Delving into an encyclopaedic array of little-known primary sources, William Beaver uncovers a vigorous intelligence function at the heart of Victoria's Empire. A cadre of exceptionally able and dedicated officers, they formed the War Office Intelligence Division, which gave Britain's foreign policy its backbone in the heyday of imperial acquisition. Under Every Leaf is the first major study to examine the seminal role of intelligence gathering and analysis in `England's era'. So well did Great Britain play her hand, it seemed to all the world that, as the Farsi expression goes, `Anywhere a leaf moves, underneath you will find an Englishman.' The historian William Beaver is also a soldier, corporate communicator, arts editor and Anglican priest.

The product of painstaking research and countless interviews, A High Price offers a nuanced, definitive historical account of Israel's bold but often failed efforts to fight terrorist groups. Beginning with the violent border disputes that emerged after Israel's founding in 1948, Daniel Byman charts the rise of Yasir Arafat's Fatah and leftist groups such as the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-organizations that ushered in the era of international terrorism epitomized by the 1972 hostage-taking at the Munich Olympics. Byman reveals how Israel fought these groups and others, such as Hamas, in the decades that follow, with particular attention to the grinding and painful struggle during the second intifada. Israel's debacles in Lebanon against groups like the Lebanese Hizballah are examined in-depth, as is the country's problematic response to Jewish terrorist groups that have struck at Arabs and Israelis seeking peace. In surveying Israel's response to terror, the author points to the coups of shadowy Israeli intelligence services, the much-emulated use of defensive measures such as sky marshals on airplanes, and the role of controversial techniques such as targeted killings and the security barrier that separates Israel from Palestinian areas. Equally instructive are the shortcomings that have undermined Israel's counterterrorism goals, including a disregard for long-term planning and a failure to recognize the long-term political repercussions of counterterrorism tactics.

Counter-Terrorism Networks in the European Union: Maintaining Democratic Legitimacy after 9/11 presents a model of democratic legitimacy for within international counter-terrorism co-operation. Exploring the current practices of European Union (EU) counter-terrorism policing, developed after 9/11, it highlights the current significant challenges to democratic legitimacy and seeks to present tools and solutions which ensure 'democratic' counter-terrorism actions and the protection of human rights. Counter-terrorism policing is now a global concern, with co-operation between security authorities of different countries a crucial feature in the fight to prevent terrorism and extremism. Yet, given the emphasis on pre-emption, this type of policing tends to interfere to a far greater extent with the rights of the individual than traditional policing. This book scrutinises the current focus of enhanced communication between counter-terrorist associates at member-state and EU levels within Europe, alongside analysis of just how far the traditional, protective mechanisms of accountability and oversight are managing to keep up with this development. It proposes that current forms of counter-terrorism policing within the EU should be understood as networks - sets of expert institutional nodes or individual agents, from at least two countries - that are interconnected in order to authorize and provide security with regard to counter-terrorism, using the European Police Office (Europol) as a key example.

Based on previously classified documents and on interviews with former secret police officers and ordinary citizens, The Firm is the first comprehensive history of East Germany's secret police, the Stasi, at the grassroots level. Focusing on Gransee and Perleberg, two East German districts located north of Berlin, Gary Bruce reveals how the Stasi monitored small-town East Germany. He paints an eminently human portrait of those involved with this repressive arm of the government, featuring interviews with former officers that uncover a wide array of personalities, from devoted ideologues to reluctant opportunists, most of whom talked frankly about East Germany's obsession with surveillance. Their paths after the collapse of Communism are gripping stories of resurrection and despair, of renewal and demise, of remorse and continued adherence to the movement. The book also sheds much light on the role of the informant, the Stasi's most important tool in these out-of-the-way areas. Providing on-the-ground empirical evidence of how the Stasi operated on a day-to-day basis with ordinary people, this remarkable volume offers an unparalleled picture of life in a totalitarian state. "Brilliantly written and deeply researched, this is the best book in any language on East Germany's Stasi." -Robert Gellately, author of Lenin, Stalin, and Hitler: The Age of Social Catastrophe "This is surely the most detailed micro-analysis of the East German security service.... In a rare step, Bruce actually interviews a number of former Stasi staff, weaving from his conversations telling portraits of 14 of them." -Foreign Affairs | "Brilliant, thoroughly researched, and highly readableenables readers to better understand how the Stasi operated in everyday life and how its inescapable presence affected citizens." -CHOICE "Bruce has done an admirable job of exploring the repressive nature of the East German state and the experience of normalcy in small towns where the watchers and watched lived side by side." -Oral History Review

This is the first book of its kind to employ hundreds of Chinese sources to explain the history and current state of Chinese Communist intelligence operations. It profiles the leaders, top spies, and important operations in the history of China's espionage organs, and links to an extensive online glossary of Chinese language intelligence and security terms. Peter Mattis and Matthew Brazil present an unprecedented look into the murky world of Chinese espionage both past and present, enabling a better understanding of how pervasive and important its influence is, both in China and abroad.

In the mid-1970s, the CIA and KGB watched Karel Koecher closely-they were both convinced he was working for the enemy. And they were both right. Traveling with his wife, Hana, Koecher posed as a Czechoslovak asylum seeker and arrived in the US as a Communist sleeper agent. After parlaying a doctorate from Columbia into a job at the CIA, Koecher proceeded to operate as a double agent at the height of the Cold War. Shunning a low profile, the Koechers embraced Manhattan's high life-with cocaine, swinging, and parties emblematic of the times and their penchant for risk. Hana, who was no more than a shy teenager when she arrived, grew into a sophisticated international diamond dealer who relayed messages to Karel's handlers. Riding a wave of euphoria, the Koechers felt unstoppable. But it was too good to last. Using newly declassified documents, interrogation tapes, and extraordinary firsthand accounts from the Koechers themselves, Cunningham reconstructs their double lives and the fading Cold War, where a strange moral fog made it hard to know what truth was being fought for, and to what end.

In November 1998, Alexander Litvinenko, a former Lieutenant Colonel of the Russian security service or FSB, along with several former colleagues, publicly stated that their superiors had instigated an assassination attempt on a Russian tycoon and oligarch. Following his subsequent arrest and failed trials, Litvinenko fled to London where, having been granted asylum, he worked as a journalist and writer, as well as acting as a consultant for the British intelligence services. Eight years later, Litvinenko's past caught up with him when he was assassinated in London. It was on 1 November 2006 that Litvinenko was suddenly taken ill-so serious was his condition that he was hospitalised. He passed away twenty-two days later. Significant amounts of a rare and highly toxic element were subsequently found in his body. Before his death, Litvinenko had said: 'You may succeed in silencing one man but the howl of protest from around the world, Mr Putin, will reverberate in your ears for the rest of your life.' In this examination of the events surrounding Litvinenko's murder, the author, Boris Volodarsky, who was consulted by the Metropolitan Police during the investigation and remains in close contact with Litvinenko's widow, details the events surrounding the assassination. He brings the story up to date, referring to the findings of the official British inquiry, on the release of which Prime Minister David Cameron condemned Putin for presiding over 'state sponsored murder'. The author proves that the Litvinenko's poisoning is just one of many. Some of these assassinations or attempted assassinations are already known; others are revealed by him for the first time.

THE SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER Two sisters, one war and an extraordinary family secret 1939. In the nation's hour of need, brave sisters Patricia and Jean Owtram answered the call of duty. With their fierce intelligence and steely determination, these remarkable young women would stop at nothing to help crack the Enigma code, support Allied troops, and defeat the Nazis. Their top-secret mission would finally see the tide of war turn in Britain's favour... This is their incredible true story.

The Cambridge Spies continue to fascinate - but one of them, John Cairncross, has always been more of an enigma than the others. He worked alone and was driven by his hostility to Fascism rather than to the promotion of Communism. During his war-time work at Bletchley Park, he passed documents to the Soviets which went on to influence the Battle of Kursk. Now, Geoff Andrews has access to the Cairncross papers and secrets, and has spoken to friends, relatives and former colleagues. A complex individual emerges - a scholar as well as a spy - whose motivations have often been misunderstood. After his resignation from the Civil Service, Cairncross moved to Italy and here he rebuilt his life as a foreign correspondent, editor and university professor. This gave him new circles and friendships - which included the writer Graham Greene - while he always lived with the fear that his earlier espionage would come to light. The full account of Cairncross's spying, his confession and his dramatic public exposure as the 'fifth man' will be told here for the first time, while also unveiling the story of his post-espionage life.

How the West's greatest spy in Asia tried to stop the new American way of war—and the steep price he paid for failingJim Thompson landed in Thailand at the end of World War II, a former American society dilettante who became an Asian legend as a spy and silk magnate with access to Thai worlds outsiders never saw. As the Cold War reached Thailand, America had a choice: Should it, as Thompson believed, help other nations build democracies from their traditional cultures or, as his ex-OSS friend Willis Bird argued, remake the world through deception and self-serving alliances? In a story rich with insights and intrigue, this book explores a key Cold War episode that is still playing out today. Highlights a pivotal moment in Cold War history that set a course for American foreign policy that is still being followed today Explores the dynamics that put Thailand at the center of the Cold War and the fighting in neighboring Laos that escalated from sideshow to the largest covert operation America had ever engaged in Draws on personal recollections and includes atmospheric details that bring the people, events—and the Thailand of the time—to life Written by a journalist with extensive experience in Asian affairs who has spent years investigating every aspect of this story, including Thompson's tragic disappearance

There has been a shift in the way that we understand the forces behind imperialism. In this book, Andrew Thomson re-evaluates the history of US imperialism, from the Cold War to today, by looking at the influence of paramilitary actors. Thomson reveals how these agents are central to US imperialism - from the Guatemalan coup to the Bay of Pigs, from Syrian rebel factions to the Soviet-Afghan War, bringing these narratives together to reveal the evolution of paramilitary insurgencies across the globe. Militias, mercenaries, and private companies (PMCs) have formed a central part of the strategies designed to influence political and economic conditions abroad, oriented towards the US's Empire. Drawing on declassified documents including US training manuals, CIA communiques and the National Security Archive, Outsourced Empire reveals new evidence that helps us understand these institutions and their collective role in maintaining global order.

Christopher Marlowe: Poet & Spy is the most thorough and detailed life of Marlowe since John Bakeless's in 1942. It has new material on Marlowe in relation to Canterbury, also on his home life, schooling, and six and a half years at Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, and includes fresh data on his reading, teachers, and early achievements, including a new letter with a new date for the famous 'putative portrait' of Marlowe at Cambridge. The biography uses for the first time the Latin writings of his friend Thomas Watson to illuminate Marlowe's life in London and his career as a spy (that is, as a courier and agent for the Elizabethan Privy Council). There are new accounts of him on the continent, particularly at Flushing or Vlissingen, where he was arrested. The book also more fully explains Marlowe's relations with his chief patron, Thomas Walsingham, than ever before. This is also the first biography to explore in detail Marlowe's relations with fellow playwrights such as Kyd and Shakespeare, and to show how Marlowe's relations with Shakespeare evolved from 1590 to 1593. With closer views of him in relation to the Elizabethan stage than have appeared in any biography, the book examines in detail his aims, mind, and techniques as exhibited in all of his plays, from Dido, the Tamburlaine dramas, and Doctor Faustus through to The Jew of Malta and Edward II. It offers new treatments of his evolving versions of 'The Passionate Shepherd', and displays circumstances, influences, and the bearings of Shakespeare's 'Venus and Adonis' in relation to Marlowe's 'Hero and Leander'. Throughout, there is a strong emphasis on Marlowe's friendships and so-called 'homosexuality'. Fresh information is brought to bear on his seductive use of blasphemy, his street fights, his methods of preparing himself for writing, and his atheism and religious interests. The book also explores his attraction to scientists and mathematicians such as Thomas Harriot and others in the Ralegh-Northumberland set of thinkers and experimenters. Finally, there is new data on spies and business agents such as Robert Poley, Nicholas Skeres, and Ingram Frizer, and a more exact account of the circumstances that led up to Marlowe's murder.

All-powerful, brilliant, decisive, ruthlessly effective ... this is the image of the CIA as portrayed in countless films and novels. It is wrong. This shocking book, based on thousands of declassified documents and interviews with agents at all levels, shows the reality behind the glamorous myth: a blundering, chaotic and dangerously incompetent organization, so ineffective it was nicknamed 'Can't Identify Anything' by Nato forces. In a story of botched coups, missed targets, lost operatives and fatal errors, Tim Weiner shows how the CIA now poses a threat not only to the security of the US, but the world.

Andrew W. Neal argues that while 'security' was once an anti-political 'exception' in liberal democracies - a black box of secret intelligence and military decision-making at the dark heart of the state - it has now become normalised in professional political life. This represents a direct challenge to critical security studies debates and their core assumption that security is a kind of illiberal and undemocratic 'anti-politics'. Using archival research and interviews with politicians, Neal investigates security politics from the 1980s to the present day to show how its meaning and practice have changed over time. In doing so, he develops an original reassessment of the security/politics relationship.

Marthe Cohn was in her late teens when Hitler was rising to power. Living across the German border in Alsace-Lorraine, her family began taking in Jews who were fleeing the Nazis, as well as the Jewish children being sent away by terrified parents. Soon her own homeland was under Nazi rule, and she and her parents, brothers, and sisters were forced to live the restricted lives of all Jews. As the Nazi occupation of France escalated along with the war, Marthe's sister was arrested and eventually sent to Auschwitz, and the rest of her family was forced to flee to the south of France. Always a fighter, Marthe joined the French Army.
Behind Enemy Lines is Marthe Cohn's memoir of a time and place that has mesmerized the world for more than half a century. But at its heart it is the tale of an ordinary human being who, under extraordinary circumstances, became the hero her country needed her to be.
Recently, at the age of eighty, Marthe Cohn was awarded France's highest military honor, the Medaille Militaire, a relatively rare medal awarded for outstanding military service and given, in the past, to the likes of Winston Churchill. With this award came official acknowledgment of the heroic exploits of a beautiful young Jewish woman who faced death every day as she sought to help defeat the Nazi empire.
When the spotlight was turned on Marthe Cohn, not even her children or grandchildren knew to what extent this modest woman had been involved with the Allies in fighting the evils of the greatest war of the twentieth century. She had fought valiantly to retrieve needed inside information about Nazi troop movements by slipping behind enemy lines, utilizing her perfect German accent andblond hair to pose as a young German nurse who was desperately trying to obtain word about a fictional fiance. In traveling about the countryside and approaching troops sympathetic to her plight, she learned where they were going next and was able to alert Allied commanders.

"From the Hardcover edition.

Christopher Marlowe: Poet & Spy is the most thorough and detailed life of Marlowe since John Bakeless's in 1942. It has new material on Marlowe in relation to Canterbury, also on his home life, schooling, and six and a half years at Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, and includes fresh data on his reading, teachers, and early achievements, including a new letter with a new date for the famous 'putative portrait' of Marlowe at Cambridge. The biography uses for the first time the Latin writings of his friend Thomas Watson to illuminate Marlowe's life in London and his career as a spy (that is, as a courier and agent for the Elizabethan Privy Council). There are new accounts of him on the continent, particularly at Flushing or Vlissingen, where he was arrested. The book also more fully explains Marlowe's relations with his chief patron, Thomas Walsingham, than ever before. This is also the first biography to explore in detail Marlowe's relations with fellow playwrights such as Kyd and Shakespeare, and to show how Marlowe's relations with Shakespeare evolved from 1590 to 1593. With closer views of him in relation to the Elizabethan stage than have appeared in any biography, the book examines in detail his aims, mind, and techniques as exhibited in all of his plays, from Dido, the Tamburlaine dramas, and Doctor Faustus through to The Jew of Malta and Edward II. It offers new treatments of his evolving versions of 'The Passionate Shepherd', and displays circumstances, influences, and the bearings of Shakespeare's 'Venus and Adonis' in relation to Marlowe's 'Hero and Leander' Throughout, there is a strong emphasis on Marlowe's friendships and so-called 'homosexuality'. Fresh information is brought to bear on his seductive use of blasphemy, his street fights, his methods of preparing himself for writing, and his atheism and religious interests. The book also explores his attraction to scientists and mathematicians such as Thomas Harriot and others in the Ralegh-Northumberland set of thinkers and experimenters. Finally, there is new data on spies and business agents such as Robert Poley, Nicholas Skeres, and Ingram Frizer, and a more exact account of the circumstances that led up to Marlowe's murder.

It would be easy for the modern reader to conclude that women had no place in the world of early modern espionage, with a few seventeenth-century women spies identified and then relegated to the footnotes of history. If even the espionage carried out by Susan Hyde, sister of Edward Hyde, Earl of Clarendon, during the turbulent decades of civil strife in Britain can escape the historiographer's gaze, then how many more like her lurk in the archives? Nadine Akkerman's search for an answer to this question has led to the writing of Invisible Agents, the very first study to analyse the role of early modern women spies, demonstrating that the allegedly-male world of the spy was more than merely infiltrated by women. This compelling and ground-breaking contribution to the history of espionage details a series of case studies in which women — from playwright to postmistress, from lady-in-waiting to laundry woman — acted as spies, sourcing and passing on confidential information on account of political and religious convictions or to obtain money or power. The struggle of the She-Intelligencers to construct credibility in their own time is mirrored in their invisibility in modern historiography. Akkerman has immersed herself in archives, libraries, and private collections, transcribing hundreds of letters, breaking cipher codes and their keys, studying invisible inks, and interpreting riddles, acting as a modern-day Spymistress to unearth plots and conspiracies that have long remained hidden by history.

This book explores the powers, activities, and accountability of MI5 from the end of the Second World War to 1964. It argues that MI5 acted with neither statutory authority nor statutory powers, and with no obvious forms of statutory accountability. It was established as a counter-espionage agency, yet was beset by espionage scandals on a frequency that suggested if not high levels of incompetence, then high levels of distraction and the squandering of resources. The book addresses the evolution of MI5's mandate after the Second World War which set out its role and functions, and to a limited extent the lines of accountability, the surveillance targets of MI5 and the surveillance methods that it used for this purpose, with a focus in two chapters on MPs and lawyers respectively; the purposes for which this information was used, principally to exclude people from certain forms of employment; and the accountability of MI5 or the lack thereof for the way in which it discharged its responsibilities under the mandate. As lawyers the authors' concern is to consider these questions within the context of the rule of law, one of the core principles of the British constitution, the values of which it was the duty of the Security Service to uphold. Based on extensive archival research, it suggests that MI5 operated without legal authority or exceeded the legal authority it did have.

For more than half a century, Big Safari-modified aircraft have performed dangerous and essential missions to collect intelligence, conduct surveillance and reconnaissance, and engage in special operations missions around the globe in the interest of national security. These state-of-the-art aircraft have been flown, operated, and maintained by men and women whose dedication and commitment have made the world a safer place. In The History of Big Safari, author Colonel Bill Grimes, a retired US Air Force officer, presents a history of this program, which has been in existence for more than sixty years. Born as a special acquisition program in 1952, Big Safari has been in a unique position to save lives by rapidly fielding essential systems with a quick-reaction capability to ensure decision makers on the battlefield and at the Pentagon have timely intelligence to plan and execute operations. Grimes shows how, without a special acquisition program such as Big Safari, the nation's ability to react to evolving dangers and threats would be mired in bureaucracy when timely responses are critical. With detailed cutaway illustrations revealing aircraft modifications and mission equipment, The History of Big Safari also includes photographs, sidebars, and anecdotes. It goes behind the scenes with the men and women who participated in the challenging projects and daring missions. It shares the development of cutting-edge technology and special mission aircraft, as well as the global events that necessitated these once-classified programs. Finally, it provides insight into long-veiled projects, operations, and missions that comprise the world under the purview of Big Safari.

In this book, two national-security experts put the exploits of America's special operation forces in historical and strategic context. David Tucker and Christopher J. Lamb offer an incisive overview of America's turbulent experience with special operations. Starting with in-depth interviews with special operators, the authors illustrate the diversity of modern special operations forces and the strategic value of their unique attributes. Despite longstanding and growing public fascination with special operators, these forces and their contribution to national security are poorly understood. With this book, Tucker and Lamb dispel common misconceptions and offer a penetrating analysis of how these unique and valuable forces can be employed to even better effect in the future. The book builds toward a comprehensive assessment of the strategic utility of special operations forces, which it then considers in light of the demands of future warfare. This second edition of United States Special Operations Forces, revised throughout to account for lessons learned in the twelve years since its first publication, includes two new case studies, one on High Value Target Teams and another on Village Stability Operations, and two new appendixes charting the evolution of special operation missions and the best literature on all aspects of U.S. special operation forces.

In the 21st century, more than any other time, US agencies have relied on contractors to conduct core intelligence functions. This book charts the swell of intelligence outsourcing in the context of American political culture and considers what this means for the relationship between the state, its national security apparatus and accountability within a liberal democracy. Through analysis of a series of case studies, recently declassified documents and exclusive interviews with national security experts in the public and private sectors, the book provides an in-depth and illuminating appraisal of the evolving accountability regime for intelligence contractors.

In the decades following the Mexican Revolution, regional strongmen vied with powerful generals and popular rebels for control of Mexico's future. During this era of uprisings, government corruption, and political intrigue, Mexico took its first, faltering steps toward democracy. In the midst of the turmoil, plainclothes agents, traveling under multiple aliases and reporting in code to their superiors, served as "the eyes and ears" of the national government.

In "Spies, Politics, and Power: El Departamento Confidencial en Mexico, 1922-1946," Joseph A. Stout traces the development of Mexico's Departamento Confidencial (Confidential Department) from the years of its infancy to its later incarnation as a fully fledged international espionage agency on the order of the CIA, Russian KGB, and German Gestapo. Stout charts the department's evolution under the administration of several powerful presidents--and a handful of puppets--from the postrevolutionary period through World War II, when the agency turned its attention from monitoring internal threats to focus on matters of national security. Stout devotes special attention to the agency's wartime role in the investigation and containment of individuals whose Axis ties made them objects of government suspicion.

Offering a twist on conventional history, Stout takes us behind the political curtain to illuminate the crucial role played by an unlikely assortment of government bureaucrats, international spies, low-ranking agents, and office clerks within the drama of Mexican nationhood. In his comprehensive and thoroughly researched account, Stout offers a narrative propelled not by the back-and-forth of rebel violence and brutal reprisal--though there is no dearth of such material--but by a story driven by the power of information. For Stout, intelligence, as much as military might, is the key to political power and the engine of national formation.

A work rich in primary sources, "Spies" integrates details culled from archived letters and agent reports into the broader framework of Mexican politics and society in the first half of the twentieth century. In his unconventional approach, Stout sheds new light on the means and motivations of some of the period's most influential figures.