Author: David Stafford
Publisher: Harry N. Abrams
ISBN: 9781585675494
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 228
Book Description
Provides an account of Stopwatch/Gold, a joint Cold War operation between the CIA and Britain's Secret Intelligence Service conducted from a tunnel under the Russian sector of Berlin in an effort to gain information about the planned actions of the German Red Army.
Spies Beneath Berlin
Author: David Stafford
Publisher: Harry N. Abrams
ISBN: 9781585675494
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 228
Book Description
Provides an account of Stopwatch/Gold, a joint Cold War operation between the CIA and Britain's Secret Intelligence Service conducted from a tunnel under the Russian sector of Berlin in an effort to gain information about the planned actions of the German Red Army.
Publisher: Harry N. Abrams
ISBN: 9781585675494
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 228
Book Description
Provides an account of Stopwatch/Gold, a joint Cold War operation between the CIA and Britain's Secret Intelligence Service conducted from a tunnel under the Russian sector of Berlin in an effort to gain information about the planned actions of the German Red Army.
Spies Beneath Berlin
Author: David Stafford
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780719565601
Category : Berlin (Germany)
Languages : en
Pages : 225
Book Description
Operation Stopwatch/Gold, according to CIA chief Alan Dulles, was one of the most valuable and daring projects ever undertaken. In 1955 it ran a tunnel 800 metres under the Russian sector of Cold War Berlin, and for more than a year tuned into Red Army intelligence. This was an almost impossible trick: apart from the technical wizardry needed, any noise or vibration could have given the game away.
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780719565601
Category : Berlin (Germany)
Languages : en
Pages : 225
Book Description
Operation Stopwatch/Gold, according to CIA chief Alan Dulles, was one of the most valuable and daring projects ever undertaken. In 1955 it ran a tunnel 800 metres under the Russian sector of Cold War Berlin, and for more than a year tuned into Red Army intelligence. This was an almost impossible trick: apart from the technical wizardry needed, any noise or vibration could have given the game away.
Tunnel 29
Author: Helena Merriman
Publisher: PublicAffairs
ISBN: 1541788826
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 410
Book Description
He escaped from one of the world’s most brutal regimes.Then, he decided to tunnel back in. In the summer of 1962, a young student named Joachim Rudolph dug a tunnel under the Berlin Wall. Waiting on the other side in East Berlin were dozens of men, women, and children—all willing to risk everything to escape. From the award-winning creator of the acclaimed BBC Radio 4 podcast, Tunnel 29 is the true story of this most remarkable Cold War rescue mission. Drawing on interviews with the survivors and Stasi files, Helena Merriman brilliantly reveals the stranger-than-fiction story of the ingenious group of student-diggers, the glamorous red-haired messenger, the Stasi spy who threatened the whole enterprise, and the love story that became its surprising epilogue. Tunnel 29 was also the first made-for-TV event of its kind; it was funded by NBC, who wanted to film an escape in real time. Their documentary—which was nearly blocked from airing by the Kennedy administration, which wanted to control the media during the Cold War—revolutionized TV journalism. Ultimately, Tunnel 29 is a success story about freedom: the valiant citizens risking everything to win it back, and the larger world rooting for them to triumph.
Publisher: PublicAffairs
ISBN: 1541788826
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 410
Book Description
He escaped from one of the world’s most brutal regimes.Then, he decided to tunnel back in. In the summer of 1962, a young student named Joachim Rudolph dug a tunnel under the Berlin Wall. Waiting on the other side in East Berlin were dozens of men, women, and children—all willing to risk everything to escape. From the award-winning creator of the acclaimed BBC Radio 4 podcast, Tunnel 29 is the true story of this most remarkable Cold War rescue mission. Drawing on interviews with the survivors and Stasi files, Helena Merriman brilliantly reveals the stranger-than-fiction story of the ingenious group of student-diggers, the glamorous red-haired messenger, the Stasi spy who threatened the whole enterprise, and the love story that became its surprising epilogue. Tunnel 29 was also the first made-for-TV event of its kind; it was funded by NBC, who wanted to film an escape in real time. Their documentary—which was nearly blocked from airing by the Kennedy administration, which wanted to control the media during the Cold War—revolutionized TV journalism. Ultimately, Tunnel 29 is a success story about freedom: the valiant citizens risking everything to win it back, and the larger world rooting for them to triumph.
Voices Under Berlin
Author: Thomas Heinrich Edward Hill
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 318
Book Description
Now available: a special Tenth Anniversary Edition with bonus material to celebrate ten years of continuing reader demand. Look for it here on Amazon. Voices Under Berlin: The Tale of a Monterey Mary is the tale of one of the early skirmishes of the Secret Cold War told with a pace and a black humor reminiscent of that used by Joseph Heller (Catch-22) and Richard Hooker (M*A*S*H*). It is set against the backdrop of the CIA cross-sector tunnel operation to tap three Russian telecom�munications cables in Berlin in the mid-nineteen-fifties. It is the story of the American soldiers who worked the tunnel, and how they fought for a sense of purpose against boredom and the enemy both within and without. One of them is the target of a Russian "honey-trap," but which one? Kevin, the Russian transcriber, Blackie, the blackmarketeer, or Lt. Sheerluck, the martinet? The other end of the tunnel is the story of the Russians whose telephone calls the Americans are intercepting. Their end of the tale is told in the unnarrated transcripts of their calls. They are the voices under Berlin. * Dr. Wesley Britton, author of Spy Television, Beyond Bond: Spies in Fiction and Film, and Onscreen and Undercover: The Ultimate Book of Movie Espionage, calls Voices Under Berlin "a spy novel that breaks all the molds," adding that "in the tradition of Greene and Ambler, 'Voices Under Berlin' contains many literate qualities that make it a work of special consideration, worthy of an audience much broader than that of espionage enthusiasts or those interested in Cold War history. In fact, one indication of the book's quality is that it was among the award winners at the 2008 Hollywood Book Festival, a very rare honor for a spy novel." * Po Wong writing at bookideas.com says "Kevin is a hero in the mold of McMurphy, the rebellious asylum inmate who is the protagonist in Ken Kesey's One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest. Kevin manages to do his job despite the blind obedience to stringent regulations that frequently overrides common sense and intelligence in large military operations, and despite the widespread ineptness around him. ... Voices under Berlin is a coherent, funny, and often sardonic look at real espionage work. The detail is so realistic that you may find yourself wondering, as I did, whether this is a novel or the memoirs of an actual intelligence agent. Of course, if you're looking for James Bond, you won't find him here. What you will find is a fascinating account of what it must have been like to be toiling away at an important but often dreary job underneath the streets of Berlin during the Cold War years. * Midwest Book Review says one of the things that sets this novel apart is "the author's combining a genuine gift for humor with a deft literary astuteness in telling a story that fully engages the reader quite literally from first page to last." Winner of six book awards. Also by this author: Berlin in Early Cold-War Army Booklets The Day Before the Berlin Wall: Could We Have Stopped It? - An Alternate History of Cold War Espionage Berlin in Early Berlin-Wall Era CIA, State Department, and Army Booklets Reunification: A Monterey Mary Returns to Berlin Berlin in D�tente-era Berlin Brigade Booklets
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 318
Book Description
Now available: a special Tenth Anniversary Edition with bonus material to celebrate ten years of continuing reader demand. Look for it here on Amazon. Voices Under Berlin: The Tale of a Monterey Mary is the tale of one of the early skirmishes of the Secret Cold War told with a pace and a black humor reminiscent of that used by Joseph Heller (Catch-22) and Richard Hooker (M*A*S*H*). It is set against the backdrop of the CIA cross-sector tunnel operation to tap three Russian telecom�munications cables in Berlin in the mid-nineteen-fifties. It is the story of the American soldiers who worked the tunnel, and how they fought for a sense of purpose against boredom and the enemy both within and without. One of them is the target of a Russian "honey-trap," but which one? Kevin, the Russian transcriber, Blackie, the blackmarketeer, or Lt. Sheerluck, the martinet? The other end of the tunnel is the story of the Russians whose telephone calls the Americans are intercepting. Their end of the tale is told in the unnarrated transcripts of their calls. They are the voices under Berlin. * Dr. Wesley Britton, author of Spy Television, Beyond Bond: Spies in Fiction and Film, and Onscreen and Undercover: The Ultimate Book of Movie Espionage, calls Voices Under Berlin "a spy novel that breaks all the molds," adding that "in the tradition of Greene and Ambler, 'Voices Under Berlin' contains many literate qualities that make it a work of special consideration, worthy of an audience much broader than that of espionage enthusiasts or those interested in Cold War history. In fact, one indication of the book's quality is that it was among the award winners at the 2008 Hollywood Book Festival, a very rare honor for a spy novel." * Po Wong writing at bookideas.com says "Kevin is a hero in the mold of McMurphy, the rebellious asylum inmate who is the protagonist in Ken Kesey's One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest. Kevin manages to do his job despite the blind obedience to stringent regulations that frequently overrides common sense and intelligence in large military operations, and despite the widespread ineptness around him. ... Voices under Berlin is a coherent, funny, and often sardonic look at real espionage work. The detail is so realistic that you may find yourself wondering, as I did, whether this is a novel or the memoirs of an actual intelligence agent. Of course, if you're looking for James Bond, you won't find him here. What you will find is a fascinating account of what it must have been like to be toiling away at an important but often dreary job underneath the streets of Berlin during the Cold War years. * Midwest Book Review says one of the things that sets this novel apart is "the author's combining a genuine gift for humor with a deft literary astuteness in telling a story that fully engages the reader quite literally from first page to last." Winner of six book awards. Also by this author: Berlin in Early Cold-War Army Booklets The Day Before the Berlin Wall: Could We Have Stopped It? - An Alternate History of Cold War Espionage Berlin in Early Berlin-Wall Era CIA, State Department, and Army Booklets Reunification: A Monterey Mary Returns to Berlin Berlin in D�tente-era Berlin Brigade Booklets
Spies, Lies, and Exile
Author: Simon Kuper
Publisher: The New Press
ISBN: 1620973766
Category : True Crime
Languages : en
Pages : 290
Book Description
“Fascinating, rich, and probing . . . a beguiling and endlessly interesting portrait”—The Wall Street Journal For fans of John le Carré and Ben Macintyre, an exclusive first-person account of one of the Cold War’s most notorious spies “Kuper provides a different and valuable perspective, humane and informative. If the definition of a psychopath is someone who refuses to accept the consequences of his actions, does George fit the definition? There he sits, admitting it was all for nothing, but has no regrets. Or does he?” —John le Carré Few Cold War spy stories approach the sheer daring and treachery of George Blake’s. After fighting in the Dutch resistance during World War II, Blake joined the British spy agency MI6 and was stationed in Seoul. Taken prisoner after the North Korean army overran his post in 1950, Blake later returned to England to a hero’s welcome, carrying a dark secret: while in a communist prison camp in North Korea, he had secretly switched sides to the KGB after reading Karl Marx’s Das Kapital. As a Soviet double agent, Blake betrayed uncounted western spying operations—including the storied Berlin Tunnel, the most expensive covert project ever undertaken by the CIA and MI6. Blake exposed hundreds of western agents, forty of whom were likely executed. After his unmasking and arrest, he received, for that time, the longest sentence in modern British history—only to make a dramatic escape to the Soviet Union in 1966, five years into his forty-two-year sentence. He left his wife, three children, and a stunned country behind. Much of Blake’s career existed inside the hall of mirrors that was the Cold War, especially following his sensational escape from Wormwood Scrubs prison. Veteran journalist Simon Kuper tracked Blake to his dacha outside Moscow, where the aging spy agreed to be interviewed for this unprecedented account of Cold War espionage. Following the master spy’s death in Moscow at age ninety-eight on December 26, 2020, Kuper is finally able to set the record straight.
Publisher: The New Press
ISBN: 1620973766
Category : True Crime
Languages : en
Pages : 290
Book Description
“Fascinating, rich, and probing . . . a beguiling and endlessly interesting portrait”—The Wall Street Journal For fans of John le Carré and Ben Macintyre, an exclusive first-person account of one of the Cold War’s most notorious spies “Kuper provides a different and valuable perspective, humane and informative. If the definition of a psychopath is someone who refuses to accept the consequences of his actions, does George fit the definition? There he sits, admitting it was all for nothing, but has no regrets. Or does he?” —John le Carré Few Cold War spy stories approach the sheer daring and treachery of George Blake’s. After fighting in the Dutch resistance during World War II, Blake joined the British spy agency MI6 and was stationed in Seoul. Taken prisoner after the North Korean army overran his post in 1950, Blake later returned to England to a hero’s welcome, carrying a dark secret: while in a communist prison camp in North Korea, he had secretly switched sides to the KGB after reading Karl Marx’s Das Kapital. As a Soviet double agent, Blake betrayed uncounted western spying operations—including the storied Berlin Tunnel, the most expensive covert project ever undertaken by the CIA and MI6. Blake exposed hundreds of western agents, forty of whom were likely executed. After his unmasking and arrest, he received, for that time, the longest sentence in modern British history—only to make a dramatic escape to the Soviet Union in 1966, five years into his forty-two-year sentence. He left his wife, three children, and a stunned country behind. Much of Blake’s career existed inside the hall of mirrors that was the Cold War, especially following his sensational escape from Wormwood Scrubs prison. Veteran journalist Simon Kuper tracked Blake to his dacha outside Moscow, where the aging spy agreed to be interviewed for this unprecedented account of Cold War espionage. Following the master spy’s death in Moscow at age ninety-eight on December 26, 2020, Kuper is finally able to set the record straight.
Betrayal in Berlin
Author: Steve Vogel
Publisher: HarperCollins
ISBN: 0062449613
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 682
Book Description
"A riveting and vivid account. ... A remarkable story. ... It reads like a Hollywood screenplay." —Foreign Affairs The astonishing true story of the Berlin Tunnel, one of the West’s greatest espionage operations of the Cold War—and the dangerous Soviet mole who betrayed it. Its code name was “Operation Gold,” a wildly audacious CIA plan to construct a clandestine tunnel into East Berlin to tap into critical KGB and Soviet military telecommunication lines. The tunnel, crossing the border between the American and Soviet sectors, would have to be 1,500 feet (the length of the Empire State Building) with state-of-the-art equipment, built and operated literally under the feet of their Cold War adversaries. Success would provide the CIA and the British Secret Intelligence Service access to a vast treasure of intelligence. Exposure might spark a dangerous confrontation with the Soviets. Yet as the Allies were burrowing into the German soil, a traitor, code-named Agent Diamond by his Soviet handlers, was burrowing into the operation itself. . . Betrayal in Berlin is Steve Vogel’s heart pounding account of the operation. He vividly recreates post-war Berlin, a scarred, shadowy snake pit with thousands of spies and innumerable cover stories. It is also the most vivid account of George Blake, perhaps the most damaging mole of the Cold War. Drawing upon years of archival research, secret documents, and rare interviews with Blake himself, Vogel has crafted a true-life spy story as thrilling as the novels of John le Carré and Len Deighton. Betrayal in Berlin includes 24 photos and two maps.
Publisher: HarperCollins
ISBN: 0062449613
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 682
Book Description
"A riveting and vivid account. ... A remarkable story. ... It reads like a Hollywood screenplay." —Foreign Affairs The astonishing true story of the Berlin Tunnel, one of the West’s greatest espionage operations of the Cold War—and the dangerous Soviet mole who betrayed it. Its code name was “Operation Gold,” a wildly audacious CIA plan to construct a clandestine tunnel into East Berlin to tap into critical KGB and Soviet military telecommunication lines. The tunnel, crossing the border between the American and Soviet sectors, would have to be 1,500 feet (the length of the Empire State Building) with state-of-the-art equipment, built and operated literally under the feet of their Cold War adversaries. Success would provide the CIA and the British Secret Intelligence Service access to a vast treasure of intelligence. Exposure might spark a dangerous confrontation with the Soviets. Yet as the Allies were burrowing into the German soil, a traitor, code-named Agent Diamond by his Soviet handlers, was burrowing into the operation itself. . . Betrayal in Berlin is Steve Vogel’s heart pounding account of the operation. He vividly recreates post-war Berlin, a scarred, shadowy snake pit with thousands of spies and innumerable cover stories. It is also the most vivid account of George Blake, perhaps the most damaging mole of the Cold War. Drawing upon years of archival research, secret documents, and rare interviews with Blake himself, Vogel has crafted a true-life spy story as thrilling as the novels of John le Carré and Len Deighton. Betrayal in Berlin includes 24 photos and two maps.
Spies
Author: Marc Favreau
Publisher: Little, Brown Books for Young Readers
ISBN: 0316545880
Category : Young Adult Nonfiction
Languages : en
Pages : 235
Book Description
A thrilling, critically-acclaimed account of the Cold War spies and spycraft that changed the course of history, perfect for readers of Bomb and The Boys Who Challenged Hitler. The Cold War spanned five decades as America and the USSR engaged in a battle of ideologies with global ramifications. Over the course of the war, with the threat of mutually assured nuclear destruction looming, billions of dollars and tens of thousands of lives were devoted to the art and practice of spying, ensuring that the world would never be the same. Rife with intrigue and filled with fascinating historical figures whose actions shine light on both the past and present, this timely work of narrative nonfiction explores the turbulence of the Cold War through the lens of the men and women who waged it behind closed doors, and helps explain the role secret and clandestine operations have played in America's history and its national security.
Publisher: Little, Brown Books for Young Readers
ISBN: 0316545880
Category : Young Adult Nonfiction
Languages : en
Pages : 235
Book Description
A thrilling, critically-acclaimed account of the Cold War spies and spycraft that changed the course of history, perfect for readers of Bomb and The Boys Who Challenged Hitler. The Cold War spanned five decades as America and the USSR engaged in a battle of ideologies with global ramifications. Over the course of the war, with the threat of mutually assured nuclear destruction looming, billions of dollars and tens of thousands of lives were devoted to the art and practice of spying, ensuring that the world would never be the same. Rife with intrigue and filled with fascinating historical figures whose actions shine light on both the past and present, this timely work of narrative nonfiction explores the turbulence of the Cold War through the lens of the men and women who waged it behind closed doors, and helps explain the role secret and clandestine operations have played in America's history and its national security.
The Tunnels
Author: Greg Mitchell
Publisher: Crown
ISBN: 1101903864
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 410
Book Description
A thrilling Cold War narrative of superpower showdowns, media suppression, and two escape tunnels beneath the Berlin Wall. In the summer of 1962, the year after the rise of the Berlin Wall, a group of young West Germans risked prison, Stasi torture, and even death to liberate friends, lovers, and strangers in East Berlin by digging tunnels under the Wall. Then two U.S. television networks heard about the secret projects and raced to be first to document them from the inside. NBC and CBS funded two separate tunnels in return for the right to film the escapes, planning spectacular prime-time specials. President John F. Kennedy, however, was wary of anything that might spark a confrontation with the Soviets, having said, “A wall is better than a war,” and even confessing to Secretary of State Dean Rusk, “We don’t care about East Berlin.” JFK approved unprecedented maneuvers to quash both documentaries, testing the limits of a free press in an era of escalating nuclear tensions. As Greg Mitchell’s riveting narrative unfolds, we meet extraordinary characters: the legendary cyclist who became East Germany’s top target for arrest; the Stasi informer who betrays the “CBS tunnel”; the American student who aided the escapes; an engineer who would later help build the tunnel under the English channel; and the young East Berliner who fled with her baby, then married one of the tunnelers. The Tunnels captures the chilling reach of the Stasi secret police as U.S. networks prepared to “pay for play” but were willing to cave to official pressure, the White House was eager to suppress historic coverage, and ordinary people in dire circumstances became subversive. The Tunnels is breaking history, a propulsive read whose themes still reverberate.
Publisher: Crown
ISBN: 1101903864
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 410
Book Description
A thrilling Cold War narrative of superpower showdowns, media suppression, and two escape tunnels beneath the Berlin Wall. In the summer of 1962, the year after the rise of the Berlin Wall, a group of young West Germans risked prison, Stasi torture, and even death to liberate friends, lovers, and strangers in East Berlin by digging tunnels under the Wall. Then two U.S. television networks heard about the secret projects and raced to be first to document them from the inside. NBC and CBS funded two separate tunnels in return for the right to film the escapes, planning spectacular prime-time specials. President John F. Kennedy, however, was wary of anything that might spark a confrontation with the Soviets, having said, “A wall is better than a war,” and even confessing to Secretary of State Dean Rusk, “We don’t care about East Berlin.” JFK approved unprecedented maneuvers to quash both documentaries, testing the limits of a free press in an era of escalating nuclear tensions. As Greg Mitchell’s riveting narrative unfolds, we meet extraordinary characters: the legendary cyclist who became East Germany’s top target for arrest; the Stasi informer who betrays the “CBS tunnel”; the American student who aided the escapes; an engineer who would later help build the tunnel under the English channel; and the young East Berliner who fled with her baby, then married one of the tunnelers. The Tunnels captures the chilling reach of the Stasi secret police as U.S. networks prepared to “pay for play” but were willing to cave to official pressure, the White House was eager to suppress historic coverage, and ordinary people in dire circumstances became subversive. The Tunnels is breaking history, a propulsive read whose themes still reverberate.
Nothing Is Beyond Our Reach
Author: Kristie Macrakis
Publisher: Georgetown University Press
ISBN: 1647123240
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 284
Book Description
An eye-opening account of the perils of America’s techno-spy empire Ever since the earliest days of the Cold War, American intelligence agencies have launched spies in the sky, implanted spies in the ether, burrowed spies underground, sunk spies in the ocean, and even tried to control spies’ minds by chemical means. But these weren’t human spies. Instead, the United States expanded its reach around the globe through techno-spies. Nothing Is Beyond Our Reach investigates how America’s technophiles inadvertently created a global espionage empire: one based on technology, not land. Author Kristie Macrakis shows how in the process of staking out the globe through technology, US intelligence created the ability to collect a massive amount of data. But did it help? Featuring the sites visited during her research and stories of the people who created the techno-spy empire, Macrakis guides the reader from its conception in the 1950s to its global reach in the Cold War and Global War on Terror. In an age of ubiquitous technology, Nothing Is Beyond Our Reach exposes the perils of relying too much on technology while demonstrating how the US carried on the tradition of British imperial espionage. Readers interested in the history of espionage and technology as well as those who work in the intelligence field will find the revelations and insights in Nothing Is Beyond Our Reach fascinating and compelling.
Publisher: Georgetown University Press
ISBN: 1647123240
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 284
Book Description
An eye-opening account of the perils of America’s techno-spy empire Ever since the earliest days of the Cold War, American intelligence agencies have launched spies in the sky, implanted spies in the ether, burrowed spies underground, sunk spies in the ocean, and even tried to control spies’ minds by chemical means. But these weren’t human spies. Instead, the United States expanded its reach around the globe through techno-spies. Nothing Is Beyond Our Reach investigates how America’s technophiles inadvertently created a global espionage empire: one based on technology, not land. Author Kristie Macrakis shows how in the process of staking out the globe through technology, US intelligence created the ability to collect a massive amount of data. But did it help? Featuring the sites visited during her research and stories of the people who created the techno-spy empire, Macrakis guides the reader from its conception in the 1950s to its global reach in the Cold War and Global War on Terror. In an age of ubiquitous technology, Nothing Is Beyond Our Reach exposes the perils of relying too much on technology while demonstrating how the US carried on the tradition of British imperial espionage. Readers interested in the history of espionage and technology as well as those who work in the intelligence field will find the revelations and insights in Nothing Is Beyond Our Reach fascinating and compelling.
Hollywood’s Spies
Author: Laura B Rosenzweig
Publisher: NYU Press
ISBN: 147988247X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 261
Book Description
The remarkable story of the Jewish moguls in Hollywood who established the first anti-Nazi Jewish resistance organization in the country in the 1930s. Finalist, Celebrate 350 Award in American Jewish Studies The 1939 film Confessions of a Nazi Spy may have been the first cinematic shot fired by Hollywood against Nazis in America, but it by no means marked the political awakening of the film industry’s Jewish executives to the problem. Hollywood’s Spies tells the remarkable story of the Jewish moguls in Hollywood who paid private investigators to infiltrate Nazi groups operating in Los Angeles, establishing the first anti-Nazi Jewish resistance organization in the country—the Los Angeles Jewish Community Committee (LAJCC). Drawing on more than 15,000 pages of archival documents, Laura B. Rosenzweig offers a compelling narrative illuminating the role that Jewish Americans played in combating insurgent Nazism in the United States in the 1930s. Forced undercover by the anti-Semitic climate of the decade, the LAJCC partnered with organizations whose Americanism was unimpeachable, such as the American Legion, to channel information regarding seditious Nazi plots to Congress, the Justice Department, the FBI and the Los Angeles Police Department. Hollywood’s Spies corrects the decades-long belief that American Jews lacked the political organization and leadership to assert their political interests during this period in our history and reveals that the LAJCC was one of many covert “fact finding” operations funded by Jewish Americans designed to root out Nazism in the United States. “A remarkable tale.” —The Wall Street Journal “Expose[s] a buried story about underground plots waged by Nazis against major Hollywood figures.” —Los Angeles Review of Books
Publisher: NYU Press
ISBN: 147988247X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 261
Book Description
The remarkable story of the Jewish moguls in Hollywood who established the first anti-Nazi Jewish resistance organization in the country in the 1930s. Finalist, Celebrate 350 Award in American Jewish Studies The 1939 film Confessions of a Nazi Spy may have been the first cinematic shot fired by Hollywood against Nazis in America, but it by no means marked the political awakening of the film industry’s Jewish executives to the problem. Hollywood’s Spies tells the remarkable story of the Jewish moguls in Hollywood who paid private investigators to infiltrate Nazi groups operating in Los Angeles, establishing the first anti-Nazi Jewish resistance organization in the country—the Los Angeles Jewish Community Committee (LAJCC). Drawing on more than 15,000 pages of archival documents, Laura B. Rosenzweig offers a compelling narrative illuminating the role that Jewish Americans played in combating insurgent Nazism in the United States in the 1930s. Forced undercover by the anti-Semitic climate of the decade, the LAJCC partnered with organizations whose Americanism was unimpeachable, such as the American Legion, to channel information regarding seditious Nazi plots to Congress, the Justice Department, the FBI and the Los Angeles Police Department. Hollywood’s Spies corrects the decades-long belief that American Jews lacked the political organization and leadership to assert their political interests during this period in our history and reveals that the LAJCC was one of many covert “fact finding” operations funded by Jewish Americans designed to root out Nazism in the United States. “A remarkable tale.” —The Wall Street Journal “Expose[s] a buried story about underground plots waged by Nazis against major Hollywood figures.” —Los Angeles Review of Books