Book Description

In Espionage's Most Wanted™, readers will learn that America’s first spymasters included Benjamin Franklin and John Jay. Otto von Bismarck’s chief spy, Wilhelm Stieber, posed as an itinerant peddler and sold religious artifacts and pornography to enemy troops as a cover for collecting intelligence. During the cultural competition of the Cold War, the CIA helped popularize abstract expressionism by spending millions to promote the careers of artists such as Jackson Pollock. The East Germans once traded two captured West German agents for one dead East German agent. CIA officer E. Howard Hunt cleverly disrupted an intimate dinner meeting between Mexican Communists and a Soviet delegation by distributing party invitations to the general public. During the 1980s and early 1990s, the CIA employed psychics to “remotely view” places of interest in the Soviet Union. Espionage's Most Wanted™, chronicles 500 of the most daring spies, ingenious plots, bungled operations, and surprising facts about the history of espionage and intelligence from around the world. Its fifty lists include the top-ten intelligence agencies, master spies, traitors, spy gadgets, code-breaking coups, covert operations blunders, and colorful dirty tricks. History buffs and espionage enthusiasts will enjoy this irreverent but illuminating look at the world of spies and intelligence.