Spies and Their Masters


Book Description

This book delves into the secret histories of the CIA, the FBI, and British and Italian intelligence to study how policymakers can control intelligence agencies and when these agencies will try to remove their own government. For every government they serve, intelligence agencies are both a threat and a necessity. They often provide vital information for national security, but the secrets they possess can also be used against their own masters. This book introduces subversion paradox theory to provide a social scientific explanation of the unequal power dynamic resulting from an often fraught relationship between agencies and their ‘masters’. The author also makes a case for the existence of ‘deep state’ conspiracies, including in highly developed democracies, and cautions those who denounce their existence that trying to control intelligence by politicizing it is likely to backfire. An important intervention in the field of intelligence studies, this book will be indispensable for intelligence professionals and policymakers in understanding and bridging the cultural divide between these two groups. It will also make for a fascinating and informative read to scholars and researchers of diplomacy, foreign policy, international relations, strategic and defence studies, security studies, political studies, policymaking and comparative politics.




Queen of Spies


Book Description

This “fascinating and long overdue” biography reveals the remarkable life of a Baroness who was one of Britain’s most celebrated spies (Washington Post). From living in a shack in Tanzania to becoming Baroness Park of Monmouth, Daphne Park led a most unusual life—one that consisted of a lifelong love affair with the world of Britain’s secret services. In the 1970s, she was appointed to Secret Intelligence Service’s most senior operational rank as one of its seven Area Controllers. In Queen of Spies, Paddy Hayes recounts the evolution of the British Secret Intelligence Service (SIS) from World War II to the Cold War through the eyes of Daphne Park, one of its outstanding and most unusual operatives. It is a fascinating and intimate narrative of how the modern SIS went about its business whether in Moscow, Hanoi, or the Congo, and shows how Park was able to rise through the ranks of a field that had been comprised almost entirely of men. Queen of Spies captures all the paranoia, isolation, and deception of Cold War intelligence work, and combines it with the personal story of one extraordinary woman trying to navigate this secretive world. It is “as exciting as any good spy thriller—but it’s all true” (Kirkus, starred review).




The Spymasters


Book Description

"Only eleven men and one woman are alive today who have made the life-and-death decisions that come with running the world's most powerful and influential intelligence service. With unprecedented, deep access to nearly all these individuals plus several of their predecessors, Chris Whipple tells the story of an agency that answers to the United States president alone, but whose activities--spying, espionage, and covert action--take place on every continent. At pivotal moments, the CIA acts as a brake on rogue presidents, starting in the mid-seventies with DCI Richard Helms's refusal to conceal Richard Nixon's criminality and continuing to the present as the actions of a CIA whistleblower have ignited impeachment proceedings against Donald Trump. Since its inception in 1947, the Central Intelligence Agency has been a powerful player on the world stage, operating largely in the shadows to protect American interests. For The Spymasters, Whipple conducted extensive, exclusive interviews with nearly every living CIA director, pulling back the curtain on the world's elite spy agencies and showing how the CIA partners--or clashes--with counterparts in Britain, France, Germany, Israel, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, and Russia. Topics covered in the book include attempts by presidents to use the agency for their own ends; simmering problems in the Middle East and Asia; rogue nuclear threats; and cyberwarfare"--




The Best of Our Spies


Book Description

Ranked #41 on Spycast's list of the Top 50 Best Spy Novels, as voted for by real-life intelligence operatives. The Allies have landed, the liberation of Europe has begun. In the Pas de Calais, Nathalie Mercier, a young British Special Operations Executive secret agent working with the French Resistance, disappears. In London, her husband Owen Quinn, an officer with Royal Navy Intelligence, discovers the truth about her role in the Allies' sophisticated deception at the heart of D-Day. Appalled but determined, Quinn sets off on a perilous hunt through France in search of his wife. Aided by the Resistance in his search, he makes good progress. But, caught up by the bitterness of the war and its insatiable appetite for revenge, he risks total destruction. Based on real events of the Second World War, this is a thrilling tale of international intrigue, love, deception and espionage, perfect for fans of Robert Harris, John le Carré and Len Deighton.




King of Spies


Book Description

The New York Times bestselling author of Escape from Camp 14 returns with the untold story of one of the most powerful spies in American history, shedding new light on the U.S. role in the Korean War, and its legacy In 1946, master sergeant Donald Nichols was repairing jeeps on the sleepy island of Guam when he caught the eye of recruiters from the army's Counter Intelligence Corps. After just three months' training, he was sent to Korea, then considered a backwater and beneath the radar of MacArthur's Pacific Command. Though he lacked the pedigree of most U.S. spies—Nichols was a 7th grade dropout—he quickly metamorphosed from army mechanic to black ops phenomenon. He insinuated himself into the affections of America’s chosen puppet in South Korea, President Syngman Rhee, and became a pivotal player in the Korean War, warning months in advance about the North Korean invasion, breaking enemy codes, and identifying most of the targets destroyed by American bombs in North Korea. But Nichols's triumphs had a dark side. Immersed in a world of torture and beheadings, he became a spymaster with his own secret base, his own covert army, and his own rules. He recruited agents from refugee camps and prisons, sending many to their deaths on reckless missions. His closeness to Rhee meant that he witnessed—and did nothing to stop or even report—the slaughter of tens of thousands of South Korean civilians in anticommunist purges. Nichols’s clandestine reign lasted for an astounding eleven years. In this riveting book, Blaine Harden traces Nichols's unlikely rise and tragic ruin, from his birth in an operatically dysfunctional family in New Jersey to his sordid postwar decline, which began when the U.S. military sacked him in Korea, sent him to an air force psych ward in Florida, and subjected him—against his will—to months of electroshock therapy. But King of Spies is not just the story of one American spy. It is a groundbreaking work of narrative history that—at a time when North Korea is threatening the United States with long-range nuclear missiles—explains the origins of an intractable foreign policy mess.




The New Spymasters


Book Description

The old world of spying that emphasized the human factor--dead letter boxes, microfilm cameras, and an enemy reporting to the Moscow Center--is history. Or is it? In recent times, the spymaster's technique has changed with the enemy. He or she now frequently comes from a culture far removed from Western understanding and is part of a less well-organized group. The new enemy is constantly evolving and prepared to kill the innocent. In the face of this new threat, the spymasters of the world replaced human intelligence with an obsession that focuses on the technical methods of spying, ranging from the use of high-definition satellite photography to the global interception of communications. However, this obsession with technology has failed, most spectacularly, with the devastation of the 9/11 attacks. In this modern history of espionage, Stephen Grey takes us from the CIA's Cold War legends, to the agents who betrayed the IRA, through to the spooks inside Al-Qaeda and ISIS. Techniques and technologies have evolved, but the old motivations for betrayal--patriotism, greed, revenge, compromise--endure. Based on years of research and interviews with hundreds of secret sources, this is an up-to-date exposé that shows how spycraft's human factor is once again being used to combat the world's deadliest enemies.--Adapted from book jacket.




The World's Greatest Spies and Spymasters


Book Description

Spies and spymasters have had a crucial role to play ever since man first learned to rage war. This book tells the stories of some of the world's most infamous spies and spy organisations including the Portland spy Ring, the secret of the KGB Sex Spies, Mata Hari and Sidney Reilly - Ace of spies




Master of Spies


Book Description




Gray Day


Book Description

A cybersecurity expert and former FBI “ghost” tells the thrilling story of how he helped take down notorious FBI mole Robert Hanssen, the first Russian cyber spy. “Both a real-life, tension-packed thriller and a persuasive argument for traditional intelligence work in the information age.”—Bruce Schneier, New York Times bestselling author of Data and Goliath and Click Here to Kill Everybody Eric O’Neill was only twenty-six when he was tapped for the case of a lifetime: a one-on-one undercover investigation of the FBI’s top target, a man suspected of spying for the Russians for nearly two decades, giving up nuclear secrets, compromising intelligence, and betraying US assets. 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.




Spies, Inc.


Book Description

In Spies, Inc. former Time and Business 2.0 writer Stacy Perman reveals the spellbinding story of the Israeli military and 8200, the ultra-secret high-tech intelligence unit whose alumni helped create a number of the groundbreaking technologies behind today's information revolution. An incredible tale in its own right, 8200 is also a remarkable case study in innovation, offering compelling lessons for every business. Likened to the NSA in the U.S., 8200 was established to capture, decipher, and analyze enemy transmissions. But unlike the NSA, 8200 did not have an endless font of resources at its disposal...and, due to secrecy, it couldn't generally buy "off-the-shelf" as a matter of procedure. Instead, it invented and customized many of its own technologies around the unique challenges of a nation that exists on a constant war-footing. Along the way, its soldiers learned to come up with breakthroughs under crushing pressure and challenges. They brought this same sense of purpose under fire and creative improvisation in creating complex systems to the civilian world where they created top-line technology companies in a number of areas, including wireless communications and security. Whispers of these secret Israeli electronic warriors swept venture capital circles in the 1990s, as a stunning number of Israeli tech startups bore fruit...many founded by 8200 veterans. Now, Stacy Perman tells this incredible story...revealing the techniques of entrepreneurship on the fly, when failure is not an option.