Book picks similar to
Enter the Past Tense: My Secret Life as a CIA Assassin by Roland W. Haas
non-fiction
spy
history
government-society
The Traitors: A True Story of Blood, Betrayal and Deceit
Josh Ireland - 2017
The Traitors is the story of how they came to do so.
Into the Lion's Mouth: The True Story of Dusko Popov: World War II Spy, Patriot, and the Real-Life Inspiration for James Bond
Larry Loftis - 2016
there was a REAL James Bond. This narrative nonfiction thriller published by Penguin Random House reveals with hard evidence--for the first time--the man who unquestionably inspired Ian Fleming's iconic character. A daring MI6 double agent who made Bond look timid ... Classified for decades by Britain's Official Secrets Act ... A spy who saved D-Day and warned of Pearl Harbor ... Plunging himself time and again INTO THE LION'S MOUTH. If you are a fan of thrillers (this one just happens to be true), WWII military history (especially D-Day and Pearl Harbor), espionage (Popov was an agent for the Abwehr, SD, MI5, MI6, and the FBI)--or just want to know what really happened in CASINO ESTORIL (which Fleming re-created as CASINO ROYALE), this is your book. Yes, Bond fans, the REAL James Bond had more girlfriends, lovers (including the enemy), intrigue, and world travel than Ian Fleming's creation. As Tom Colgan (famously Tom Clancy's editor) said after editing the manuscript, "It's a good thing this is nonfiction because it's too incredible to be a novel." From Amazon:On a cool August evening in 1941, a Serbian playboy created a stir at Casino Estoril in Portugal by throwing down an outrageously large baccarat bet to humiliate his opponent. The Serbian was a British double agent, and the money―which he had just stolen from the Germans―belonged to the British. From the sideline, watching with intent interest was none other than Ian Fleming…The Serbian was Dusko Popov. As a youngster, he was expelled from his London prep school. Years later he would be arrested and banished from Germany for making derogatory statements about the Third Reich. When World War II ensued, the playboy became a spy, eventually serving three dangerous masters: the Abwehr, MI5 and MI6, and the FBI. On August 10, 1941, the Germans sent Popov to the United States to construct a spy network and gather information on Pearl Harbor. The FBI ignored his German questionnaire, but J. Edgar Hoover succeeded in blowing his cover. While MI5 desperately needed Popov to deceive the Abwehr about the D-Day invasion, they assured him that a return to the German Secret Service Headquarters in Lisbon would result in torture and execution. He went anyway... Into the Lion’s Mouth is a globe-trotting account of a man’s entanglement with espionage, murder, assassins, and lovers―including enemy spies and a Hollywood starlet. It is a story of subterfuge and seduction, patriotism, and cold-blooded courage. It is the story of Dusko Popov―the inspiration for James Bond.
Beyond Belief: My Secret Life Inside Scientology and My Harrowing Escape
Jenna Miscavige Hill - 2013
As niece of the Church of Scientology's leader David Miscavige, she grew up at the center of this controversial organization. At 21, she made a break, risking everything she'd ever known and loved to leave Scientology once and for all. Now she speaks out about her life, the Church, her escape, going deep inside a religion that, for decades, has been the subject of fierce debate and speculation worldwide.Piercing the veil of secrecy that has shrouded the world of Scientology, this insider reveals unprecedented firsthand knowledge of the religion, its rituals and its mysterious leader—David Miscavige. From her prolonged separation from her parents as a small child to being indoctrinated to serve the Church, from her lack of personal freedoms to the organization's emphasis on celebrity recruitment, Jenna goes behind the scenes of Scientology's oppressive and alienating culture, detailing an environment rooted in control in which the most devoted followers often face the harshest punishments when out of line. Detailing some of the Church's notorious practices, she also describes a childhood of isolation and neglect—a childhood that, painful as it was, prepared her for a tough life in the Church's most devoted order, the Sea Org. Despite this hardship, it's only when her family approaches dissolution and her world begins to unravel that she's finally able to see the patterns of stifling conformity and psychological control that have ruled her life. Faced with a heartbreaking choice, she mounts a courageous escape, but not before being put thru the ultimate test of family, faith and love. Captivating and disturbing, Beyond Belief is an exploration of the limits of religion and the lengths to which some went to break free.
Money, Murder, and Dominick Dunne: A Life in Several Acts
Robert Hofler - 2017
As a television and film producer in the 1950s–1970s, hobnobbing with Humphrey Bogart and Natalie Wood, he found success and crushing failure in a pitiless Hollywood. As a Vanity Fair journalist covering the lives of the rich and powerful, he mesmerized readers with his detailed coverage of spectacular murder cases—O.J. Simpson, the Menendez brothers, Michael Skakel, Phil Spector, and Claus von Bülow. He had his own television show, Dominick Dunne's Power, Privilege, and Justic. His five best-selling novels, including The Two Mrs. Grenvilles, People Like Us, and An Inconvenient Woman, were inspired by real lives and scandals. The brother of John Gregory Dunne and brother-in-law of Joan Didion, he was a friend and confidante of many literary luminaries. Dunne also had the ear of some of the world's most famous women, among them Princess Diana, Nancy Reagan, Liz Smith, Barbara Walters, and Elizabeth Taylor.Dunne admitted to inventing himself, and it was that public persona he wrote about in his own memoir, The Way We Lived Then. Left out of that account, but brought to light here, were his intense rivalry with his brother John Gregory, the gay affairs and relationships he had throughout his marriage and beyond, and his fights with editors at Vanity Fair. Robert Hofler also reveals the painful rift in the family after the murder of Dominick's daughter, Dominique—compounded by his coverage of her killer's trial, which launched his career as a reporter.
Top Secret America: The Rise of the New American Security State
Dana Priest - 2011
The result is that the system put in place to keep the United States safe may be putting us in greater danger. In Top Secret America, award-winning reporters Dana Priest and William Arkin uncover the enormous size, shape, mission, and consequences of this invisible universe of over 1,300 government facilities in every state in America; nearly 2,000 outside companies used as contractors; and more than 850,000 people granted "Top Secret" security clearance. A landmark exposé of a new, secret "Fourth Branch" of American government, Top Secret America is a tour de force of investigative reporting-and a book sure to spark national and international alarm.
Citizen 865: The Hunt for Hitler's Hidden Soldiers in America
Debbie Cenziper - 2019
Department of Justice as they raced against time to expose members of a brutal SS killing force who disappeared in America after World War Two.In 1990, in a drafty basement archive in Prague, two American historians made a startling discovery: a Nazi roster from 1945 that no Western investigator had ever seen. The long-forgotten document, containing more than 700 names, helped unravel the details behind the most lethal killing operation in World War Two. In the tiny Polish village of Trawniki, the SS set up a school for mass murder and then recruited a roving army of foot soldiers, 5,000 men strong, to help annihilate the Jewish population of occupied Poland. After the war, some of these men vanished, making their way to the U.S. and blending into communities across America. Though they participated in some of the most unspeakable crimes of the Holocaust, "Trawniki Men" spent years hiding in plain sight, their terrible secrets intact.In a story spanning seven decades, Citizen 865 chronicles the harrowing wartime journeys of two Jewish orphans from occupied Poland who outran the men of Trawniki and settled in the United States, only to learn that some of their one-time captors had followed. A tenacious team of prosecutors and historians pursued these men and, up against the forces of time and political opposition, battled to the present day to remove them from U.S. soil. Through insider accounts and research in four countries, this urgent and powerful narrative provides a front row seat to the dramatic turn of events that allowed a small group of American Nazi hunters to hold murderous men accountable for their crimes decades after the war's end.
The Secret Sentry: The Untold History of the National Security Agency
Matthew M. Aid - 2009
In February 2006, while researching this book, Matthew Aid uncovered a massive and secret document reclassification program—a revelation that made the front page of the New York Times. This was only one of the discoveries Aid has made during two decades of research in formerly top-secret documents. In The Secret Sentry, Aid provides the first-ever full history of America's largest security apparatus, the National Security Agency. This comprehensive account traces the growth of the agency from 1945 to the present through critical moments in its history, from the cold war up to its ongoing involvement in Afghanistan and Iraq. Aid explores the agency's involvement in the Iraqi weapons intelligence disaster, where evidence that NSA officials called "ambiguous" was used as proof of Iraqi WMD capacity, and details the intense debate within the NSA over its unprecedented role, pressed by the Bush-Cheney administration, in spying on U.S. citizens. Today, the NSA has become the most important source of intelligence for the U.S. government, providing 60 percent of the president's daily intelligence briefing. While James Bamford's New York Times bestseller The Shadow Factory covered the NSA since 9/11, The Secret Sentry contains new information about every period since World War II . It provides a shadow history of global affairs, from the creation of I srael to the War on Terror.
Blackwater: The Rise of the World's Most Powerful Mercenary Army
Jeremy Scahill - 2007
The shooting spree, labeled "Baghdad's Bloody Sunday," was neither the work of Iraqi insurgents nor U.S. soldiers. The shooters were private forces working for the secretive mercenary company, Blackwater Worldwide. This is the explosive story of a company that rose a decade ago from Moyock, North Carolina, to become one of the most powerful players in the "War on Terror." In his gripping bestseller, award-winning journalist Jeremy Scahill takes us from the bloodied streets of Iraq to hurricane-ravaged New Orleans to the chambers of power in Washington, to expose Blackwater as the frightening new face of the U.S. war machine.
NPR American Chronicles: The Civil War
National Public Radio - 2011
This revealing collection of Civil War stories features gripping history, expert commentary, and unforgettable voices:Shelby Foote reflects on the southern perspectiveE.L. Doctorow discusses Sherman and The MarchSam Waterston performs the Gettysburg AddressHal Holbrook honors Iowa in the Civil WarSusan Stamberg reports from Lincoln’s summer retreatJames McPherson tours Gettysburg’s hallowed groundTony Horwitz explores the world of Civil War reenactorsPlus visits to battlefields at Manassas, Antietam, Gettysburg, and much more.The NPR American Chronicles series explores the historical events that continue to resonate in our lives. Expert commentary and unforgettable stories create vivid sound portraits of history’s greatest people and events, examined in multi-faceted and moving detail.
An Execution in the Family: One Son's Journey
Robert Meeropol - 2003
It is the story of how he tried to balance a strong desire to live a normal life and raise a family, with a growing need to create something useful out of his nightmare childhood. It is also a poignant account of how, at age forty-three, he finally found a way to honor his parents and also be true to himself.
Strangers on a Bridge: The Case of Colonel Abel and Francis Gary Powers
James B. Donovan - 1964
Donovan began his walk toward the center of the Glienicke Bridge, the famous “Bridge of Spies” which then linked West Berlin to East. With him, walked Rudolf Ivanovich Abel, master spy and for years the chief of Soviet espionage in the United States. Approaching them from the other side, under equally heavy guard, was Francis Gary Powers, the American U-2 spy plane pilot famously shot down by the Soviets, whose exchange for Abel Donovan had negotiated. These were the strangers on a bridge, men of East and West, representatives of two opposed worlds meeting in a moment of high drama.Abel was the most gifted, the most mysterious, the most effective spy in his time. His trial, which began in a Brooklyn United States District Court and ended in the Supreme Court of the United States, chillingly revealed the methods and successes of Soviet espionage.No one was better equipped to tell the whole absorbing history than James B. Donovan, who was appointed to defend one of his country’s enemies and did so with scrupulous skill. In Strangers on a Bridge, the lead prosecutor in the Nuremburg Trials offers a clear-eyed and fast-paced memoir that is part procedural drama, part dark character study and reads like a noirish espionage thriller. From the first interview with Abel to the exchange on the bridge in Berlin—and featuring unseen photographs of Donovan and Abel as well as trial notes and sketches drawn from Abel’s prison cell—here is an important historical narrative that is “as fascinating as it is exciting” (The Houston Chronicle).
Fed Up!: Our Fight to Save America from Washington
Rick Perry - 2010
But we are fed up with being over-taxed and over-regulated. We are tired of being told how much salt to put on our food, what kind of cars we can drive, what kinds of guns we can own, what kind of prayers we are allowed to say and where we can say them, what we are allowed to do to elect political candidates, what kind of energy we can use, what doctor we can see. What kind of nation are we becoming? I fear it's the very kind the Colonists fought against. But perhaps most of all, we are fed up because deep down we know how great America has always been, how many great things the people do in spite of their government, and how great the nation can be in the future if government will just get out of the way. Our fight is clear. We must step up and retake the reins of our government from a Washington establishment that has abused our trust. We must empower states to fight for our beliefs, elect only leaders who are on our team, set out to remind our fellow Americans why liberty is guaranteed in the Constitution, and take concrete steps to take back our country. The American people have never sat idle when liberty's trumpet sounds the call to battle -- and today that battle is for the soul of America.
The Ghost: The Secret Life of CIA Spymaster James Jesus Angleton
Jefferson Morley - 2017
From World War II to the Cold War, Angleton operated beyond the view of the public, Congress, and even the president. He unwittingly shared intelligence secrets with Soviet spy Kim Philby, a member of the notorious Cambridge spy ring. He launched mass surveillance by opening the mail of hundreds of thousands of Americans. He abetted a scheme to aid Israel’s own nuclear efforts, disregarding U.S. security. He committed perjury and obstructed the JFK assassination investigation. He oversaw a massive spying operation on the antiwar and black nationalist movements and he initiated an obsessive search for communist moles that nearly destroyed the Agency.In The Ghost, investigative reporter Jefferson Morley tells Angleton’s dramatic story, from his friendship with the poet Ezra Pound through the underground gay milieu of mid-century Washington to the Kennedy assassination to the Watergate scandal. From the agency’s MKULTRA mind-control experiments to the wars of the Mideast, Angleton wielded far more power than anyone knew. Yet during his seemingly lawless reign in the CIA, he also proved himself to be a formidable adversary to our nation’s enemies, acquiring a mythic stature within the CIA that continues to this day.
John le Carré: The Biography
Adam Sisman - 2015
From his bleak childhood - the departure of his mother when he was five was followed by 'sixteen hugless years' in the dubious care of his father, a serial-seducer and con-man - through recruitment by both MI5 and MI6, to his emergence as the master of the espionage novel, le Carré has repeatedly quarried his life for his fiction. Millions of readers are hungry to know the truth about him. Written with exclusive access to le Carré himself, to his private archive and to many of the people closest to him, this is a major biography of one of the most important novelists alive today.
A Warning
Anonymous - 2019
An unprecedented behind-the-scenes portrait of the Trump presidency from the anonymous senior official whose first words of warning about the president rocked the nation's capital.