Assignment Bletchley: A WWII Novel of Navy Intelligence, Spies and Intrigue (Commander Romella, USN, WWII Assignments series Book 1)


Peter J. Azzole - 1999
    Navy is a specialist in the field of communications intelligence. Little did Tony know that the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor would have such a direct impact on his career and life. He is urgently ordered from his comfortable duty in Washington, DC to an assignment at Bletchley Park, the British communications intelligence center. This fast-paced, riveting story thrusts Tony into personal, technical and diplomatic situations that test his skills and ingenuity. His love life intermingles with his involvement in a high-level world of intelligence, spies and intrigue. Tony loves every minute of it. Published author, Peter J. Azzole, is a retired U.S. Navy officer with a career in communications intelligence. He crafts this story from history and professional experience.

Ghost Plane: The True Story of the CIA Torture Program


Stephen Grey - 2006
    Government and used by the CIA to hold and torture people suspected of terrorism. Using contacts deep inside the U.S. Government, Grey reveals how deeply the Bush administration is involved in the program and questions the truth of statements made by Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice. He also shines a spotlight on the heads of European nations who turned a blind eye to the program when it showed up in their back yards. Grey takes an unflinching look at a horrendous practice that scorns Geneva Convention rules and is powered by corruption at the highest levels of governments worldwide. Through his unprecedented access to CIA flight records and dozens of sources at the senior levels of the current administration, Grey has produced a story of flight plans, extreme torture, and the clash of religions and governmental posturing that goes on today. "Ghost Plane" tells the stories of individuals abducted at airports around the world and transported for interrogation and torture on a fleet of leased planes manned by CIA operatives. Grey paints a disburing ethical picture of the war on terror and lays the responsibility for abduction and torutre at the doorstep of Washington, D.C.

Hard Measures: How Aggressive CIA Actions After 9/11 Saved American Lives


José A. Rodríguez Jr. - 2012
    counterterrorism operations and oversaw the use of those procedures—procedures that obtained vital and timely intelligence and helped safeguard the nation from future attacks. Puerto Rican–born Jose A. Rodriguez, Jr., served the United States for twenty-five years as an undercover officer before bringing his wealth of field knowledge to the CIA’s Counterterrorism Center; now, in this riveting account and fascinating life story, one of America’s top undercover operatives reveals how hard measures have derailed terrorist activity targeting the U.S., and saved countless American lives. Fully disclosed here for the first time are the undercover operations and tactics implemented during the George W. Bush presidency—which were approved by the highest levels of the U.S. government, certified as legal by the Department of Justice, and supported by bipartisan leadership of congressional intelligence oversight committees. But as the shock of 9/11 faded, the support that the intelligence community enjoyed and deserved gave way to shortsighted and potentially dangerous political correctness. One by one, the tools needed to successfully fight terrorism were banished, and the men and women who volunteered to carry out our nation’s orders in combating al-Qa'ida found themselves second-guessed, hamstrung, and investigated— including Rodriguez himself. In effect, the United States has chosen to willfully and unilaterally disarm itself in the war on terror. In Hard Measures, Rodriguez convincingly argues for the techniques used, and uncompromisingly details when these techniques were necessary, why they worked, and how, ultimately, they contributed to the capture of the world’s most-wanted terror operatives, including Usama bin Ladin. From law school student to CIA recruit to his role as America’s top spy, Rodriguez’s full story is one of utmost importance—a rare, insider’s look at an issue that demands attention. Above all, it’s a reasoned, imperative, and fully informed case for hard measures, and an explosive and gripping account of the real war on terror— where it’s been and where it’s headed. Terrorism has always been one of the toughest targets on which to collect intelligence. The secrets you want to steal frequently don’t reside in computer systems, which can be hacked, or safes, which can be broken into, but in the inner recesses of a handful of individuals’ minds. The cliché about intelligence work is that it is like working on a thousand-piece jigsaw puzzle but not having the box top to show you what the finished picture should look like. If only it were that easy. In fact, it is more like working on a million-piece puzzle with no box top, and having millions more random pieces that look like they might fit, but actually are from different puzzles altogether. It fell to us to make sense of the countless fragments of information and to take action on the chunks of the puzzle, which represented a real and growing threat to the United States and our allies.

War of Shadows: Codebreakers, Spies, and the Secret Struggle to Drive the Nazis from the Middle East


Gershom Gorenberg - 2021
    When the Nazis broke the Black Code, used by American diplomatic missions around the world, they were able to get detailed portrayals of British positions and weaknesses in North Africa, sometimes just a few hours after they were written. Using this information, under Rommel's command, they marched swiftly and terrifyingly toward Alexandria, with the ultimate goal of reaching the Middle East. But Allied forces had broken the Nazis' code, Enigma, as well. They soon discovered they were leaking information, and set off on a fevered and high-stakes search for the source. War of Shadows is the cinematic story of the race for information in North African theater of World War II, and the battle of cryptographers on both sides of it. Years in the making, this book is a feat of historical research and storytelling, and a rethinking of the popular narrative of the war. It portrays the war not as an inevitable clash of heroes and villains but a spiraling series of failures and accidents-one that spread into Africa and nearly beyond.

The Brilliant Disaster: JFK, Castro, and America's Doomed Invasion of Cuba's Bay of Pigs


Jim Rasenberger - 2011
    Despite the Kennedy administration’s initial public insistence that the United States had nothing to do with the invasion, it soon became clear that the complex operation had been planned and approved by the best and brightest minds at the highest reaches of Washington, including the Joint Chiefs of Staff and President John F. Kennedy himself. The Cuban-born invaders were trained by CIA officers, supplied with American matériel, and shadowed by the U.S. Navy. Landing by sea with fighter-plane support, they hoped to establish a military beachhead and spark a counterrevolution against Fidel Castro’s regime. The gambit was a stupendous failure, resulting in the death or imprisonment of more than a thousand men. In its wake, the United States appeared inept, reckless, and corrupt. Now, journalist Jim Rasenberger takes a closer look at this darkly fascinating incident in American history. At the heart of the crisis stood President Kennedy, and Rasenberger traces what Kennedy knew, thought, and said as events unfolded. He examines whether Kennedy was manipulated by the CIA into approving a plan that would ultimately involve the American military. He also draws compelling portraits of the other figures who played key roles in the drama: Castro, who shortly after achieving power visited New York City and was cheered by thousands (just months before the United States began plotting his demise); Dwight Eisenhower, who originally ordered the secret program, then later disavowed it; Allen Dulles, the CIA director who may have told Kennedy about the plan before he was elected president (or so Richard Nixon suspected); and Richard Bissell, the famously brilliant “deus ex machina” who ran the operation for the CIA—and took the blame when it failed. Beyond the short-term fallout, Rasenberger demonstrates, the Bay of Pigs gave rise to further and greater woes, including the Cuban Missile Crisis, the Vietnam War, and even, possibly, the assassination of John Kennedy. Written with elegant clarity and narrative verve, The Brilliant Disaster is the most complete account of this event to date, providing not only a fast-paced chronicle of the disaster but an analysis of how it occurred—a question as relevant today as then—and how it profoundly altered the course of modern American history.

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.

Courting Disaster: How the CIA Kept America Safe and How Barack Obama Is Inviting the Next Attack


Marc A. Thiessen - 2009
    Bush’s 2006 speech explaining the CIA’s interrogation program and why Congress should authorize it. Few know more about these CIA operations than Thiessen, and in his new book, Courting Disaster, he documents just how effective the CIA’s interrogations were in foiling attacks on America, penetrating al-Qaeda’s high command, and providing our military with actionable intelligence. Thiessen also shows how reckless President Obama has been in shutting down the CIA’s program and releasing secret documents that have aided our enemies. Courting Disaster proves:How the CIA program thwarted specific deadly attacks against the U.S.Why “enhanced interrogation” was not torture by any reasonable legal or moral standardHow the information gained by “enhanced interrogation” could not have been acquired any other wayHow President Obama’s actions since taking office have left America much more vulnerable to attackIn chilling detail, Thiessen reveals how close the terrorists came to striking again, how intelligence gained from “enhanced interrogation” repeatedly stymied their plots, and how President Obama’s dismantling of this CIA program is inviting disaster for America.

The Blitzed Brits


Terry Deary - 1994
    These were just some of the hardships for the people who stayed at home in World War Two - the blitzed Brits.

Planet Rothschild (Volume 2): The Forbidden History of the New World Order (WW2 - 2015)


M.S. King - 2015
    From the days of the American Revolution, to the Jacobin French Revolution, to the coalition wars against Napoleon, to Andrew Jackson’s war on the Central Bank, to Karl Marx’s war on sanity, to the U.S. Civil War, to the Reds’ shocking wave of 19th century assassinations, to the conspiratorial founding of the Federal Reserve, to the horrific First World War to enslave Germany, to the Rothschild-Communist subversion of Russia's Czar, to the horrible World War against Hitler and Japan, to the Cold War, to the JFK assassination, to the "women's movement" to the Global Warming Hoax, to the "fall of communism", to the 9/11 attacks & the "War On Terror", and finally, to the looming confrontation with Russia and China - the common thread of the New World Order crime gang links all of these events together. At the heart of this self-perpetuating network sits the legendary House of Rothschild – the true owners of ‘Planet Rothschild’. Though an alliance with other billionaire families, universities, corporations, think tanks and media moguls worldwide; the cabal has, for 250 years, manipulated world events and political players like so many pawns on a global chessboard. Now, you can earn your 'Phd' in NWO studies by reading the epic two-volume timeline thriller - PLANET ROTHSCHILD. It is a unique "blurb by blurb" chronological and photographical review that will enrich your depth of historical knowledge like no other work of its kind. **************************** "Absolutely mind bending research... I was hooked immediately! I had studied the NWO for years but had no idea of so many of the critical events revealed in PLANET ROTHSCHILD." - Carl Norris, Davenport, Iowa

Killing Che


Chuck Pfarrer - 2007
    Now the decorated Navy SEAL makes his dazzling fiction debut with this gutsy, riveting thriller about the action-packed hunt for history’s most infamous rebel insurgent: Che Guevara.The year is 1967. Paul Hoyle, a CIA paramilitary officer, has resigned from the agency an incident in Laos that left one man dead and Hoyle’s face scarred by gunshot. But Hoyle is soon drawn back into the agency’s fold, finding himself a “fallen angel,” an independent contractor the U.S. secretly sends to global hot spots. Bolivia, the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere, is a nation ripe for Communist infiltration and revolution. So the stage is set for a duel between world ideologies, with players from Washington to Moscow to Havana. After a Bolivian army unit is disastrously ambushed, Hoyle is dispatched to South America by a CIA concerned that another Vietnam may be in the works. With Cuban-sponsored guerrillas afoot and a corrupt Bolivian military opposing them, Hoyle finds the jungle a treacherous place where honor and morality are surrendered to the basic business of survival. Though Che Guevara, the charismatic revolutionary who helped Castro take hold in Cuba, is believed to have been killed in the Congo–or executed by Fidel himself–a rucksack recovered after a deadly gunfight suggests that the Marxist rebel may be heading up this new, highly effective insurgency. World-weary Hoyle draws ever nearer to the passionate revolutionary, as a struggle between worldviews is fought with automatic weapons in steamy jungles, veiled threats in government offices, and even exchanged secrets in hotel bedrooms–for at the center of this intense cat-and-mouse game are two captivating women who may hold the keys to these men’s destinies. Tania Vünke is Guevara’s crucial undercover operative and occasional lover, a conflicted woman with secrets entrusted to her by Guevara himself. And beautiful Maria Agular is the elegant mistress of the Bolivian minister of information, a tormented soul whom Hoyle dares to trust with both information and his heart.Terrorism expert Chuck Pfarrer packs this electrifying plot with insider knowledge of intelligence tradecraft. Populated with powerfully drawn characters, Killing Che is a stunning re-creation of a conflict that sealed the fate of one of the twentieth century’s most controversial and complex political figures–a man whose renown continues to grow decades after his violent end.From the Hardcover edition.

The Rise and Fall of Adolf Hitler


William L. Shirer - 1961
    Shirer was a correspondent for six years in Nazi Germany-and had a front-row seat for Hitler's rise to power. His most definitive work on the subject, The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, is a riveting account defined by first-person experience interviewing Hitler, watching his impassioned speeches, and living in a country transformed by war and dictatorship.William Shirer was originally commissioned to write The Rise and Fall of Adolf Hitler for a young adult audience. This account loses none of the immediacy of The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich-capturing Hitler's rise from obscurity, the horror of Nazi Germany's mass killings, and the paranoia and insanity that marked Hitler's downfall. This book is by no means simplified-and is sure to appeal to adults as well as young people with an interest in World War II history.

Poisoner in Chief: Sidney Gottlieb and the CIA Search for Mind Control


Stephen Kinzer - 2019
    He made pills, powders, and potions that could kill or maim without a trace--including some intended for Fidel Castro and other foreign leaders. He paid prostitutes to lure clients to CIA-run bordellos, where they were secretly dosed with mind-altering drugs. His experiments spread LSD across the United States, making him a hidden godfather of the 1960s counterculture. For years he was the chief supplier of spy tools used by CIA officers around the world.Stephen Kinzer, author of groundbreaking books about U.S. clandestine operations, draws on new documentary research and original interviews to bring to life one of the most powerful unknown Americans of the twentieth century. Gottlieb's reckless experiments on "expendable" human subjects destroyed many lives, yet he considered himself deeply spiritual. He lived in a remote cabin without running water, meditated, and rose before dawn to milk his goats.During his twenty-two years at the CIA, Gottlieb worked in the deepest secrecy. Only since his death has it become possible to piece together his astonishing career at the intersection of extreme science and covert action. Poisoner in Chief reveals him as a clandestine conjurer on an epic scale.

Intelligence: From Secrets to Policy


Mark M. Lowenthal - 1999
    and a former U.S. intelligence official) presents an academic introduction to the history and current role of intelligence agencies in the foreign policy of the United States. He surveys the growth of the intelligence agencies, examines their place in the general structure of government, reviews policy debates about the scope and nature of intelligence activities, and discusses intelligence reforms. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR

Dallas, November 22, 1963


Robert A. Caro - 2013
    This account of the Kennedy assassination ("the most riveting ever," says The New York Times) is taken from Robert A. Caro's brilliant and bestselling The Passage of Power. Here is that tragic day in Dallas alive with startling details reported for the first time by the two-time Pulitzer Prize-winning author. Just as scandals that might end his career are about to break over Lyndon Johnson's head, the motorcade containing the presidential party is making its slow and triumphant way along the streets of Dallas. In Caro's breathtakingly vivid narrative, we witness the shots, the procession speeding to Parkland Memorial Hospital, the moment when Kennedy aide Lawrence O'Donnell tells Johnson "He's gone," and Johnson's iconic swearing in on Air Force One. Compelling.

The Cold War: A History


Martin Walker - 1993
    Now that it is over, it is crucial to our future to understand how the Cold War has shaped us and, especially, to recognize it as the economic and political dynamic that determined the structure of today's global economy.From the origins of the Marshall Plan, which revived Europe after World War II, and the strategic decision to rebuild a defeated Japan into a bulwark against China to the collapse of the Berlin Wall, this authoritative work reveals how the West was built into an economic alliance that overpowered the Soviet economy while also unleashing global economic forces that today challenge the traditional nation-state.The Cold War was more of a global conflict than was either of this century's two major wars; far more than a confrontation between states or even empires, it was, as Martin Walker puts it, "a total war between economic and social systems, an industrial test to destruction."Walker reminds us how easy it is to forget that there were many occasions for the late 1940s on when victory seemed far from assured, and that lent a particular urgency to the efforts of postwar Western leaders. The West continued to be alarmed by the prospect of defeat right up to the Soviet empire's last breath. At the end of the 1940s the fear was generated by communist expansion into Eastern Europe and China; in the 1960s by the prospect of defeat in Vietnam. In the 1970s the failure of détente and the West's economic crisis brought a new generation of dedicated anti-Communists to prominence. For more than forty years, as this detailed analysis makes clear, the outcome of the Cold War was in doubt.We also come to understand how the arms race caused new alignments and shifts in domestic power. As the United States became the national security state, California, which had a population of five million at the start of the Cold War, grew to thirty million and, by the 1980s provided one in every ten members of Congress and two presidents.Using newly opened Kremlin archives and his own experiences in the field, Martin Walker has written a brilliant analysis of the conflict that has shaped the contemporary world.