Book and Film Recommendations

by Alessandro Giorgi
(Schiffer Military History, 28 Sep 24)

During the early years of US involvement in Vietnam, the CIA helped arm militia groups in South Vietnam referred to as the “Fighting Fathers.” The name was a reference to the Catholic priests who organized the fighting groups. The fathers fought alongside their parishioners to defend their localities from the Communist insurgency, the Vietcong. Author Alessandro Giorgi has studied the subject in unprecedented detail, conducting original research in recently declassified archives and interviewing former US intelligence personnel and Italian missionary witnesses.

by Matthew Hefner
(CSSC, 01 Oct 224)

Edited by our AJI Research Fellow, Dr. Matthew Hefner, Intelligence and Contemporary Conflict is designed for impact - a collection filled with insight from some of the world’s leading specialists of intelligence history, including Dr. Gill Bennett, former Chief Historian of the UK’s Foreign and Commonwealth Office, Professor Michael Goodman, Official Historian of the UK’s Joint Intelligence Committee, Professor John Ferris, the Authorized Historian of the UK’s Government Communications Headquarters, and Dr. Calder Walton, Assistant Director of the Belfer Center’s Intelligence Project at the Harvard Kennedy School. With a focus on intelligence and communication in the most pressing issues of international security, the book will be useful for scholars, practitioners and enthusiasts alike. The collection was published with the support of the Ax:son Johnson Institute for Statecraft and Diplomacy and the Axel and Margaret Ax:son Johnson Foundation for Public Benefit and beautifully produced by Bokförlaget Stolpe.

Michael Kaschner (2019)

Some just counted tanks, others stole blueprints for bombs. The Cold War was the battleground for thousands of spies and spotters. Even the Allied Military Missions in Germany doubled as covert observers in the spying game. Whether military observers, spies or traitors - they all acted as suppliers of intelligence for their masters in Washington or Moscow. Many of them risked their lives, and quite a few lost it. Yet, did the spying game really contribute to keep the Cold War cold in the end?

by Yvonnick Denoël, Hurst, 03 February 2025

"Officially" the Vatican has no espionage service; but does no one carry out intelligence operations on its behalf? During the Second World War and Cold War, Rome was teeming with spies. A band of undercover monsignors and priests hunted for Vatican "moles", led clandestine diplomacy, investigated assassinations of priests and other scandals threatening the Church, and conducted high-risk missions behind the Iron Curtain. Drawing on freshly released archives of foreign services that worked with or against the Holy See, Vatican Spies reveals eighty years of shadow wars and dirty tricks. These include infiltrating Russian-speaking priests into the Soviet Union; secret negotiations between John XXIII and Khrushchev; the future Paul VI"s close relationship with the CIA; the Vatican's infiltration by Eastern Bloc intelligence; the battles between the Jesuits and Opus Dei; and the secret bank funds channeled first to fight communism in South America, then to support Solidarity in Poland. This entertaining book journeys right to the present, uncovering startling machinations under Benedict XVI and, today, Pope Francis.