The United Kingdom's domestic counter-intelligence and security agency, most commonly known as MI5, was founded in 1909 by Sir Vernon Kell KBE. Kell ('K' within the agency) not only founded MI5 but was also its Director for 31 years, the longest tenure of any head of a British government department during the twentieth century. Kell was also fluent in six foreign languages, making him arguably the most gifted linguist ever to head a Western intelligence agency. A Secret Well Kept was written by Kell's wife, Constance, in the 1950s, and the manuscript has been a treasured family possession ever since. Constance's story is endlessly fascinating: she tells of their life in China during the Boxer Rebellion, the formation of MI5 in 1909, the key characters, events and spy cases of Kell's career, and his important work achieved for the country during two world wars. A modern-day preface from Kell's great-granddaughter, introduction by Stewart Binns and notes from Dr Chris Northcott add historical context to this delightful and unparalleled insight into the personal life of an extremely powerful and important man.

Intelligence activities have always been an integral part of statecraft. Ancient governments, like modern ones, realized that to keep their borders safe, control their populations, and keep abreast of political developments abroad, they needed a means to collect the intelligence which enabled them to make informed decisions. Today we are well aware of the damage spies can do.Here, for the first time, is a comprehensive guide to the literature of ancient intelligence. The entries present books and periodical articles in English, French, German, Italian, Spanish, Polish, and Dutch - with annotations in English. These works address such subjects as intelligence collection and analysis (political and military), counterintelligence, espionage, cryptology (Greek and Latin), tradecraft, covert action, and similar topics (it does not include general battle studies and general discussions of foreign policy).Sections are devoted to general espionage, intelligence related to road building, communication, and tradecraft, intelligence in Greece, during the reign of Alexander the Great and in the Hellenistic Age, in the Roman republic, the Roman empire, the Byzantine empire, the Muslim world, and in Russia, China, India, and Africa. The books can be located in libraries in the United States; in cases where volumes are in one library only, the author indicates where they may be found.

In the 1920s, many in the British establishment became convinced that their way of life was being threatened by the new Soviet state. The British government launched vast spying operations in response, carrying out surveillance on not only suspect Russians, but British aristocrats, Bloomsbury artists, ordinary workers and even MPs. What they discovered had profound ramifications for the whole of British society, dividing the nation and laying the foundations for the later Cold War. Drawing on a wealth of recently declassified archives, The Secret Twenties tells the story of the first Soviet spies and the double agents in their midst, all of it set against the sparkling backdrop of cocktail-era London.

Investigating the global system of detention centers that imprison asylum seekers and conceal persistent human rights violations   Remote detention centers confine tens of thousands of refugees, asylum seekers, and undocumented immigrants around the world, operating in a legal gray area that hides terrible human rights abuses from the international community. Built to temporarily house eight hundred migrants in transit, the immigrant “reception center� on the Italian island of Lampedusa has held thousands of North African refugees under inhumane conditions for weeks on end. Australia’s use of Christmas Island as a detention center for asylum seekers has enabled successive governments to imprison migrants from Asia and Africa, including the Sudanese human rights activist Abdul Aziz Muhamat, held there for five years.  In The Death of Asylum, Alison Mountz traces the global chain of remote sites used by states of the Global North to confine migrants fleeing violence and poverty, using cruel measures that, if unchecked, will lead to the death of asylum as an ethical ideal. Through unprecedented access to offshore detention centers and immigrant-processing facilities, Mountz illustrates how authorities in the United States, the European Union, and Australia have created a new and shadowy geopolitical formation allowing them to externalize their borders to distant islands where harsh treatment and deadly force deprive migrants of basic human rights. Mountz details how states use the geographic inaccessibility of places like Christmas Island, almost a thousand miles off the Australian mainland, to isolate asylum seekers far from the scrutiny of humanitarian NGOs, human rights groups, journalists, and their own citizens. By focusing on borderlands and spaces of transit between regions, The Death of Asylum shows how remote detention centers effectively curtail the basic human right to seek asylum, forcing refugees to take more dangerous risks to escape war, famine, and oppression.

A Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist's revelatory look inside the sinister world of private spies. A spy story like no other. Private spies are the invisible force that shapes our modern world: they influence our elections, effect government policies and shape the fortunes of companies. More deviously, they are also peering into our personal lives as never before. Spooked takes us on a journey into a secret billion-dollar industry in which information is currency and loyalties are for sale. An industry so tentacular it reaches from the Steele dossier written by a British ex-spy to Russian oligarchs in Mayfair mansions, from the devious tactics of Harvey Weinstein to the growing role of corporate spies in politics and the threat to future elections. Spooked reads like the best kind of spy story: a gripping tale packed with twists and turns, uncovering a secret side of our modern world.

John Birch is a totemic figure in American life. The society named after him is one of the famous far-right organizations in American history. It was also a paradigmatic example of anti-communist hysteria during the Cold War, and its influence on the American far right to this day remains significant. Yet despite his posthumous fame, Birch himself remains an obscure figure. Terry Lautz, a longtime scholar of US-China relations, has spoken with all of Birch's remaining relatives, found shoeboxes filled with letters from one of his former lovers, and visited the various sites in China where he worked. The result is the first authoritative biography of this fascinating figure, who continues to haunt the political fringes of American life. Birch grew up in the rapidly growing Bible culture of the post-World War I period, and then became a missionary in China in the tumultuous period of its war against the Japanese and the escalating conflict between nationalists and communists. He fought with Claire Chennault's famed Flying Tigers and had a number of romantic relationships with women along the way. After the war ended, he committed himself to resuming his missionary activities in China, but was killed by communist guerrillas in an altercation a couple of weeks after the war ended in September 1945. A few years after his death, when China fell to the communists, anti-communists in Congress latched onto his life and promoted him as a martyr. Within a few years, Robert Welch, a candy manufacturer in New England, formed the John Birch Society, an extreme right-wing organization whose influence is still visible in the Tea Party movement. Lautz covers Birch's life and his afterlife, and also places him not merely in the context of the American far right, but in the revolutionary war that consumed China in the 1930s and 1940s. In this critical study of a figure who has reached near-legendary status, Lautz cuts through the mythology to expose John Birch-both the man and the political phenomenon.

This is the story of two Confederate spies, Tom Harbin and Charlie Russell. Harbin, among the most wanted of all Confederate agents, was also one of the leaders in the plot to kill Abraham Lincoln. It was Harbin who left a getaway horse for Booth outside Ford's Theatre, and Harbin who helped Booth escape across the Potomac. For a time there was a big price on Harbin's head, but he was never arrested. Tradition holds that he went into hiding, perhaps in Cuba or England, but this book demonstrates that he was again openly living and working in D.C. at least as early as 1866. The other half of this book presents a new Confederate spy: Tom Harbin's step-cousin Charlie Russell, a man who never talked and never left a paper trail. It was only while the author was conducting genealogical research into the Russell family of Clarksville, Virginia, that he stumbled across Russell's activities during the Civil War. Here the author presents a wealth of evidence to suggest that Russell, too, played a part in the dramatic history of Confederate espionage. Enhancing the life stories of both these men is detailed information on their genealogy and the lives of their forebears and descendants, many of whom were prominent in the history and society of Washington, D.C.

Barry Broman has led a remarkable life, and met some remarkable people along the way of his years at a Central Intelligence Agency case officer. Broman was a teenage photographer for the Associated Press in Southeast Asia, then a Marine Corps infantry officer in combat in Vietnam before spending a quarter century as a "head-hunter" with dozens of recruits for the Clandestine Service in operations around the world. Mr. Broman received a BA in Political Science in 1967 followed by an MA in Southeast Asian Studies a year later. Immediately following his service in the Marine Corps, he was recruited by the CIA and spent his first posting in Cambodia at war. He was present at the fall of Phnom Penh in 1975, escaping just before the Khmer Rouge took power. He subsequently served in other Asian postings, one in Europe, and one in the Western Hemisphere. During his career, Mr. Broman was twice a CIA chief of station, once a Deputy Chief of Station, and supervised an international para-military project in support of the Cambodian resistance to Vietnamese invaders. He was actively involved in several assignments in counter-narcotics operations in Southeast Asia including a major "bust" that yielded 551 kilograms of high-grade heroin from a major drug trafficker. His "favorite agent" against a variety of "hard targets" was a fellow whose only demand was that his assignments be "life threatening." He survived them all. At times, the memoir reads like a travel book with tales of visits to little-known and rarely seen places like the Naga Hills on the India-Burma border, the world-famous but off limits jade and ruby mines of Burma, and the isolated Banda Islands of Indonesia, the home of nutmeg. The book is strengthened by many photos by the author. They include Marines in action in Vietnam, the ravages of war in Cambodia at war, and opium buyers forcing growers to sell in Burma.

Spies and Lies by Alex Joske is a groundbreaking expose of elite influence operations by China's little-known Ministry of State Security. Revealing for the first time how the Chinese Communist Party has tasked its spies to deceive the world, it challenges the conventional account of China's past, present and future. Mere years ago, Western governments chose to cooperate with China in the hope that it would liberalise, setting aside concerns about human rights abuses, expansionism and espionage. But the axiom of China's 'peaceful rise' has been fundamentally challenged by the Chinese Communist Party's authoritarian behaviour under Xi Jinping. How did we get it wrong for so long? Spies and Lies pierces the Ministry of State Security's walls of secrecy and reveals how agents of the Chinese Communist Party have spent nearly 40 years manipulating Western leaders' attitudes - from an Australian prime minister to the US Congress, prominent think tanks and the FBI - about China's rise. Through interviews with defectors and intelligence officers, classified Chinese intelligence documents and original investigations, the book unmasks dozens of active Chinese intelligence officers along with global MSS fronts including travel agencies, writers associations, publishing houses, alumni associations, newspapers, Buddhist retreats, a record company and charities. Spies and Lies is an extraordinary insight into the most successful influence operation in history, one which has fooled the West for years, and indispensable reading.

Spring 1958: a mysterious individual believed to be high up in the Polish secret service began passing Soviet secrets to the West. His name was Michal Goleniewski and he remains one of the most important, least known and most misunderstood spies of the Cold War. Even his death is shrouded in mystery and he has been written out of the history of Cold War espionage - until now. Tim Tate draws on a wealth of previously-unpublished primary source documents to tell the dramatic true story of the best spy the west ever lost and how Goleniewski exposed hundreds of KGB agents operating undercover in the West; from George Blake and the 'Portland Spy Ring', to a senior Swedish Air Force and NATO officer and a traitor inside the Israeli government. The information he produced devastated intelligence services on both sides of the Iron Curtain. Bringing together love and loyalty, courage and treachery, betrayal, greed and, ultimately, insanity, Tim Tate tells the extraordinary true story of one of the most significant spies of the Cold War. Acclaim for The Spy Who Was Left Out in the Cold: 'Totally gripping . . . a masterpiece. Tate lifts the lid on one of the most important and complex spies of the Cold War, who passed secrets to the West and finally unmasked traitor George Blake.' HELEN FRY, author of MI9: A History of the Secret Service for Escape and Evasion in World War Two 'A wonderful and at times mind-boggling account of a bizarre and almost forgotten spy - right up to the time when he's living undercover in Queens, New York and claiming to be the last of the Romanoffs.' SIMON KUPER, author of The Happy Traitor 'A highly readable and thoroughly researched account of one of the Cold War's most intriguing and tragic spy stories.' OWEN MATTHEWS, author of An Impeccable Spy

Why do seemingly successful wars never seem to end? The problem centers on drones, now accumulated in the thousands, the front end of a spying and killing machine that is disconnected from either security or safety. Drones, however, are only part of the problem. William Arkin shows that security is actually undermined by an impulse to gather as much data as possible, the appetite and the theory both skewed towards the notion that no amount is too much. And yet the very endeavor of putting fewer humans in potential danger in fact places everyone in greater danger. Wars officially end, but the Data Machine lives on forever.

This book is an in-depth examination of the relations between Ireland and the former East Germany between the end of the Second World War and the fall of the Berlin Wall. It explores political, diplomatic, economic, media and cultural issues. The long and tortuous process of establishing diplomatic relations is unique in the annals of diplomatic history. Central in this study are the activities of the Stasi. They show how and where East German intelligence obtained information on Ireland and Northern Ireland and also what kind of information was gathered. A particularly interesting aspect of the book is the monitoring of the activities of the Irish Republican Army and the Irish National Liberation Army and their campaigns against the British army in West Germany. The Stasi had infiltrated West German security services and knew about Irish suspects and their contacts with West German terrorist groups. East German Intelligence and Ireland, 1949-90 makes an original contribution to diplomatic, intelligence, terrorist and Cold War studies. -- .

In 1945, both the U.S. State Department and U.S. Intelligence saw Czechoslovakia as the master key to the balance of power in Europe and as a chessboard for the power-game between East and West. Washington believed that the political scene in Prague was the best available indicator of whether the United States would be able to coexist with Joseph Stalin's Soviet Union. In this book, Igor Lukes illuminates the end of World War II and the early stages of the Cold War in Prague, showing why the United States failed to prevent Czechoslovakia from being absorbed into the Soviet bloc. He draws on documents from archives in the United States and the Czech Republic, on the testimonies of high ranking officers who served in the U.S. Embassy from 1945 to 1948, and on unpublished manuscripts, diaries, and memoirs. Exploiting this wealth of evidence, Lukes paints a critical portrait of Ambassador Laurence Steinhardt. He shows that Steinhardt's groundless optimism caused Washington to ignore clear signs that democracy in Czechoslovakia was in trouble. Although U.S. Intelligence officials who served in Prague were committed to the mission of gathering information and protecting democracy, they were defeated by the Czech and Soviet clandestine services that proved to be more shrewd, innovative, and eager to win. Indeed, Lukes reveals that a key American officer may have been turned by the Russians. For all these reasons, when the Communists moved to impose their dictatorship, the U.S. Embassy and its CIA section were unprepared and powerless. The fall of Czechoslovakia in 1948 helped deepen Cold War tensions for decades to come. Vividly written and filled with colorful portraits of the key participants, On the Edge of the Cold War offers an authoritative account of this key foreign policy debacle.

John Goldsmith's wartime exploits are all the more remarkable considering that at first his services were consistently refused due to his being over 30. Not easily deterred he eventually became a tank driving instructor in the ranks. In 1942 accidental circumstances saw his recruitment into Buckmaster's F Section of the Special Operations Executive. His faultless French and upbringing in Paris were to prove invaluable. Commissioned overnight and after intensive training he was parachuted into France for the first of his three missions. His adventures included crossing the Pyrenees, sabotage, forming his own circuits, being captured by the Gestapo, a daring escape and black-marketeering. In 1944, now a Major, he was advisor to the Maquis in the Mont Ventoux area where they fought the Germans in pitched battles and won. Although this refreshingly modest account does not admit to it, Goldsmith's extraordinary war is best summed up by his DSO, MC, three Croix de Guerre and Legion d'honneur. Accidental Agent is as thrilling an account of war behind enemy lines as has ever been written.The author's descriptions of his experiences and the many colourful characters he came across are a joy to read.

THE CLASSIC LOST THRILLER FROM THE ICONIC NUMBER ONE BESTSELLER 'Shockingly good' The Sun 'A prescient, high-octane thriller' Daily Express 'Totally on the money - and ripe for this republication' i Newspaper * * * * * It always starts with a small lie. That's how you stop noticing the bigger ones. After his friend suspects something strange going on at the satellite facility where they both work - and then goes missing - Martin Hepton doesn't believe the official line of "long-term sick leave"... Refusing to stop asking questions, he leaves his old life behind, aware that someone is shadowing his every move. But why? The only hope he has is his ex-girlfriend Jill Watson - the only journalist who will believe his story. But neither of them can believe the puzzle they're piecing together - or just how shocking the secret is that everybody wants to stay hidden... DISCOVER THE CLASSIC LOST THRILLER FROM THE ICONIC NUMBER ONE BESTSELLER. * * * * * 'Rankin is a master storyteller' Guardian 'Great fiction, full stop' The Times 'Ian Rankin is a genius' Lee Child 'One of Britain's leading novelists in any genre' New Statesman 'A virtuoso of the craft' Daily Mail 'Rankin is a phenomenon' Spectator 'Britain's No.1 crime writer' Mirror 'Quite simply, crime writing of the highest order' Express 'Worthy of Agatha Christie at her best' Scotsman

Behind enemy lines is an examination of gender relations in wartime using the Special Operations Executive as a case study. Drawing on personal testimonies, in particular oral history and autobiography, as well as official records and film, it explores the extraordinary experiences of male and female agents who were recruited and trained by a British organisation and infiltrated into Nazi-Occupied France to encourage sabotage and subversion during the Second World War. With its original interpretation of a wealth of primary sources, it examines how these ordinary, law-abiding civilians were transformed into para-military secret agents, equipped with silent killing techniques and trained in unarmed combat. This fascinating, timely and engaging book is concerned with the ways in which the SOE veterans reconstruct their wartime experiences of recruitment, training, clandestine work and for some, their captivity, focusing specifically upon the significance of gender and their attempts to pass as French civilians. This examination of the agents of an officially-sponsored insurgent organisation makes a major contribution to British socio-cultural history, war studies and gender studies and will appeal to both the general reader, as well as to those in the academic community. -- .

Experts in the intelligence community say that torture is ineffective. Yet much of the public appears unconvinced: surveys show that nearly half of Americans think that torture can be acceptable for counterterrorism purposes. Why do people persist in supporting torture-and can they be persuaded to change their minds? In Tortured Logic, Erin M. Kearns and Joseph K. Young draw upon a novel series of group experiments to understand how and why the average citizen might come to support the use of torture techniques. They find evidence that when torture is depicted as effective in the media, people are more likely to approve of it. Their analysis weighs variables such as the ethnicity of the interrogator and the suspect; the salience of one's own mortality; and framing by experts. Kearns and Young also examine who changes their opinions about torture and how, demonstrating that only some individuals have fixed views while others have more malleable beliefs. They argue that efforts to reduce support for torture should focus on convincing those with fluid views that torture is ineffective. The book features interviews with experienced interrogators and professionals working in the field to contextualize its findings. Bringing empirical rigor to a fraught topic, Tortured Logic has important implications for understanding public perceptions of counterterrorism strategy.

Rendezvous at the Russian Tea Rooms provides the first comprehensive account of what was once hailed by a leading American newspaper as the greatest spy story of World War II. This dramatic yet little-known saga, replete with telephone taps, kidnappings, and police surveillance, centres on the furtive escapades of Tyler Kent, a handsome, womanising 28-year-old Ivy League graduate, who doubles as a US Embassy code clerk and Soviet agent. Against the backdrop of London high society during the so-called Phoney War, Kent's life intersects with the lives of the book's two other memorably flamboyant protagonists. One of those is Maxwell Knight, an urbane, endearingly eccentric MI5 spyhunter. The other is Anna Wolkoff, a White Russian fashion designer and Nazi spy whose outfits are worn by the Duchess of Windsor and whose parents are friends of the British royal family. Wolkoff belongs to a fascist secret society called the Right Club, which aims to overthrow the British government. Her romantic entanglement with Tyler Kent gives her access to a secret correspondence between President Roosevelt and Winston Churchill, a correspondence that has the potential to transform the outcome of the war.

National Book Award Finalist
A "Time," " Newsweek," " Washington Post," " Chicago Tribune," " "and "New York Times Book Review" Best Book of the Year
A gripping narrative that spans five decades, " "The Looming Tower explains in unprecedented detail the growth of Islamic fundamentalism, the rise of al-Qaeda, and the intelligence failures that culminated in the attacks on the World Trade Center. Lawrence Wright re-creates firsthand the transformation of Osama bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri from incompetent and idealistic soldiers in Afghanistan to leaders of the most successful terrorist group in history. He follows FBI counterterrorism chief John O'Neill as he uncovers the emerging danger from al-Qaeda in the 1990s and struggles to track this new threat. Packed with new information and a deep historical perspective, The Looming Tower is the definitive history of the long road to September 11.

Philip Agee's story is the stuff of a John le Carre novel-perilous and thrilling adventures around the globe. He joined the CIA as a young idealist, becoming an operations officer in hopes of seeing the world and safeguarding his country. He was the consummate intelligence insider, thoroughly entrenched in the shadow world. But in 1975, he became the first person to publicly betray the CIA-a pariah whose like was not seen again until Edward Snowden. For almost forty years in exile, he was a thorn in the side of his country. The first biography of this contentious, legendary man, Jonathan Stevenson's A Drop of Treason is a thorough portrait of Agee and his place in the history of American foreign policy and the intelligence community during the Cold War and beyond. Unlike mere whistleblowers, Agee exposed American spies by publicly blowing their covers. And he didn't stop there-his was a lifelong political struggle that firmly allied him with the social movements of the global left and against the American project itself from the early 1970s on. Stevenson examines Agee's decision to turn, how he sustained it, and how his actions intersected with world events. Having made profound betrayals and questionable decisions, Agee lived a rollicking, existentially fraught life filled with risk. He traveled the world, enlisted Gabriel Garcia Marquez in his cause, married a prima ballerina, and fought for what he believed was right. Raised a conservative Jesuit in Tampa, he died a socialist expat in Havana. In A Drop of Treason, Stevenson reveals what made Agee tick-and what made him run.

Home-grown terrorists equipped by a foreign power are not a new phenomenon. During the Second World War, Hitler's Germany made sustained efforts to inflict a terror campaign on the streets of Britain through the use of secret agents and agents provocateurs. The aim was to blow up military, industrial, transport and telecommunication targets, to lower morale among the civilian population and disrupt the war effort. Even before the outbreak of war, the Nazis provided the IRA with assistance for their plan to sabotage the British mainland. Prior to their planned invasion in the summer of 1940, the Nazis were also keen to recruit members of the Welsh and Scottish Nationalist Parties to engage in sabotaging British targets and, over the course of the war, infiltrated dozens of trained agents from countries including Norway, Denmark, Holland, France and Cuba. What happened to the myriad plots to blow up Britain? We know that intelligence obtained from decrypted enemy messages via Bletchley Park and double agents like ZIGZAG, SUMMER and TATE alerted MI5 to some of these spies' arrivals, but what about the others? And how successful were MI5's efforts to fake acts of sabotage and arrange media coverage to fool the enemy into thinking their agents were still at large and on task? In this book, Bernard O'Connor, a noted wartime espionage historian, tells the complete story of the successes and failures of the Nazi terror offensive on mainland Britain during 1938-1944.

Winner of the St Ermin's Intelligence Book of the Year Award. 'One of the great biographies of 2015.' The Times Fully updated edition including recently released information. A Guardian Book of the Year. The Times Best Biography of the Year. Mail on Sunday Biography of the Year. Daily Mail Biography of Year. Spectator Book of the Year. BBC History Book of the Year. 'A remarkable and definitive portrait ' Frederick Forsyth 'Andrew Lownie's biography of Guy Burgess, Stalin's Englishman ... shrewd, thorough, revelatory.' William Boyd 'In the sad and funny Stalin's Englishman, [Lownie] manages to convey the charm as well as the turpitude.' Craig Brown Guy Burgess was the most important, complex and fascinating of 'The Cambridge Spies' - Maclean, Philby, Blunt - all brilliant young men recruited in the 1930s to betray their country to the Soviet Union. An engaging and charming companion to many, an unappealing, utterly ruthless manipulator to others, Burgess rose through academia, the BBC, the Foreign Office, MI5 and MI6, gaining access to thousands of highly sensitive secret documents which he passed to his Russian handlers. In this first full biography, Andrew Lownie shows us how even Burgess's chaotic personal life of drunken philandering did nothing to stop his penetration and betrayal of the British Intelligence Service. Even when he was under suspicion, the fabled charm which had enabled many close personal relationships with influential Establishment figures (including Winston Churchill) prevented his exposure as a spy for many years. Through interviews with more than a hundred people who knew Burgess personally, many of whom have never spoken about him before, and the discovery of hitherto secret files, Stalin's Englishman brilliantly unravels the many lives of Guy Burgess in all their intriguing, chilling, colourful, tragi-comic wonder.

Conflict in the last century was defined by the horrific potential of physical and especially nuclear war. Now we are in a new technological era-a world of more subtle, yet no less grave, threats, an environment in which various actors can deeply penetrate vital infrastructures and instigate diplomatic and military crises. Today, computer code is the weapon of choice. Can anything be done beyond shoring up our defenses in a state of permanent insecurity? Lucas Kello delves into recent history to reveal the failures of the present policy in preventing and punishing cyberattacks and other forms of technological aggression. Drawing upon case studies and interviews, Kello develops a bold new solution-a coordinated retaliation strategy that justly and effectively responds to attacks and deters further antagonism. This book provides an approachable yet nuanced exploration of national security and survival in the twenty-first century.

An unprecedented expose of Soviet espionage in the United States during the 1930s and 40s This stunning book, based on KGB archives that have never come to light before, provides the most complete account of Soviet espionage in America ever written. In 1993, former KGB officer Alexander Vassiliev was permitted unique access to Stalin-era records of Soviet intelligence operations against the United States. Years later, living in Britain, Vassiliev retrieved his extensive notebooks of transcribed documents from Moscow. With these notebooks John Earl Haynes and Harvey Klehr have meticulously constructed a new, sometimes shocking, historical account. Along with general insights into espionage tactics and the motives of Americans who spied for Stalin, Spies resolves specific, long-seething controversies. The book confirms, among many other things, that Alger Hiss cooperated with Soviet intelligence over a long period of years, that journalist I. F. Stone worked on behalf of the KGB in the 1930s, and that Robert Oppenheimer was never recruited by Soviet intelligence. Spies also uncovers numerous American spies who were never even under suspicion and satisfyingly identifies the last unaccounted for American nuclear spies. Vassiliev tells the story of the notebooks and his own extraordinary life in a gripping introduction to the volume.

Since the end of the Cold War, the operations of secret police informers have come under the media spotlight and it is now common knowledge that vast internal networks of spies in the Soviet Union and East Germany were directed by the Communist Party. By contrast, very little historical information has been available on the covert operations of the security services in Mao Zedong's China. However, as Michael Schoenhals reveals in this intriguing and sometimes sinister account, public security was a top priority for the founders of the People's Republic and agents were recruited from all levels of society to ferret out 'counter-revolutionaries'. On the basis of hitherto classified archival records, the book tells the story of a vast surveillance and control apparatus through a detailed examination of the cultivation and recruitment of agents, their training and their operational activities across a twenty-year period from 1949 to 1967.