Author: Raymond J. Batvinis
Publisher: University Press of Kansas
ISBN: 0700619526
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 352
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Book Description
The world was at war, America precariously poised on the sidelines. But already a second secret war was well underway with the United States very much in the thick of it. While he fought on the home front to consolidate the FBI's intelligence gathering power, J. Edgar Hoover was conducting an all-out campaign to make his agency America's first foreign espionage service--a campaign that would lead to an uneasy alliance with British intelligence in a brilliantly successful operation to undermine Germany throughout the Second World War. While pieces of the story have been told before, only now, in this work by FBI historian and former agent Raymond Batvinis, does this crucial chapter in the history of World War II, and of the FBI, received its full due. Taking up the tale begun in his acclaimed Origins of FBI Counterintelligence, Batvinis mines a wealth of heretofore untapped resources to expose Hoover's remarkable connivances and accomplishments in concert--and occasionally contention--with the Allies in outsmarting German intelligence. Hoover's Secret War opens up a world of spy rings, secret and double agents, surveillance, codes and ciphers, wire taps, microdots, mail drops, invisible ink, radio transmissions, and deception and disinformation as it tracks the warring nations spreading their intelligence tentacles throughout Europe and North and South America. As it documents the rocky evolution of the FBI's relationship with Britain's vaunted M15 and M16, the book brings to light the feud between Hoover and William Stephenson, director of the British Secret Intelligence Service's U. S. operation, BSC. Batvinis reveals how the agency gained access to ULTRA intelligence, thanks to the British decryption of the ENIGMA code, along with the strenuous efforts to keep the Germans in the dark about it. He uncovers eye-opening details of the FBI's participation in the famed "Double-Cross System, which effectively "turned" German agents against the Fatherland, among them a flamboyant, larger-larger-than-life playboy, a world famous French flyer, and a lecherous Dutchman. Batvinis tells for the first time how the Bureau manipulated these agents, and how it transmitted deceptive information critical to the Normandy landings, the Allied invasion of the Marshall Islands, and the atomic bomb program, among other matters. Rich with secrets and surprises worthy of the finest spy fiction, this true story of espionage and counterintelligence gives us our first clear look at the secret second world war, and a significant moment in history--for the FBI, for America, and for the world.
Author: Raymond J. Batvinis
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 352
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Book Description
Examines the United States- efforts to create and project a strong counterintelligence capability both at home and abroad during the 1930s. Several federal agencies, governmental departments, and military divisions vied for that role before it was eventually handed to the FBI. The author, a former FBI agent, chronicles the evolution, achievements, and failure of that effort.
Author: Peter Duffy
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1451667957
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 352
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Book Description
An account of a virtually unknown pre-World War II counterespionage operation describes how naturalized German-American agent William G. Sebold became the FBI's first double agent and was a pivotal figure in the arrests of 33 enemy agents for the Nazis.
Author: Douglas Waller
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1416576207
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 482
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Book Description
"Entertaining history...Donovan was a combination of bold innovator and imprudent rule bender, which made him not only a remarkable wartime leader but also an extraordinary figure in American history" (The New York Times Book Review). He was one of America's most exciting and secretive generals--the man Franklin Roosevelt made his top spy in World War II. A mythic figure whose legacy is still intensely debated, "Wild Bill" Donovan was director of the Office of Strategic Services (the country's first national intelligence agency) and the father of today's CIA. Donovan introduced the nation to the dark arts of covert warfare on a scale it had never seen before. Now, veteran journalist Douglas Waller has mined government and private archives throughout the United States and England, drawn on thousands of pages of recently declassified documents, and interviewed scores of Donovan's relatives, friends, and associates to produce a riveting biography of one of the most powerful men in modern espionage. William Joseph Donovan's life was packed with personal drama. The son of poor Irish Catholic parents, he married into Protestant wealth and fought heroically in World War I, where he earned the nickname "Wild Bill" for his intense leadership and the Medal of Honor for his heroism. After the war he made millions as a Republican lawyer on Wall Street until FDR, a Democrat, tapped him to be his strategic intelligence chief. A charismatic leader, Donovan was revered by his secret agents. Yet at times he was reckless--risking his life unnecessarily in war zones, engaging in extramarital affairs that became fodder for his political enemies--and he endured heartbreaking tragedy when family members died at young ages. Wild Bill Donovan reads like an action-packed spy thriller, with stories of daring young men and women in his OSS sneaking behind enemy lines for sabotage, breaking into Washington embassies to steal secrets, plotting to topple Adolf Hitler, and suffering brutal torture or death when they were captured by the Gestapo. It is also a tale of political intrigue, of infighting at the highest levels of government, of powerful men pitted against one another. Donovan fought enemies at home as often as the Axis abroad. Generals in the Pentagon plotted against him. J. Edgar Hoover had FBI agents dig up dirt on him. Donovan stole secrets from the Soviets before the dawn of the Cold War and had intense battles with Winston Churchill and British spy chiefs over foreign turf. Separating fact from fiction, Waller investigates the successes and the occasional spectacular failures of Donovan's intelligence career. It makes for a gripping and revealing portrait of this most controversial spymaster.
Author: David P. Mowry
Publisher: Military Bookshop
ISBN: 9781782661610
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 104
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Book Description
This publication joins two cryptologic history monographs that were published separately in 1989. In part I, the author identifies and presents a thorough account of German intelligence organizations engaged in clandestine work in South America as well as a detailed report of the U.S. response to the perceived threat. Part II deals with the cryptographic systems used by the varioius German intelligence organizations engaged in clandestine activities.
Author: Stephan Talty
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
ISBN: 0547614810
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 331
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Book Description
Describes the life of Juan Pujol, a poultry farmer who opposed the Nazis and concocted a series of staggering lies that lead to his becoming one of Germany's most valued spies, while actually acting as a double-agent for the Allies.
Author: Scott Anderson
Publisher: Anchor
ISBN: 0385540469
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 722
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Book Description
From the bestselling author of Lawrence in Arabia—the gripping story of four CIA agents during the early days of the Cold War—and how the United States, at the very pinnacle of its power, managed to permanently damage its moral standing in the world. “Enthralling … captivating reading.” —The New York Times Book Review At the end of World War II, the United States was considered the victor over tyranny and a champion of freedom. But it was clear—to some—that the Soviet Union was already seeking to expand and foment revolution around the world, and the American government’s strategy in response relied on the secret efforts of a newly formed CIA. Chronicling the fascinating lives of four agents, Scott Anderson follows the exploits of four spies: Michael Burke, who organized parachute commandos from an Italian villa; Frank Wisner, an ingenious spymaster who directed actions around the world; Peter Sichel, a German Jew who outwitted the ruthless KGB in Berlin; and Edward Lansdale, a mastermind of psychological warfare in the Far East. But despite their lofty ambitions, time and again their efforts went awry, thwarted by a combination of ham-fisted politicking and ideological rigidity at the highest levels of the government.
Author: Norman Ridley
Publisher: Frontline Books
ISBN: 1036112233
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 240
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Book Description
When Hitler was striving for recognition and relevance in the political turmoil of the early Weimar years in Germany he gave little thought to the world on the other side of the Atlantic other than to nurture a constant nagging resentment over President Wilson’s role in the post-war evisceration of Germany at Versailles in 1919. It was the United States, however, that had bankrolled the German economy to substantially boost industrial production and employment in the 1920s and the evidence of American wealth and economic power was hard to ignore. Even when the Nazis took over in Germany after the elections of March 1933, Hitler’s narrow vision was still concentrated on consolidating his power base in Germany itself and quickly thereafter expanded to take in the countries of Eastern Europe. What impressions he had of American culture and society were encapsulated in the trivialities and stereotypes of Hollywood movies depicting the ‘wild west’ or the deprivations of the Great Depression. Despite its economic power, nothing in Hitler’s world view envisaged the United States as a potential player in European politics, but the Germans intelligence services that he inherited were not so easily convinced. They had been aware of American power and influence since before the First World War and for them, spying on the United States was nothing more than a continuation of their efforts to prevent that country thwarting German ambitions. There had been spectacular successes in the past, such as the espionage attack that had wreaked massive destruction in the Black Tom Island explosion on 30 July 1916. But overall, the German agencies had gone to great lengths and considerable expense without achieving their ambitions and failed to prevent American participation in the war. With another war in prospect, the Germans once again made plans to influence American policy and do what they could to keep their forces out of European affairs. Spying for Hitler traces the history of German espionage in the United States and describes, in detail, the personnel involved and operations they conducted all through the 1930s and early 1940s. It examines the training of German agents and the espionage techniques they employed. The way in which the FBI reacted to the threat, in particular, from the Griebl-Lonkowski spy ring, shows how Hoover’s ‘Feds’ were initially slow to appreciate the danger, but soon learned the lessons. This was later to put them on a sounder footing to counter further attempts to infiltrate agents into the United States. This was most spectacularly displayed in Operation Pastorius, when saboteurs were landed on the American East Coast from U-boats. This book also examines the way in which the Germans used ‘sleeper’ agents and also describes how the FBI successfully ‘turned’ German agents to feed disinformation to Abwehr headquarters in Berlin. It describes how espionage missions played out and the fate of those involves.
Author: M. Stanton Evans
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 143914768X
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 296
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Book Description
A primary source examination of the infiltration of Stalin's Soviet intelligence network by members of the American government during World War II reveals the dictator's dubious partnerships with such top-level figures as Vice President Henry Wallace andchief advisor Harry Hopkins.
Author: Joseph E. Persico
Publisher: Random House Trade Paperbacks
ISBN: 0375761268
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 594
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Book Description
Despite all that has already been written on Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Joseph Persico has uncovered a hitherto overlooked dimension of FDR's wartime leadership: his involvement in intelligence and espionage operations. Roosevelt's Secret War is crowded with remarkable revelations: -FDR wanted to bomb Tokyo before Pearl Harbor -A defector from Hitler's inner circle reported directly to the Oval Office -Roosevelt knew before any other world leader of Hitler's plan to invade Russia -Roosevelt and Churchill concealed a disaster costing hundreds of British soldiers' lives in order to protect Ultra, the British codebreaking secret -An unwitting Japanese diplomat provided the President with a direct pipeline into Hitler's councils Roosevelt's Secret War also describes how much FDR had been told--before the Holocaust--about the coming fate of Europe's Jews. And Persico also provides a definitive answer to the perennial question Did FDR know in advance about the attack on Pearl Harbor? By temperament and character, no American president was better suited for secret warfare than FDR. He manipulated, compartmentalized, dissembled, and misled, demonstrating a spymaster's talent for intrigue. He once remarked, "I never let my right hand know what my left hand does." Not only did Roosevelt create America's first central intelligence agency, the OSS, under "Wild Bill" Donovan, but he ran spy rings directly from the Oval Office, enlisting well-placed socialite friends. FDR was also spied against. Roosevelt's Secret War presents evidence that the Soviet Union had a source inside the Roosevelt White House; that British agents fed FDR total fabrications to draw the United States into war; and that Roosevelt, by yielding to Churchill's demand that British scientists be allowed to work on the Manhattan Project, enabled the secrets of the bomb to be stolen. And these are only a few of the scores of revelations in this constantly surprising story of Roosevelt's hidden role in World War II.
