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Wes Anderson
Release Date: 30 May 25
Espionage black comedy with an all-star cast. Wealthy businessman Zsa-zsa Korda appoints his only daughter, a nun, as sole heir to his estate. As Korda embarks on a new enterprise, they soon become the target of scheming tycoons, foreign terrorists and determined assassins.
Philip Houston, St. Martins Press, August 2012
Three former CIA officers - among the world’s foremost authorities on recognizing deceptive behavior - share their proven techniques for uncovering a lie.Imagine how different your life would be if you could tell whether someone was lying or telling you the truth. Be it hiring a new employee, investing in a financial interest, speaking with your child about drugs, confronting your significant other about suspected infidelity, or even dating someone new, having the ability to unmask a lie can have far-reaching and even life-altering consequences.As former CIA officers, Philip Houston, Michael Floyd, and Susan Carnicero are among the world’s best at recognizing deceptive behavior. Spy the Lie chronicles the captivating story of how they used a methodology Houston developed to detect deception in the counterterrorism and criminal investigation realms, and shows how these techniques can be applied in our daily lives.Through fascinating anecdotes from their intelligence careers, the authors teach listeners how to recognize deceptive behaviors, both verbal and nonverbal, that we all tend to display when we respond to questions untruthfully. For the first time, they share with the general public their methodology and their secrets to the art of asking questions that elicit the truth.Spy the Lie is a game-changer. You may never experience another book that has a more dramatic impact on your career, your relationships, or your future.2012 Philip Houston, Susan Carnicero, Don Tennant, Michael Floyd (P)2012 Macmillan
Chip Beck, 11 Sep 23
Final Days of Heroes is the memoir of a CIA Special Operations officer (author Chip Beck), who by 1974 is already a three-year veteran of the wars in Vietnam and Laos. As U.S. combat forces are withdrawn from Vietnam in 1973, a handful of French-speaking, combat experienced CIA agents are dispersed individually as advisors into Cambodia’s remote and embattled upcountry provincial capitals. Beck ends up in the town of Kompong Thom in January 1974, an enclave of 15,000 people that was encircled for two years and once even occupied by the Khmer Communist forces known as the Khmer Rouge.
On an initial visit to Kompong Thom from his original assigned base in Siem Reap, Beck encounters two heroic and charismatic Cambodian Army leaders, Colonel Khy Hak and General Teap Ben, who were becoming legendary figures in the war against the Vietnamese and Cambodian communists. As commanding officers of the Eleventh and Tenth Cambodian Army Brigades respectively, these two frontline leaders had won major battles against the North Vietnamese and Khmer Rouge at Angkor Wat after Cambodia’s entry into the Indochina War in March 1970.
They then went on to drive the Khmer Rouge out of Kompong Thom after a month of house-to-house fighting. Sensing a group of warriors who were engaged in daily combat, defiance, and resistance to the Khmer Rouge, Beck decides to cast his lot with the soldiers and civilians of the beseiged town and spends the next fifteen months sharing their battles, victories, and eventual heartaches with them. Khy Hak is the tactical genius who defeats the Khmer Rouge at every turn, while Teap Ben is a colorful Provincial Governor who manages the political and social turn of events as forty-five thousand villagers are rescued from the Khmer Rouge in the space of one month.
The success of the Eleventh Brigade infuriates the Khmer Rouge, who redeploy two crack regiments from the fighting around Phnom Penh to attack, defeat, and slaughter the defenders of Kompong Thom. Along with a French Priest and a Norwegian Doctor, Beck and a small team of Cambodian intelligence operatives stand side by side with the soldiers who eventually fight hand-to-hand with the enemy at the last line of defense on the plains of Kompong Thom. The Khmer Rouge are roundly defeated during the two month battle at Kompong Thom, but a year later, as the fighting intensifies around the capital of Phnom Penh it is clear to Beck and and his colleagues that Cambodia is doomed to fall.
Beck and Khy Hak, who by 1975 has been promoted as Cambodia’s youngest-ever General and is holding back the enemy in the defense of the capital, instigate a daring plan to set up a resistance movement after Phnom Penh falls. The plan requires the technical support of Beck’s primary intelligence counterpart, a former teacher turned Army Lieutenant, Chhun Tep. Dispatching Tep on a secret mission with Khy Hak, Beck promises to help Tep’s mother, wife, six children, and two hundred endangered men, women, and children escape through fifty miles of mountainous jungle into Thailand.
Due to a series of hasty decisions in Washington, Beck is in northern Cambodia when he is informed the U.S. Embassy will be evacuated the next day. He and his upcountry American colleagues are flown separately to Saigon, which is also sliding toward defeat. While Khy Hak and Chhun Tep continue to operate amid chaos on what becomes their fatal end, Beck returns to Cambodia via Thailand and manages to rescue Tep’s family and his two hundred other wards the day after Phnom Penh falls. As Cambodian soldiers continue to hold out and fight in the countryside, President Gerald Ford and Secretary of State Henry Kissenger rescind a promise made by the field advisors to resupply the resistance with arms and ammunition. The result is the end of days for Cambodia’s heroes and the beginning of what the Khmer Rouge called “Year Zero,” known in the West as “the Killing Fields."
Andreas Krieg, Georgetown University Press, 01 May 25
Now more than ever, communities across the world are integrated into a complex, global information ecosystem that shapes the nature of social, political, and economic life. The ripple effects of actors trying to manipulate or disrupt this information ecosystem are far more severe than the primary effects that are merely being felt in the information space. In fact, the weaponization of narratives has already shown its potential to transform the character of conflict in the twenty-first century. Subversion examines how malicious state and nonstate actors take advantage of the information space to sow political chaos. Andreas Krieg reveals how the coordinated use of weaponized narratives can achieve strategic-level effects through a six-stage process. Preying on vulnerable states and communities to find the fault lines within societies, these campaigns begin in the information space with an ultimate goal of producing tangible results (such as changes to policy or voting behavior, or spurring political violence). Krieg closely examines recent subversion campaigns by two states in particular, focusing on Russia’s interference in Western public discourse and the United Arab Emirates’s demonization of the Muslim Brotherhood as a terrorist organization. Subversion will provide scholars and policymakers with a comprehensive understanding of one of the most urgent threats in international politics along with recommendations on how vulnerable communities can become more resilient.
John Boorman (2001)
John le Carré's spy thriller is brought to the big screen. A British spy is banished to Panama after having an affair with an ambassador's mistress. Once there he makes connection with a local tailor with a criminal past and connections to all of the top political and gangster figures in Panama. The tailor also has a wife, who works for the canal administrator, and a huge debt. The spy's mission is to learn what the President intends to do with the Panama Canal, but he's really in business for himself, blackmailing the tailor into spinning a fantastic tale about the canal being sold to China and former mercenaries ready to topple the current government. Featuring Pierce Brosnan, Jamie Lee Curtis. Fictional account.
by Shaun Walker
(Knopf, 15 Apr 25)
More than a century ago, the new Bolshevik government began sending Soviet citizens abroad as deep-cover spies, training them to pose as foreign aristocrats, merchants, and students. Over time, this grew into the most ambitious espionage program in history. Many intelligence agencies use undercover operatives, but the KGB was the only one to go to such lengths, spending years training its spies in language and etiquette, and sending them abroad on missions that could last for decades. These spies were known as “illegals.” During the Second World War, illegals were dispatched behind enemy lines to assassinate high-ranking Nazis. Later, in the Cold War, they were sent to assimilate and lie low as sleepers in the West. The greatest among them performed remarkable feats, while many others failed in their missions or cracked under the strain of living a double life. Drawing on hundreds of hours of interviews, as well as archival research in more than a dozen countries, Shaun Walker brings this history to life in a page-turning tour de force that takes us into the heart of the KGB’s most secretive program. A riveting spy drama peopled with richly drawn characters, The Illegals also uncovers a hidden thread in the story of Russia itself. As Putin extols Soviet achievements and the KGB’s espionage prowess, and Moscow continues to infiltrate illegals across the globe, this timely narrative shines new light on the long arc of the Soviet experiment, its messy aftermath, and its influence on our world at large.
by Jason Bell
(Pegasus Books, 30 Apr 24)
In public life, Dr. Winthrop Bell was a Harvard philosophy professor and wealthy businessman. As an MI6 spy—known as secret agent A12—in Berlin in 1919, he evaded gunfire and shook off pursuers to break open the emerging Nazi conspiracy. His reports, the first warning of the Nazi plot for World War II, went directly to the man known as C, the mysterious founder of MI6, as well as to various prime ministers. But a powerful fascist politician quietly worked to suppress his alerts. Nevertheless, Dr. Bell's intelligence sabotaged the Nazis in ways only now revealed in Cracking the Nazi Code. As World War II approached, Bell became a spy once again. In 1939, he was the first to crack Hitler’s deadliest secret code: Germany’s plan for the Holocaust. At that time, the führer was a popular politician who said he wanted peace. Could anyone believe Bell’s shocking warning? Fighting an epic intelligence war from Eastern Europe and Russia to France, Canada, and finally Washington, DC, Agent A12 was a real-life 007, waging a single-handed struggle against fascists bent on destroying the Western world. Without Bell’s astounding courage, the Nazis just might have won the war.
by James Callanan
(I.B. Taurus, 15 Dec 09)
Born out of the ashes of World War II, the covert action arm of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) was created to counter the challenge posed by the Soviet Union and its allies and bolster American interests worldwide. It evolved rapidly into an eclectic, well-resourced organization whose activities provided a substitute for overt military action and afforded essential backup when the Cold War turned hot in Korea and Vietnam. This comprehensive examination of a still controversial subject sheds valuable new light on the undercover operations mounted by the CIA during the Cold War. Using a wide range of unpublished government records and documents, James Callanan traces the growth of the agency chronologically as it forged a covert action mission that sought to advance US foreign and defense policy in all corners of the globe. Offering a powerful perspective on a pivotal period in American history, "Covert Action in the Cold War" makes a crucial contribution to our understanding of global politics during the Cold War.
by Douglas Waller
(Dutton, 08 Apr 25)
Frank Wisner was one of the most powerful men in 1950s Washington, though few knew it. Reporting directly to senior U.S. officials--his work largely hidden from Congress and the public-- Wisner masterminded some of the CIA’s most daring and controversial operations in the early years of the Cold War, commanding thousands of clandestine agents around the world. Following an early career marked by exciting escapades as a key World War II spy under General William “Wild Bill” Donovan, Wisner quickly rose through the postwar intelligence ranks to lead a newly created top-secret unit tasked--under little oversight--with overseeing massive propaganda, economic warfare, sabotage, subversion, and guerrilla operations all over the world, including such daring initiatives as the CIA-backed coups in Iran and Guatemala. But simultaneously, Wisner faced a demon few at the time understood: bipolar disorder. When this debilitating disease resulted in his breakdown and transfer to a mental hospital, the repercussions were felt throughout Washington’s highest levels of power. Waller’s sensitive and exhaustively researched biography is the riveting story of both Frank Wisner as a national figure who inspired a cadre of future CIA secret warriors, and also an intimate and empathetic portrait of a man whose harrowing struggle with bipolar disorder makes his impressive accomplishments on the world stage even more remarkable.
by Sarah Oates and Gordon Neil Ramsay
(Oxford University Press, 04 June 2024)
The U.S. media has been tainted with Russian disinformation, but the more significant threat is how the Right has embraced the Russian model of the news media as a vehicle for propaganda. This could not have happened without Donald Trump, who has been aided and abetted by politicians and news outlets that favor persuasion over information. From his inauguration onwards, Trump has shown allegiance to the Kremlin propaganda playbook―he consistently denies reality, amplifies lies, vilifies the free media, and broadcasts disinformation. Seeing Red breaks new ground in investigating the scope of Russian disinformation, arguing that key politicians and media outlets in the United States have facilitated the dissemination of Russian propaganda. From the 2020 elections to the Capitol Insurrection to the war in Ukraine, Sarah Oates and Gordon Neil Ramsay examine the penetration of key Kremlin strategic narratives that attempt to project Russian power, blame NATO for Russian aggression, and attack democracy via the U.S. news. Despite knowledge of the risk and resourceful work on tracking down Russian propaganda in the United States, the problem of foreign disinformation continues to this day. As Oates and Ramsay argue, this is in part due to exploitation of the American tradition of free speech and the open nature of the U.S. media system. Yet, the much more dangerous menace lies not in how foreign governments attempt to manipulate the media, but in how our media system has been compromised by domestic actors who follow an authoritarian playbook and promote anti-democratic narratives. When it is hard to tell the difference between what the Russians are saying about the Democrats and how Fox News is covering Joe Biden, it is time to realize that some American outlets have crossed the line from news to propaganda.
by James M. Olson
(Georgetown University Press, 01 May 19)
The United States is losing the counterintelligence war. Foreign intelligence services, particularly those of China, Russia, and Cuba, are recruiting spies in our midst and stealing our secrets and cutting-edge technologies. In To Catch a Spy: The Art of Counterintelligence, James M. Olson, former chief of CIA counterintelligence, offers a wake-up call for the American public and also a guide for how our country can do a better job of protecting its national security and trade secrets. Olson takes the reader into the arcane world of counterintelligence as he lived it during his thirty-year career in the CIA. After an overview of what the Chinese, Russian, and Cuban spy services are doing to the United States, Olson explains the nitty-gritty of the principles and methods of counterintelligence. Readers will learn about specific aspects of counterintelligence such as running double-agent operations and surveillance. The book also analyzes twelve real-world case studies to illustrate why people spy against their country, the tradecraft of counterintelligence, and where counterintelligence breaks down or succeeds. A "lessons learned" section follows each case study.
James Hawes (2025)
When his supervisors at the CIA refuse to take action after his wife is killed in a London terrorist attack, a decoder takes matters into his own hands. Fictional account.
Steven Soderbergh (2025)
When intelligence agent Kathryn Woodhouse is suspected of betraying the nation, her husband - also a legendary agent - faces the ultimate test of whether to be loyal to his marriage, or his country. Fictional account.
by Eric OʻNeill
(Crown, 26 Mar 19)
Eric O’Neill was only twenty-six when he was tapped for the case of a lifetime: a one-on-one undercover investigation of the FBI’s top target, a man suspected of spying for the Russians for nearly two decades, giving up nuclear secrets, compromising intelligence, and betraying US assets. With zero training in face-to-face investigation, O’Neill found himself in a windowless, high-security office in the newly formed Information Assurance Section, tasked officially with helping the FBI secure its outdated computer system against hackers and spies—and unofficially with collecting evidence against his new boss, Robert Hanssen, an exacting and rage-prone veteran agent with a fondness for handguns. In the months that follow, O’Neill’s self-esteem and young marriage unravel under the pressure of life in Room 9930, and he questions the very purpose of his mission. But as Hanssen outmaneuvers an intelligence community struggling to keep up with the new reality of cybersecurity, he also teaches O’Neill the game of spycraft. The student will just have to learn to outplay his teacher if he wants to win. A tension-packed stew of power, paranoia, and psychological manipulation, Gray Day is also a cautionary tale of how the United States allowed Russia to become dominant in cyberespionage—and how we might begin to catch up.
by David Alan Johnson
(18 June 2024)
Admiral Wilhelm Canaris, Adolf Hitler’s chief of military intelligence, accomplished something that neither President Franklin D. Roosevelt nor Prime Minister Winston Churchill could ever achieve – he saved the lives of hundreds Jewish refugees and other racial and political undesirables by rescuing them from Nazi Germany and other Nazi-occupied countries. Seen as a quiet and uninteresting career naval officer, Canaris’ unmilitary bearing was actually a cover he had devised for himself, camouflaging a very sharp, and rebellious, mind. Admiral Canaris is a page-turning story of one of the most important and least likely saboteurs within the Third Reich. Initially a supporter of Hitler and the plan to re-arm Germany, Canaris was appointed to direct the Abwehr – Germany’s military intelligence agency – after a long career in the navy built on fostering relationships with foreign agents. But when the Nazis began their campaign of assassination and terror, including the systematic murder of thousands of Jews and other “undesirables,” the admiral became determined to do everything possible to fight Hitler and the Nazis. After the failure of Operation Pastorious, a spy mission to disarm American manufacturing plants, Hitler extolled his executive committee for risking German lives instead of the lives of “criminals or Jews.” That speech gave Canaris an idea. He would go on to disguise refugees as Abwehr agents and sent them to South America, under the official designation of “infiltration agents,” where they joined hundreds of authentic German agents operating in Argentina, Uruguay, Brazil, and nearly every other South American country. Canaris’ anti-Nazi activities, along with some health issues, finally resulted in his dismissal as head of the Abwehr. He was suspected of inefficiency and incompetence by senior Nazi officers – who had no idea that he had turned against the Hitler regime -- and exiled to a desk-job in the Economic Warfare Department. Little did the Fȗhrer know, this placement was the best thing that could have happened to Canaris’ resistance efforts. Through in-depth research and affirming storytelling, author David Alan Johnson paints the picture of a driven and devious mind working amidst the darkest evil to save all those that he could.
by Kevin Riehle
(Lynne Rienner Publishers, Inc., 25 May 25)
"An essential guide to counterintelligence, blending theory with case studies to fill a crucial gap in the intelligence literature. Both insightful and accessible, this book offers a rare, practitioner-driven perspective for anyone keen to explore the intricacies of CI." ―Giangiuseppe Pili, James Madison University What is the core purpose of counterintelligence? What does it involve? To answer these questions, Kevin Riehle explains in detail how counterintelligence analysis supports the mission of thwarting adversaries―how a foreign entity's intelligence cycle can be exploited, disrupted, or manipulated―in order to gain decision advantage. Case studies of operations involving the Soviet Union and Russia also illustrate how counterintelligence-derived information can support broader US national security decisionmaking.
by Kevin Bryant
(Rowman and Littlefield Publishers, 13 Jul 22)
Spies disguised as priests. Secret surveillance of targets’ movements. Radio frequency jamming. Tapped telephones. These might sound like acts of espionage right out of the Cold War or a spy movie—but in fact came straight from the National Football League. In Spies on the Sidelines: The High-Stakes World of NFL Espionage, Kevin Bryant provides the first in-depth investigation of spying in professional football, as well as the countermeasures utilized to defend against these threats. Spanning across all teams and eras, Bryant shines a light on the shady world of NFL reconnaissance—from clandestine photography and hidden draft prospects to listening devices and stolen documents—along with the permissible, if sometimes questionable, spy techniques teams utilize day in and day out to gain an advantage over their opponents. Written by a former Special Agent with decades of experience collecting and safeguarding information for the Department of Defense, Spies on the Sidelines reveals that, behind the game-day action, professional football can be as cloak-and-dagger as American intelligence agencies. This fascinating and expansive compilation of NFL spy anecdotes exposes the extraordinary measures teams are willing to take in order to win.
by Peter Theroux
(30 May 24)
In Obscura is a savory literary confection detailing its author’s move from the light of day in publishing and journalism into the “dark” world of the CIA’s clandestine analysis, counterterrorism, and black site work … via Damascus, the Golan Heights, and Hollywood. A National Geographic fieldworker based in Los Angeles, Theroux doubled as a practitioner of a hidden profession—translation—and found kindred spirits in other hidden professionals, the stunt actors who double as movie stars. When he takes things a step further, into the entirely covert world of intelligence, he gives us a guided tour of the upside-down world where fame is anathema and career success is measured by deeper and darker assignments. Inspired by Hollywood memoirs that explain in nuts-and-bolts fashion the world of movie making to cinema buffs, Theroux writes In Obscura as a nuts-and-bolts account of what CIA officers do all day—whether they report to work at Headquarters, the White House, or a war zone.
by Jeremy Hurewitz
(Diversion Books, 27 Aug 24)
Tapping into the history of intelligence-gathering and his work with former agents of the CIA, FBI, and other federal departments, Jeremy Hurewitz, a foremost corporate sales and security expert, offers field-tested spycraft strategies and government-agency tactics anyone can use to build relationships, persuade, and sell anything. Hurewitz has built his career around CIA case officers, FBI agents, and government officials—people like Steve Romano, former Chief Negotiator of the FBI; Mark Sullivan, former Director of the Secret Service; General Stanley McChrystal (Ret.), former Commander of the Joint Special Operations Command; and John Cipher, former member of the CIA's Senior Intelligence Service. Drawing on in-depth interviews about their skillsets, stunning spy-world anecdotes, and science-backed principles of behavioral intelligence, Hurewitz has created a handbook of lessons and techniques that will strengthen your ability to connect, entice, and make deals—in business and everyday life. Though a spy's targets may be odious—terrorists, criminals, corrupt diplomats, and more—the agent's focus is on cultivating relationships and understanding motivations to gather information, free hostages, or procure money. Elicitation, Radical Empathy, and RPM (Rationalize, Project Blame, and Minimize Fault) are just a few methods in this persuasion playbook from the real world of international espionage. With a foreword by Robert Grenier, former Director of the CIA's Counterterrorism Center, Sell Like a Spy puts James Bond in its dust, making you a true agent of persuasion.
by Blaine Harden
(Viking, 03 Oct 17)
In 1946, master sergeant Donald Nichols was repairing jeeps on the sleepy island of Guam when he caught the eye of recruiters from the army's Counter Intelligence Corps. After just three months' training, he was sent to Korea, then a backwater beneath the radar of MacArthur's Pacific Command. Though he lacked the pedigree of most U.S. spies—Nichols was a 7th grade dropout—he quickly metamorphosed from army mechanic to black ops phenomenon. He insinuated himself into the affections of America’s chosen puppet in South Korea, President Syngman Rhee, and became a pivotal player in the Korean War, warning months in advance about the North Korean invasion, breaking enemy codes, and identifying most of the targets destroyed by American bombs in North Korea. But Nichols's triumphs had a dark side. Immersed in a world of torture and beheadings, he became a spymaster with his own secret base, his own covert army, and his own rules. He recruited agents from refugee camps and prisons, sending many to their deaths on reckless missions. His closeness to Rhee meant that he witnessed—and did nothing to stop or even report—the slaughter of tens of thousands of South Korean civilians in anticommunist purges. Nichols’s clandestine reign lasted for an astounding eleven years. In this riveting book, Blaine Harden traces Nichols's unlikely rise and tragic ruin, from his birth in an operatically dysfunctional family in New Jersey to his sordid postwar decline, which began when the U.S. military sacked him in Korea, sent him to an air force psych ward in Florida, and subjected him—against his will—to months of electroshock therapy. But King of Spies is not just the story of one American spy. It is a groundbreaking work of narrative history that—at a time when North Korea is threatening the United States with long-range nuclear missiles—explains the origins of an intractable foreign policy mess.
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.
by Gordon Stewart (Author), Thomas Boghardt (Editor), De Gruyter Oldenbourg, 07 October 2024
Germany was the epicenter of the Cold War. Across the Iron Curtain, hundreds of thousands of soldiers faced each other, and if World War III were to break out, contemporaries feared, surely it would happen here. The country’s frontline status made it an El Dorado for spies, who gathered information on military targets, penetrated political parties, and trained partisans for stay-behind operations. For the Americans, the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) came to take the lead in this silent – and sometimes not so silent – contest. In the heyday of the Cold War, the agency’s German station employed nearly two thousand officers – in addition to countless spies and informants. Ultimately, this covert empire reported to the CIA station chief in West Germany and his deputy. And for many years, either of those positions was held by Gordon Matthews Stewart.
Gordon Stewart was well prepared for this assignment. He studied German history and literature during the 1930s and lived in Munich and Hamburg as a visiting student. Here, he personally witnessed the Nazi takeover, even catching a glimpse of Adolf Hitler at one of his notorious rallies. When the United States entered the war in 1941, the newly established Office of Strategic Services (OSS) recruited him as a specialist on German affairs. In the summer of 1945, he arrived in Germany with an OSS detachment. Eventually, the OSS morphed into the CIA, and Gordon Stewart would run the agency’s espionage organization in Germany for some twenty years.
From CIA headquarters in Heidelberg, Karlsruhe, Frankfurt, and eventually, Bonn, Mr. Stewart directed all intelligence operations in central Europe. Initially, he hunted down Nazi war criminals, but the Cold War compelled him to bend his efforts toward the Soviet bloc. During the 1950s, Mr. Stewart directed espionage operations against East Germany, organized the training of Ukrainian partisans at U.S. bases in Bavaria, and participated in a scheme to dig a tunnel into East Berlin to eavesdrop on Soviet and East German communications. He also recruited and handled sources inside the West German government, including the chief of the Bundesnachrichtendienst, Reinhard Gehlen; the highest-ranking West German military officer, General Adolf Heusinger; and top policy-makers of the Christian and social democratic parties.
Mr. Stewart’s memoirs, introduced by renowned intelligence scholar Thomas Boghardt, offer not only a fascinating look inside the CIA’s largest overseas station; they also tell the story of a deeply conscientious and highly accomplished intelligence officer, whose experience, intellect, and moral compass shaped American policy toward Germany and Europe during the turbulent years of the early Cold War.
by V.K. Singh, Manas Publications, 30 July 2007
The present book is the first account by a person who has actually served in RAW at a senior level. Though not an insider, he was part of the organisation for a little less than four years and was able to see its functioning from close quarters. Since he was concerned with signal intelligence rather than human intelligence operations, most of the coverage is devoted to the former. The book brings to light several lacunae in the functioning of the country's top intelligence agency, the most glaring being the anomalies in procurement of equipment, lack of accountability and our dependence on foreign sources, with the resultant threat to national security.
Some of the hitherto untold stories recounted in the book: