Book picks similar to
Mole - The True Story of the First Russian Spy to Become an American Counterspy by William Hood
history
non-fiction
spies
espionage
The Wizards Of Langley: Inside The CIA's Directorate Of Science And Technology
Jeffrey T. Richelson - 2001
Richelson walks us down the corridors of CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia, and through the four decades of science, scientists, and managers that produced the CIA we have today. He tells a story of amazing technological innovation in service of intelligence gathering, of bitter bureaucratic infighting, and sometimes, as in the case of its “mind-control” adventure, of stunning moral failure. Based on original interviews and extensive archival research, The Wizards of Langley turns a piercing lamp on many of the agency’s activities, many never before made public.
The Threat: How the FBI Protects America in the Age of Terror and Trump
Andrew G. McCabe - 2019
McCabe was fired from his position as deputy director of the FBI. President Donald Trump celebrated on Twitter: "Andrew McCabe FIRED, a great day for the hard working men and women of the FBI - A great day for Democracy."In The Threat: How the FBI Protects America in the Age of Terror and Trump, Andrew G. McCabe offers a dramatic and candid account of his career, and an impassioned defense of the FBI's agents, and of the institution's integrity and independence in protecting America and upholding our Constitution.McCabe started as a street agent in the FBI's New York field office, serving under director Louis Freeh. He became an expert in two kinds of investigations that are critical to American national security: Russian organized crime—which is inextricably linked to the Russian state—and terrorism. Under Director Robert Mueller, McCabe led the investigations of major attacks on American soil, including the Boston Marathon bombing, a plot to bomb the New York subways, and several narrowly averted bombings of aircraft. And under James Comey, McCabe was deeply involved in the controversial investigations of the Benghazi attack, the Clinton Foundation's activities, and Hillary Clinton's use of a private email server when she was secretary of state.The Threat recounts in compelling detail the time between Donald Trump's November 2016 election and McCabe's firing, set against a page-turning narrative spanning two decades when the FBI's mission shifted to a new goal: preventing terrorist attacks on Americans. But as McCabe shows, right now the greatest threat to the United States comes from within, as President Trump and his administration ignore the law, attack democratic institutions, degrade human rights, and undermine the U.S. Constitution that protects every citizen.Important, revealing, and powerfully argued, The Threat tells the true story of what the FBI is, how it works, and why it will endure as an institution of integrity that protects America.
The Envoy
Edward Wilson - 2008
The setting is 1950s London, at the height of the Cold War. Kit Fournier is ostensibly a senior diplomat at the US embassy in Grosvenor Square, but is also CIA Chief of Station. This job and its secrets prove deadly and Kit faces a crisis of the soul as the threat of the H-bomb looms.
A Train to Potevka
Mike Ramsdell - 2005
This fascinating story about an American intelligence agent from a small town in the Rockies, is a tale of failed espionage, escape, and second chances.
Gray Day: My Undercover Mission to Expose America's First Cyber Spy
Eric O'Neill - 2019
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.
WE ALL FALL DOWN: THE TRUE STORY OF THE 9/11 SURFER
Pasquale Buzzelli - 2012
He spoke to his pregnant wife on the telephone before he began his evacuation after the South Tower fell. Sensing something ominous, Pasquale crouched down and huddled into a corner of the stairwell as the 110-story tower came crashing down around him. He survived the tower collapse and woke up in the open air hours later on The Pile, a stack of debris seven stories high. The firemen who rescued Pasquale shared his remarkable story of survival with the media, as did others who cared for him that day. His story became a myth, an urban legend, and an enigma that gave rise to much speculation. Here he tells his story in captivating detail of falling and "surfing' the collapse of the North Tower.Visit www.911surfer.com for more details.
Masters Of Deceit: The Story Of Communism In America And How To Fight It
J. Edgar Hoover - 1958
Due to its age, it may contain imperfections such as marks, notations, marginalia and flawed pages. Because we believe this work is culturally important, we have made it available as part of our commitment for protecting, preserving, and promoting the world's literature in affordable, high quality, modern editions that are true to the original work.
Code Warriors: NSA's Code Breakers and the Secret Intelligence War Against the Soviet Union
Stephen Budiansky - 2016
The National Security Agency grew out of the legendary codebreaking programs of World War II that turned the tide of Allied victory by cracking the famed Enigma machine and other seemingly impenetrable German and Japanese codes. But things became murky in the postwar years, when our intelligence community found itself targeting not battlefield enemies, but suspected spies, foreign leaders, and even American citizens. Now Stephen Budiansky--a longtime expert in cryptology--tells the fascinating story of how the NSA came to be, and of its central, often fraught and controversial role in the major events of the Cold War, from the Korean War to the Cuban Missile Crisis to Vietnam and beyond. He also guides us through the fascinating challenges faced by cryptanalysts, and how they broke some of the most complicated codes of the twentieth century. A riveting, essential history of the underbelly of the Cold War.
Spy Handler: Memoir of a KGB Officer: The True Story of the Man Who Recruited Robert Hanssen and Aldrich Ames
Victor Cherkashin - 2004
In this riveting memoir, Cherkashin provides a remarkable insider's view of the KGB's prolonged conflict with the United States, from his recruitment through his rising career in counterintelligence to his prime spot as the KGB's number- two man at the Soviet Embassy in Washington. Victor Cherkashin's story will shed stark new light on the KGB's inner workings over four decades and reveal new details about its major cases. Cherkashin's story is rich in episode and drama. He took part in some of the highest-profile Cold War cases, including tracking down U.S. and British spies around the world. He was posted to stations in the U.S., Australia, India, and Lebanon and traveled the globe for operations in England, Europe, and the Middle East. But it was in 1985, known as "the Year of the Spy," that Cherkashin scored two of the biggest coups of the Cold War. In April of that year, he recruited disgruntled CIA officer Aldrich Ames, becoming his principal handler. Refuting and clarifying other published versions, Cherkashin will offer the most complete account on how and why Ames turned against his country. Cherkashin will also reveal new details about Robert Hanssen's recruitment and later exposure, as only he can. And he will address whether there is an undiscovered KGB spy-another Hanssen or Ames-still at large. Spy Handler will be a major addition to Cold War history, told by one of its key participants.
The Plot to Hack America: How Putin's Cyberspies and WikiLeaks Tried to Steal the 2016 Election
Malcolm W. Nance - 2016
Clinton 2016 presidential election, this book exposed the Russian hacking while the CIA was drafting their own report. In April 2016, computer technicians at the Democratic National Committee discovered that someone had accessed the organization’s computer servers and conducted a theft that is best described as Watergate 2.0. In the weeks that followed, the nation’s top computer security experts discovered that the cyber thieves had helped themselves to everything: sensitive documents, emails, donor information, even voice mails.Soon after, the remainder of the Democratic Party machine, the congressional campaign, the Clinton campaign, and their friends and allies in the media were also hacked. Credit cards numbers, phone numbers, and contacts were stolen. In short order, the FBI found that more than twenty-five state election offices had their voter registration systems probed or attacked by the same hackers.Western intelligence agencies tracked the hack to Russian spy agencies and dubbed them the “Cyber Bears.” The media was soon flooded with the stolen information channeled through Julian Assange, the founder of WikiLeaks. It was a massive attack on America but the Russian hacks appeared to have a singular goal—elect Donald J. Trump as president of the United States.Malcolm Nance’s fast paced real-life spy thriller takes you from Vladimir Putin’s rise through the KGB from junior officer to spymaster-in-chief and spells out the story of how he performed the ultimate political manipulation—convincing Donald Trump to abandon seventy years of American foreign policy including the destruction of NATO, cheering the end of the European Union, allowing Russian domination of Eastern Europe, and destroying the existing global order with America at its lead.The Plot to Hack America is the thrilling true story of how Putin’s spy agency, run by the Russian billionaire class, used the promise of power and influence to cultivate Trump as well as his closest aides, the Kremlin Crew, to become unwitting assets of the Russian government. The goal? To put an end to 240 years of free and fair American democratic elections.
Sod and Stubble: The Unabridged and Annotated Edition
John Ise - 1996
This book is the result--an effort to picture that life truly and realistically. It is the story of an energetic and capable girl, the child of German immigrant parents, who at the age of seventeen married a young German farmer, and moved to a homestead on the wind-swept plains of Kansas, where she reared eleven of her twelve children, and remembering regretfully her own half-day in school, sent nine of them through college. It is a story of grim and tenacious devotion in the face of hardships and disappointments, devotion that never flagged until the long, hard task of near a lifetime was done.--John Ise (from the preface)Deeply moved by his mother's memories of a waning era and rapidly disappearing lifestyle, John Ise painstakingly recorded the adventures and adversities of his family and boyhood neighbors--the early homesteaders of Osborne County, Kansas. First published in 1936, his nonfiction novel Sod and Stubble has since become a widely read and much loved classic. In the original, Ise changed some identities and time sequences but accurately retained the uplifting and disheartening realities of prairie life. Von Rothenberger brings us a new annotated and expanded edition that greatly enhances Ise's timeless tale. He includes the entire first edition-replete with Ise's charm, wit, and veracity, restores four of Ise's original chapters that have never been published, and adds photographs of many of the key characters. In his notes, Rothenberger reveals the true identity of Ise's family and neighbors, provides background on their lives, and places events within a wider historical and geographical context.Ushering us through a dynamic period of pioneering history, from the 1870s to the turn of the century, Sod and Stubble abounds with the events and issues--fires and droughts, parties and picnics, insect infestations and bumper crops, prosperity and poverty, divisiveness and generosity, births and deaths--that shaped the lives and destinies of Henry and Rosa Ise, their family, and their community.One hundred and twenty-five years after Osborne County was organized and Henry Ise homesteaded his claim, a corner of nineteenth-century Kansas social history remains safeguarded thanks to the tenacity of John Ise and the insight of Von Rotheberger, who enlivens Ise's story with revealing detail.
A Letter to America
David L. Boren - 2008
A powerful wake-up call to Americans, A Letter to America, forces us to take a bold, objective look at ourselves.In A Letter to America, Boren explains with unsparing clarity why the country is at a crossroads and why decisive action is urgently needed and offers us an ambitious, hopeful plan.What the country needs, Boren asserts, are major reforms to restore the ability of our political system to act responsibly. By relying on our shared values, we can replace cynicism with hope and strengthen our determination to build a better future. We must fashion a post–Cold War foreign policy that fits twenty-first-century realities—including multiple contending superpowers. We must adopt campaign finance reform that curbs the influence of special interests and restores political power to the voters. Universal health care coverage, budget deficit reduction, affordable higher education, and a more progressive tax structure will strengthen the middle class.Boren also describes how we can renew our emphasis on quality primary and secondary education, revitalize our spirit of community, and promote volunteerism. He urges the teaching of more American history and government, for without educated citizens our system cannot function and our rights will not be preserved. Unless we understand how we became great, we will not remain great.The plan Boren puts forward is optimistic and challenges Americans to look into the future, decide what we want to be and where we want to go, and then implement the policies and actions we need to take us there.
State of War: The Secret History of the CIA and the Bush Administration
James Risen - 2006
From warrantless wiretapping to secret financial data mining to the CIA's rogue operations, he has shown again and again that the executive branch has dangerously overreached, repudiated checks and balances on its power, and maintained secrecy even with its allies in Congress. In no small part thanks to Risen and State of War, the "secret history" of the Bush years has now come partially into view. In a new epilogue for the paperback edition, Risen describes the two-front war that President Bush is now fighting: at home against Congress and the Supreme Court, as his administration is increasingly reined in from its abuses; and in the Middle East, where George W. Bush's great gamble to bring a democratic revolution is failing radically. We must learn the lessons of Risen's history now, before it is too late.
True Believer: Inside the Investigation and Capture of Ana Montes, Cuba's Master Spy
Scott W. Carmichael - 2007
Known to her coworkers as the Queen of Cuba, she was an overachiever who advanced quickly through the ranks of Latin American specialists to become the intelligence community's top analyst on Cuban affairs. But throughout her sixteen-year career at DIA, Montes was sending Castro some of America's most closely guarded secrets and at the same time helping influence what the United States thought it knew about Cuba. When she was finally arrested in September 2001, she became the most senior American intelligence official ever accused of operating as a Cuban spy from within the federal U.S. government. Unrepentant as she serves out her time in a federal prison in Texas, Montes remains the only member of the intelligence community ever convicted of espionage on behalf of the Cuban government.This inside account of the investigation that led to her arrest has been written by Scott W. Carmichael, the DIA's senior counterintelligence investigator who persuaded the FBI to launch an investigation. Although Montes did not fit the FBI's profile of a spy and easily managed to defeat the agency's polygraph exams, Carmichael became suspicious of her activities and with the FBI over a period of several years developed a solid case against her. Here he tells the story of that long and ultimately successful spy hunt. Carmichael reveals the details of their efforts to bring her to justice, offering readers a front-row seat for the first major U.S. espionage case of the twentieth century. She was arrested less than twenty-four hours before learning details of the U.S. plan to invade Afghanistan post-September 11. Motivated by ideology not money, Montes was one of the last true believers of the communist era. Because her arrest came just ten days after 9/11, it went largely unnoticed by the American public. This book calls attention to the grave damage Montes inflicted on U.S. security--Carmichael even implicates her in the death of a Green Beret fighting Cuban-backed insurgents in El Salvador--and the damage she would have continued to inflict had she not been caught.
The Georgetown Set: Friends and Rivals in Cold War Washington
Gregg Herken - 2014
The Georgetown set included Phil and Kay Graham, husband-and-wife publishers of The Washington Post; Joe and Stewart Alsop, odd-couple brothers who were among the country's premier political pundits; Frank Wisner, a driven, manic-depressive lawyer in charge of CIA covert operations; and a host of other diplomats, spies, and scholars responsible for crafting America's response to the Soviet Union from Truman to Reagan.This was a smaller, cozier Washington – utterly unlike today's capital – where presidents made foreign policy in consultation with reporters and professors over martinis and hors d'oeuvres, and columnists like the Alsops promoted these policies in the next day's newspapers. Together, they navigated the perilous years of the Cold War, yielding triumphs – and tragedies – with very real consequences for present-day American and the world.Gregg Herken captures their successes and failures and gives us intimate portraits of these dedicated and talented, if deeply flawed, individuals. Throughout, he illuminates the drama of those years, bringing this remarkable roster of men and women and their world not only out in the open but vividly to life.