to the streets of Washington, DC, with a new introduction by Ariel Dorfman. On September 10, 1976, exiled Chilean leader Orlando Letelier delivered a blistering rebuke of Augusto Pinochet&’s brutal right-wing regime in a speech at Madison Square Garden. Eleven days later, while Letelier was on Embassy Row in Washington, DC, a bomb affixed to the bottom of his car exploded, killing him and his coworker Ronni Moffitt. The slaying, staggering in its own right, exposed an international conspiracy that reached well into US territory. Pinochet had targeted Letelier, a former Chilean foreign minister and ambassador to the United States, and carried out the attack with the help of Operation Condor, the secret alliance of South America&’s military dictatorships dedicated to wiping out their most influential opponents. This gripping account tells the story not only of a political plot that ended in murder, but also of the FBI&’s inquiry into the affair. Definitive in its examination both of Letelier&’s murder and of the subsequent investigations carried out by American intelligence, Assassination on Embassy Row is equal parts keen analysis and true-life spy thriller.The thrilling true story of the daring double agents who thwarted Hitler&’s spy machine in Britain and turned the tide…
of World War II. After the fall of France in the mid-1940s, Adolf Hitler faced a British Empire that refused to negotiate for peace. With total war looming, he ordered the Abwehr, Germany&’s defense and intelligence organization, to carry out Operation Lena—a program to place information-gathering spies within Britain. Quickly, a network of secret agents spread within the United Kingdom and across the British Empire. A master of disguises, a professional safecracker, a scrubwoman, a diplomat&’s daughter—they all reported news of the Allied defenses and strategies back to their German spymasters. One Yugoslav playboy codenamed &“Tricycle&” infiltrated the highest echelon of British society and is said to have been one of Ian Fleming&’s models for James Bond. The stunning truth, though, was that every last one of these German spies had been captured and turned by the British. As double agents, they sent a canny mix of truth and misinformation back to Hitler, all carefully controlled by the Allies. As one British report put it: &“By means of the double agent system, we actually ran and controlled the German espionage system in this country.&” In The Spies Who Never Were, World War II veteran cryptographer Hervie Haufler reveals the real stories of these double agents and their deceptions. This &“fascinating account&” lays out both the worldwide machinations and the personal clashes that went into the greatest deception in the history of warfare (Booklist).By Douglas Valentine. 2014
&“This shocking expose of the CIA operation aimed at destroying the Vietcong infrastructure thoroughly conveys the hideousness of the Vietnam…
War&” (Publishers Weekly). In the darkest days of the Vietnam War, America&’s Central Intelligence Agency secretly initiated a sweeping program of kidnap, torture, and assassination devised to destabilize the infrastructure of the National Liberation Front (NLF) of South Vietnam, commonly known as the &“Viet Cong.&” The victims of the Phoenix Program were Vietnamese civilians, male and female, suspected of harboring information about the enemy—though many on the blacklist were targeted by corrupt South Vietnamese security personnel looking to extort money or remove a rival. Between 1965 and 1972, more than eighty thousand noncombatants were &“neutralized,&” as men and women alike were subjected to extended imprisonment without trial, horrific torture, brutal rape, and in many cases execution, all under the watchful eyes of US government agencies. Based on extensive research and in-depth interviews with former participants and observers, Douglas Valentine&’s startling exposé blows the lid off of what was possibly the bloodiest and most inhumane covert operation in the CIA&’s history. The ebook edition includes &“The Phoenix Has Landed,&” a new introduction that addresses the &“Phoenix-style network&” that constitutes America&’s internal security apparatus today. Residents on American soil are routinely targeted under the guise of protecting us from terrorism—which is why, more than ever, people need to understand what Phoenix is all about.Covert operations and ingenious weapons for irregular warfare were developed rapidly, and with great success, by the British during the…
Second World War, and the story of the most famous organizations involved like SOE, the SAS and Section D of SIS is now well known, but Military Intelligence (Research), the smallest but one of the most influential of these units is relatively unknown. Malcolm Atkin’s intriguing and meticulously researched account describes their role at the heart of the War Office in trying to develop a ‘respectable’ arm of irregular warfare and their innovations ranging from the early Commandos, sticky bombs, limpet mines, booby traps, and even helicopters to the creation of the MI9 escape organization. They were an ‘ideas factory’ rather than an operational body but the book describes their worldwide operations including Finland, Norway, Romania, the Middle East and Central Africa. This is also a story of conflicting personalities between Jo Holland, the visionary but self-effacing head of MI(R) and his ambitious deputy, Colin Gubbins (later head of SOE), and the latter’s private war with SIS.By William Nester. 2020
A look at the Russian leader’s successful use of hard military and economic power and soft psychological power through information…
warfare, or “fake news.” Vladimir Putin has tightly ruled Russia since 31 December 1999, and will firmly assert power from the Kremlin for the foreseeable future. Many fear and loath him for his brutality, for ordering opponents imprisoned on trumped up charges and even murdered. Yet most Russians adore him for rebuilding the economy, state authority, and national pride.Putin has mastered the art of power. Depending on what is at stake, that involves the deft wielding of appropriate or “smart” ingredients of “hard” physical power like armored divisions, multinational corporations, and assassins, and “soft” psychological power like diplomats, honey-traps, cyber-trolls, and fake news factories to defeat threats and seize opportunities. Russian hackers penetrated the Democratic National Committee (DNC) and Hillary Clinton’s campaign organization, extracted tens of thousands of potentially embarrassing emails, and posted them on WikiLeaks.As the Kremlin’s latest ruler, Putin, like most of his predecessors, is as realistic as he is ruthless. He knows the limits of Russian hard and soft power while constantly trying to expand them. He is doing whatever he can to advance Russian national interests as he interprets them. In Putin’s mind, Russia can rise only as far as the West can fall. And on multiple fronts he is methodically advancing to those ends. Putin’s Virtual War reveals just how and why he does so, and the dire consequences for America, Europe, and the world beyond.“The author has set out the dangers that Putin has brought to the world in a must-read book.” —FiretrenchBy Julian Whitehead. 2020
A historian and intelligence expert explores intrigue, betrayal, and spying in Stuart England after the Glorious Revolution of 1688.King James…
II was the Catholic king of a Protestant nation. Though he had inherited a secure crown, he would soon find himself isolated and flee to France in exile. His throne was seized by his Protestant son-in-law William and daughter Mary. For James it was a personal tragedy of King Lear proportions; for most of his subjects it was a Glorious Revolution that saved his kingdoms from popery.Over the next hundred years James and his descendants would attempt to win back the crown with French support and conspiring with British Jacobites and Tories. In Espionage in the Divided Stuart Dynasty, Julian Whitehead charts the inner workings of government intelligence during this unstable period. His narrative sheds light on the murky world of spies and double agents at a time of when many politicians and peers tried to keep a foot in both camps.The number 1 best book about spies in Britain. As listed by Dame Stelle Rimington Ex-Director-General of M.I.5.The first reaction…
to Leonard Sellers fascinating account of the spies who were executed in the Tower of London during the First World War is likely to be one of amazement at their ineptitude. Not one of them seems to have had any proper training or any idea of how to set about the job. This, of course raises the intriguing question: how many others were there who did know what they were up to and managed to escape detection? However, thanks to the more liberal attitude now prevalent regarding access to hitherto 'sensitive' material and to years of dogged research by Len Sellers, the remarkable, but somehow pathetic, stories of the eleven foreign agents who were caught and subsequently shot in the Tower for espionage can now be told. In these days when a mind-boggling array of equipment is available for the assimilation and transmission of supposedly secret information their antics strike one as little short of farcical, but for their efforts, inspired, it seems, more often by greed than patriotism, these men paid the ultimate price and paid it in the most historic site in Britain.Whether they deserved their fate, or indeed the niche in history which this book gives them, is for the reader to decide. What cannot be denied is that their collected histories make remarkable reading.By Patrick Pesnot. 2016
Heroes to some, traitors to others, spies and intelligence officers continue to fascinate and enthral us with their abilities to…
operate secretly in the shadows. With these mini-biographies of twenty agents of various nationalities (including members of the DGSE, KGB, CIA, MI6 and Mossad), Patrick Pesnot and 'Mr X' bring the reader as close as possible into the world of espionage, though a panorama of intelligence history.Among the best known of these agents, the reader will find Aldrich Ames, an American accused of spying for the KGB; Eli Cohen, the Israeli spy best known for his espionage work in Syria and Klaus Fuchs, the German-born British agent who helped the USSR to manufacture its atomic bomb in 1949.By Ann Kramer. 2011
&“A thrilling, challenging and educational book . . . examines the roles of spies such a Edith Cavell, Mata Hari, Violette Szabo…
and Noor Inayat Khan&” (Pennant Magazine). Women spies have rarely received the recognition they deserve. They have often been trivialized and, in cinema and popular fiction, stereotyped as vamps or dupes. The reality is very different. As spies, women have played a critical role during wartime, receiving and passing on vital information, frequently at considerable risk. Often able to blend into their background more easily than their male counterparts, women have worked as couriers, transmitters, and with resistance fighters, their achievements often unknown. Many have died. Ann Kramer describes the role of women spies during wartime, with particular reference to the two world wars. She looks at why some women chose to become spies, their motives, and backgrounds. She looks at the experience of women spies during wartime, what training they received, and what skills they needed. She examines the reality of life for a woman spy, operating behind enemy lines, and explores and explodes the myths about women spies that continue until the present day. The focus is mainly on Britain but also takes an international view as appropriate. &“Tells the often surprising stories of some of the women who chose to become spies and to serve their country . . . An excellent work.&” —The Great War MagazineBy Td Barnes. 2015
The man &“who has done more than anyone to lift the veil of secrecy . . . about what&’s unfolded…
out there in the desert&” reveals the origins of Area 51 (KLAS 8 News Now). In 1955, the Central Intelligence Agency established a clandestine base of operations in the Nevada desert with a mission to protect the United States from a growing communist threat. Special projects at Area 51 were shrouded in mystery, and the first was one of the world&’s most famous spy planes, the U-2. It fueled half-truths, rumors and legends for more than half a century. Now with many details of that endeavor declassified, the real story can finally be told. Author and Area 51 veteran TD Barnes sifts fact from fiction in one of America&’s most protected origin stories.This fascinating historical revelation goes to the very heart of British and Allied Intelligence during World War II, specifically in…
the context of planning, control and implementation of the combined bomber offensive against Germany. There are sound arguments based on official archives that the handling of much air intelligence was faulty and reasons to believe that some departments within Whitehall were influenced by parochial and personal attitudes that interfered with the selection of strategic targets and the planning of the bombing offensives. In some departments within Whitehall and even the Air Ministry, there was a culpable failure to understand and appreciate the operational capabilities and limitations of the RAF and USAAF bomber forces. After the evacuation of the BEF the only means of destroying the Axis production of arms and munitions fell to the RAF and this was their prime objective for the rest of the war. The destruction of arms factories, power stations, air and ship production was the underlining objective, although when special targets, such as the break-outs of the German navy's major warships and U-Boats were deemed vital, the RAF were expected to react immediately. Much of Britain's intelligence was gathered from the German ENIGMA signals and became known as ULTRA with a security classification of MOST SECRET. Apart from the brilliant work at Bletchley Park there were other inputs from partisans throughout occupied Europe, Allied agents and various forms of reconnaissance. It was a new type of warfare that developed and improved as the war progressed but all too often the bomber squadrons were put into unnecessary peril through imprecise and unthinking demands from the highest levels of government.By Brian Latell. 2015
The CIA analyst who tracked Castro for decades explores the mind and motivations of the man who governed Cuba for…
nearly half a century. On trial in Santiago for leading a bloody assault on the city&’s Moncada garrison, young revolutionary leader Fidel Castro uttered a phrase in court that would come to serve as a rallying cry for his 26th of July Movement and his regime thereafter: &“History will absolve me.&” Despite the fact that his methods resulted in great loss of life on both sides, Castro never wavered in his belief that in the final reckoning his life&’s work would be vindicated—his violence necessary in bringing a new government to Cuba and a new political model to the developing world. For decades, CIA analyst Brian Latell tracked Castro relentlessly—getting to know his habits, his fears, and the passions that drove him. In this book, the author of After Fidel and Castro&’s Secret steps from the shadows to paint a complex and nuanced portrait of the man he came to know better than any other intelligence target—revealing the mind and motivations of one of the most mercurial, passionate, and dominating leaders of the twentieth century. &“One of America&’s foremost Cuba analysts.&” —George J. Tenet, former CIA director