Near and Distant Neighbors: A New History of Soviet Intelligence


Jonathan Haslam - 2015
    Drawing on previously neglected Russian sources, Haslam reveals how both were in fact crucial to the survival of the Soviet state. This was especially true after Stalin's death in 1953, as the Cold War heated up and dedicated Communist agents the regime had relied upon--Klaus Fuchs, the Rosenbergs, Donald Maclean--were betrayed. In the wake of these failures, Nikita Khrushchev and his successors discarded ideological recruitment in favor of blackmail and bribery. The tactical turn was so successful that we can draw only one conclusion: the West ultimately triumphed despite, not because of, the espionage war.In bringing to light the obscure inhabitants of an undercover intelligence world, Haslam offers a surprising and unprecedented portrayal of Soviet success that is not only fascinating but also essential to understanding Vladimir Putin's power today.

The Long Range Desert Group 1940-1945: Providence Their Guide


David Lloyd Owen - 1980
    This classic insider's account has been updated and supplemented with rare photographs from the LRDG collection in the Imperial War Museum.

Directorate S: The C.I.A. and America's Secret Wars in Afghanistan and Pakistan


Steve Coll - 2018
    While the US was trying to quell extremists, a highly secretive and compartmentalized wing of I.S.I., known as "Directorate S," was covertly training, arming, and seeking to legitimize the Taliban, in order to enlarge Pakistan's sphere of influence. After 9/11, when fifty-nine countries, led by the U. S., deployed troops or provided aid to Afghanistan in an effort to flush out the Taliban and Al Qaeda, the U.S. was set on an invisible slow-motion collision course with Pakistan.Today we know that the war in Afghanistan would falter badly because of military hubris at the highest levels of the Pentagon, the drain on resources and provocation in the Muslim world caused by the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, and corruption. But more than anything, as Coll makes painfully clear, the war in Afghanistan was doomed because of the failure of the United States to apprehend the motivations and intentions of I.S.I.'s "Directorate S". This was a swirling and shadowy struggle of historic proportions, which endured over a decade and across both the Bush and Obama administrations, involving multiple secret intelligence agencies, a litany of incongruous strategies and tactics, and dozens of players, including some of the most prominent military and political figures. A sprawling American tragedy, the war was an open clash of arms but also a covert melee of ideas, secrets, and subterranean violence. Coll excavates this grand battle, which took place away from the gaze of the American public. With unsurpassed expertise, original research, and attention to detail, he brings to life a narrative at once vast and intricate, local and global, propulsive and painstaking. This is the definitive explanation of how America came to be so badly ensnared in an elaborate, factional, and seemingly interminable conflict in South Asia. Nothing less than a forensic examination of the personal and political forces that shape world history, Directorate S is a complete masterpiece of both investigative and narrative journalism.

At the Abyss: An Insider's History of the Cold War


Thomas Reed - 2004
    presidents to outmaneuver the Russians, the Vietnam war, and the fall of the Berlin Wall. Original.

Circle of Friends Cookbook: 25 Barbecue Recipes


Gooseberry Patch - 2013
    It's a cookout! Gather your family & friends to savor this collection of 25 of our most taste-tempting recipes for grilling and barbecue favorites...from Hawaiian Grilled Pork Chops and Sensational Sirloin Kabobs to Dijon Grilled Fish and more!

Spy Dust: Two Masters of Disguise Reveal the Tools & Operations That Helped Win the Cold War


Antonio J. Méndez - 2002
    Moscow, 1988--the twilight of the Cold War. The KGB is at its most ruthless & has indisputably gained the upper hand over CIA. No one knows how. Ten CIA agents & double-agents have gone missing in the last three years. They've either been executed or they're unaccounted for. At Langley, several theories circulate as to how the KGB seems suddenly to have become telepathic, predicting CIA's every move. Some blame the defection of Edward Lee Howard three years prior & suspect that more high-placed moles will be unearthed. Others speculate that the KGB's surveillance successes have been heightened by the invention of an invisible electromagnetic powder that allows them to keep tabs on any touching it: spy dust. CIA officers Tony Mendez & Jonna Goeser join to head a team of technical wizards & operational specialists, determined to solve the mystery that threatens to overshadow the Cold War's final act. Working against hostile forces, as well as unfriendly elements within CIA, they devise controversial new operational methods & techniques to foil the KGB, & show the extraordinary lengths to which US intelligence is willing to go to protect a source, then rescue him when his world starts to collapse. At the same time, Tony & Jonna fall in love. During an odyssey that began in Indochina 15 years before & ends in an operation in the heart of the Kremlin's Palace of Congresses, "Spy Dust" catapults readers from the Hindu Kush to Hollywood, from Havana to Moscow, but cannot conclude until its protagonists are wed in rural Maryland. At a time when people have many questions about the role of intelligence services & what's being done in their name, "Spy Dust" gives hope for the espionage battles of the future.

The Black Door: Spies, Secret Intelligence and British Prime Ministers


Richard Aldrich - 2016
    But as the new millennium dawned, intelligence had become so integral to policy that it was used to make the case for war. Now, covert action is incorporated seamlessly into government policy, and the Prime Minister is kept constantly updated by intelligence agencies.But how did intelligence come to influence our government so completely?‘The Black Door’ explores the murkier corridors of No. 10 Downing Street, chronicling the relationships between intelligence agencies and the Prime Ministers of the last century. From Churchill’s code-breakers feeding information to the Soviets to Eden’s attempts to assassinate foreign leaders, from Wilson’s paranoia of an MI5-led coup d’état to Thatcher’s covert wars in Central America, Aldrich and Cormac entertain and enlighten as they explain how our government came to rely on intelligence to the extent that it does today.

Song and Dance Man III: The Art of Bob Dylan


Michael Gray - 1972
    Michael Gray's 'Song and Dance Man III', on Bob Dylan's life and work, offers studies of Dylan's' entire oeuvre, and the ever-popular album-by-album guide has also been extensively updated and extended.

The Burglary: The Discovery of J. Edgar Hoover's Secret FBI


Betty Medsger - 2014
    Edgar Hoover had created and was operating, in violation of the U.S. Constitution, his own shadow Bureau of Investigation. It begins in 1971 in an America being split apart by the Vietnam War . . . A small group of activists—eight men and women—the Citizens Commission to Investigate the FBI, inspired by Daniel Berrigan’s rebellious Catholic peace movement, set out to use a more active, but nonviolent, method of civil disobedience to provide hard evidence once and for all that the government was operating outside the laws of the land.             The would-be burglars—nonpro’s—were ordinary people leading lives of purpose: a professor of religion and former freedom rider; a day-care director; a physicist; a cab driver; an antiwar activist, a lock picker; a graduate student haunted by members of her family lost to the Holocaust and the passivity of German civilians under Nazi rule.Betty Medsger's extraordinary book re-creates in resonant detail how this group of unknowing thieves, in their meticulous planning of the burglary, scouted out the low-security FBI building in a small town just west of Philadelphia, taking into consideration every possible factor, and how they planned the break-in for the night of the long-anticipated boxing match between Joe Frazier (war supporter and friend to President Nixon) and Muhammad Ali (convicted for refusing to serve in the military), knowing that all would be fixated on their televisions and radios.Medsger writes that the burglars removed all of the FBI files and, with the utmost deliberation, released them to various journalists and members of Congress, soon upending the public’s perception of the inviolate head of the Bureau and paving the way for the first overhaul of the FBI since Hoover became its director in 1924.  And we see how the release of the FBI files to the press set the stage for the sensational release three months later, by Daniel Ellsberg, of the top-secret, seven-thousand-page Pentagon study on U.S. decision-making regarding the Vietnam War, which became known as the Pentagon Papers.             At the heart of the heist—and the book—the contents of the FBI files revealing J. Edgar Hoover’s “secret counterintelligence program” COINTELPRO, set up in 1956 to investigate and disrupt dissident political groups in the United States in order “to enhance the paranoia endemic in these circles,” to make clear to all Americans that an FBI agent was “behind every mailbox,” a plan that would discredit, destabilize, and demoralize groups, many of them legal civil rights organizations and antiwar groups that Hoover found offensive—as well as black power groups, student activists, antidraft protestors, conscientious objectors. The author, the first reporter to receive the FBI files, began to cover this story during the three years she worked for The Washington Post and continued her investigation long after she'd left the paper, figuring out who the burglars were, and convincing them, after decades of silence, to come forward and tell their extraordinary story.  The Burglary is an important and riveting book, a portrait of the potential power of non­violent resistance and the destructive power of excessive government secrecy and spying.

México secreto


Francisco Martín Moreno - 2002
    The top-secret message sent by the Germans to President Carranza, once decoded by British intelligence, sparked a worldwide fire. The details of an intense love affair between a German spy and a Mexican woman who manufactured weapons to launch international conflicts, round off the novel.

Dead Doubles: The Extraordinary Worldwide Hunt for One of the Cold War's Most Notorious Spy Rings


Trevor Barnes - 2020
    Alerted by the CIA, Britain's security service, MI5, had discovered two British spies stealing invaluable secrets from the highly sensitive submarine research center at Portland, UK.  Their controller, Gordon Lonsdale, was a Canadian who frequently visited a middle-aged couple, the Krogers, in their sleepy London suburb. But the seemingly unassuming Krogers were revealed to be deep cover American KGB spies—infamous undercover agents the FBI had been hunting for years—and they were just one part of an extensive network of Soviet operatives in the UK.In the wake of the spies' sensational trial, the FBI uncovered the true identity of the enigmatic Lonsdale—Konon Molody, a Russian who had lived in California before being recruited by the KGB. Molody opened secret talks with MI5 to betray Russia, but before he had the chance, the KGB blackmailed Britain into spy swaps for him and the Krogers.Based on revelatory, newly-released archival material and inside sources from around the world, Dead Doubles follows the hunt for the highly damaging Portland Spy Ring.  As gripping as a le Carré novel, this incredible narrative, layered with false identities, deceptions, and betrayal, crisscrosses from the UK to the USSR to the US, Canada, Europe and New Zealand, and brings to life one of the most extraordinary spy stories of the Cold War.

The Silent War: The Cold War Battle Beneath the Sea


John Pina Craven - 1990
    It reveals, in gripping detail, the espionage, innovative high technology, and heroic seafaring the United States employed against the Soviet Union in the battle for nuclear and military supremacy. John Pi?a Craven, who shared management responsibility for the submarine-borne Polaris missile system, captures the excitement and the dangers of the times as he recounts the true stories behind some of the century's most shocking headlines and reveals harrowing episodes kept hidden from the public. Craven describes for the first time the structural problems that almost caused the destruction of the Nautilus, the world's first nuclear-powered submarine, and presents startling information about the race to recover a hydrogen bomb from the B-52 bomber that went down off the coast of Spain. In a report no fan of The Hunt for Red October will want to miss, he provides a fascinating, authoritative perspective on the Navy's reaction to the rogue Soviet submarine and its mission. A major contribution to Cold War history and literature, The Silent War will appeal to military buffs and fans of nonstop adventure thrillers alike.

Investing Habits: A Beginner's Guide to Growing Stock Market Wealth


Steve Burns - 2016
    Benefit from 20 years of investing and trading experience Limit your chances of trading ruin by learning from someone with more than 20 years in the stock market and who used these very strategies to go from zero to multiple six figures in his investment accounts. Steve will teach you how to start from the ground up and build a sizeable account, even if you're starting from zero. It's never too late to start investing in your future! Not sure where to start? Maybe you aren't sure how the stock market works, or if you should fully invest in your company's 401K, and what's a ROTH, anyway?? Steve will answer this and so much more in this easy to understand and implement guide to investing. A strong investing foundation This book will give you a strong foundation to begin your investing journey. Easy to understand explanations of complex topics Detailed, real life examples Learn what to go all in on, and what to avoid like the plague Buy now and build your future financial security This book is a must read for anyone wanting to secure their future. If you're fifty or younger, Social Security is not a 'sure thing'. Make your own wealth and secure your own retirement by implementing the steps in this book.You can find Our eCourses at New Trader U, and you can follow Steve on Twitter: @sjosephburns

Christgau's Consumer Guide: Albums of the '90s


Robert Christgau - 2000
    It was a fertile era for new genres, from alt-rock to Afropop, hip hop to techno. Rock critic Robert Christgau's obsessive ear and authoritative pen have covered it all-over 3,800 albums graded and classified, from A+s to his celebrated turkeys and duds. A rich appendix section ensures that nothing's been left out-from "subjects for further research" to "everything rocks but nothing ever dies." Christgau's Consumer Guide is essential reading and reference for any dedicated listener.

Berlin 1961: Kennedy, Khrushchev, and the Most Dangerous Place on Earth


Frederick Kempe - 2011
     "History at its best." -Zbigniew Brzezinski "Gripping, well researched, and thought-provoking, with many lessons for today." -Henry Kissinger "Captures the drama [with] the 'You are there' storytelling skills of a journalist and the analytical skills of the political scientist." - General Brent Scowcroft In June 1961, Nikita Khrushchev called it "the most dangerous place on earth." He knew what he was talking about. Much has been written about the Cuban Missile Crisis a year later, but the Berlin Crisis of 1961 was more decisive in shaping the Cold War-and more perilous. For the first time in history, American and Soviet fighting men and tanks stood arrayed against each other, only yards apart. One mistake, one overzealous commander-and the trip wire would be sprung for a war that would go nuclear in a heartbeat. On one side was a young, untested U.S. president still reeling from the Bay of Pigs disaster. On the other, a Soviet premier hemmed in by the Chinese, the East Germans, and hard-liners in his own government. Neither really understood the other, both tried cynically to manipulate events. And so, week by week, the dangers grew. Based on a wealth of new documents and interviews, filled with fresh- sometimes startling-insights, written with immediacy and drama, "Berlin 1961" is a masterly look at key events of the twentieth century, with powerful applications to these early years of the twenty- first.