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Books > Social sciences > Warfare & defence > Defence strategy, planning & research > Military intelligence
Among the most crucial roles of the United States military in the
global War on Terror is the collection of human intelligence from
prisoners of war, unlawful combatants, and others. On the heels of
controversy over some of the techniques used to extract
information--such as waterboarding--the Department of the Army
completely revised its interrogation guidelines. The result is this
book, the United States Army's human intelligence collection
playbook, which gives instructions on the structure, planning and
management of human intelligence operations, the debriefing of
soldiers, and the analysis of known relationships and map data. The
largest and most newsworthy section of the book details procedures
for screening and interrogation, which permits a specific number of
interrogation techniques, described in Chapter 8 as "approach
techniques." These techniques, described in great detail, carry
such names as "Emotional Love, ""Mutt and Jeff," "False Flag," and
even "Separation." A must-read for today's military buffs, U.S.
Army Human Intelligence Collector Field Manual is also a valuable
resource for anyone seeking strategies to employ in the gathering
of information.
Words of Intelligence: A Dictionary is intended for the intelligence and national security men and women who are fighting the Global War on Terrorism at all levels: local, state, and federal. The intelligence community has undergone massive changes since the Central Intelligence Agency, National Security Agency, and the Department of Defense were created, and recently, with the establishment of Homeland Security and a Director of National Intelligence, it has taken on even more duties and responsibilities. Intelligence now must be transmitted to state and local public administrators, health officials, and transportation planners (to name just a few) in times of a possible domestic attack. Containing over 600 terms related to theoretical aspects of intelligence, intelligence operations, intelligence strategies, security classification of information, obscure names of intelligence boards and organizations, and homeland security, this dictionary is an invaluable tool for those requiring a working knowledge of intelligence-related issues. A topical index is also included.
Critical Acclaim for TOP SECRET TALES of World War II "A book for rainy days and long solitary nights by the fire. If there were a genre for cozy nonfiction, this would be the template."–Publishers Weekly "Perfect for the curious and adventure readers and those who love exotic tales and especially history buffs who will be surprised at what they didn’t know. Recommended for nearly everyone."–Kirkus Reviews This war was fought by soldiers out of uniform. Stealth and ingenuity were their weapons. Victory was their only code of conduct. In Top Secret Tales of World War II, noted military historian William Breuer documents espionage–in all its forms–as it evolved in the hands of both Allied and Axis agents of intelligence and counterintelligence. Here you’ll find riveting tales of patriotism and treachery, subversion and sabotage, kidnappings and assassinations, and bribes and blackmailing–with frequently startling revelations about the secret wars behind both the battlefields and the headlines.
Intelligence was a central element of the Cold War and the need for
it was expected to diminish after the USSR's collapse, yet in
recent years it has been in greater demand than ever. The
atrocities of 11 September and the subsequent "war on terrorism"
now call for an even more intensive effort. Important questions
arise on how intelligence fits into the world of increased threats,
globalization and expanded international action. This volume
contains the recent work on this subject by Michael Herman, British
intelligence professional for 35 years and Oxford University
academic. It compares intelligence with other government
information services, and discusses the British intelligence system
and the case for its reform. It also addresses the ethical issues
raised by intelligence's methods and results: "do they on balance
make for a better world or a worse one?." Other chapters explore a
wide range of intelligence topics past and present, including the
transatlantic relationship, the alliance strategies of Norway and
New Zealand, Mrs Thatcher's "de-unionization" of British Sigint,
and personal memories of the British Cabinet Office in the
1970s.
Winston Churchill once remarked that the secret warfare waged in World War II equaled "the most fantastic inventions of romance and melodrama." William Breuer vividly confirms that assessment with these compelling accounts of Allied and Axis intelligence throughout World War II. Here are riveting tales of patriotism and treachery, saboteurs, sleepers, and moles, giving fresh perspectives on the best-known interceptions and deceptions of the war—the breaking of the German code Enigma and the Japanese code Purple, Operation Overlord’s successful disguise of the D-Day invasion— as well as little-known feats of civilian bravado in the face of danger. Meet Sidney Cotton, a British businessman and aviator who took the Luftwaffe’s General Albrecht Kesselring aloft for a test flight at a German air show and then coolly snapped valuable reconnaissance photographs after handing the controls over to the Nazi officer. Shadow the covert armada that shipped the foundation of Great Britain’s financial security—including $2.5 billion in gold—from London to the Bank of Canada in Ottawa, without suffering a single loss from U-boats at the height of the Battle for the Atlantic. Discover how U.S. taxpayers footed the bill for a successful Nazi propaganda effort that was documented in the Congressional Record, published by the Government Printing Office, and mailed on a congressman’s postal privileges. Witness a German military spy so inept he carried his World War I medals on his mission, and another so bold that he advertised for industry secrets in the pages of Popular Aviation magazine. He paid twenty dollars each for the numerous—and significant—replies that poured in. Drawn extensively from personal interviews, private correspondence, trial records, and declassified documents from official archives, this engrossing volume provides detailed, frequently startling revelations about the secret wars fought behind the battlefields—and the headlines—of World War II. This war was fought by soldiers out of uniform. Stealth and ingenuity were their weapons. Victory was their only code of conduct."Gentlemen do not read each other’s mail."—Henry L. Stimson Henry L. Stimson, the U.S. Secretary of War under President Franklin Roosevelt, was in for a rude shock as the military forces of Germany and Japan armed themselves for their assault on the world. Men at war not only read each other’s mail; they forged it whenever possible. In Top Secret Tales of World War II, noted military historian William Breuer documents espionage—in all its forms—as it evolved in the hands of both Allied and Axis agents of intelligence and counter-intelligence. He reveals the acts of subversion and sabotage, the bribes, blackmailings, kidnappings, assassinations, grand deceptions, and bizarre assaults that were conducted in the name of victory at all costs. Focusing on the fascinating characters that played key roles in these pivotal incidents, Breuer brings a fresh dimension to the war’s most notorious acts and provides new insights into missions conducted in such deep shadow they nearly eluded the history books as well as they did the enemy’s detection.
Discover the stories of the brave men and women who worked, trained and fought across the UK, from Bletchley Park in southern England all the way to Arisaig in northern Scotland, in an unbelievable effort to defeat the Nazis and win the Second World War . From the outset of the war, most of Britain felt like a mystery even to those who lived there. All road and railway signs were removed up and down the country to thwart potential enemy spies. An invisible web of cunning spread across the United Kingdom; secret laboratories were hidden in marshes, underground bases were built to conceal key strategic plans and grand country houses became secret and silent locations for eccentric boffins to do their confidential cryptography work. In Secret Britain, Sinclair McKay maps out the UK through the hidden bases and battlegrounds of WWII. These locations are full of history and intrigue, but if you don't know where to look, you might just miss them. Journeying through secret wildernesses, suburbs, underground tunnels and manor houses, Sinclair gives a glimpse into the stories of the incredible people behind the war effort, and shows how you might be able to visit these mysterious and evocative locations yourself. With his trademark warmth and compassion, Sinclair unearths the truths of the war that have remained under layers of secrecy since the war was won in 1945.
This is a first-hand report by a top German intelligence agent sent to the still-neutral United States in World War I. Official German records, captured by British and American forces at the end of World War II, show the memoirs of the German naval officer to be accurate. Rintelen's orders in Berlin had called for measures to prevent the shipment of American war material to Germany's enemies. In the US, this meant buying arms to keep them from being purchased by the Allies, but it could also mean placing bombs in the hulls of ships sailing for Eurpoe and fomenting strikes among the labour force of American ammunition manufacturers.
Even paranoids have enemies. Hitler's most powerful foes were the Allied powers, but he also feared internal conspiracies bent on overthrowing his malevolent regime. In fact, there was a small but significant internal resistance to the Nazi regime, and it did receive help from the outside world. Through recently declassified intelligence documents, this book reveals for the first time the complete story of America's wartime knowledge about, encouragement of, and secret collaboration with the German resistance to Hitler?including the famous July 20th plot to assassinate the Fuehrer.The U.S. government's secret contacts with the anti-Nazi resistance were conducted by the OSS, the World War II predecessor to the CIA. Highly sensitive intelligence reports recently released by the CIA make it evident that the U.S. government had vast knowledge of what was going on inside the Third Reich. For example, a capitulation offer to the western Allies under consideration by Count von Moltke in 1943 was thoroughly discussed within the U.S. government. And Allen Dulles, who was later to become head of the CIA, was well informed about the legendary plot of July 20th. In fact, these secret reports from inside Germany provide a well-rounded picture of German society, revealing the pro- or anti-Nazi attitudes of different social groups (workers, churches, the military, etc.). The newly released documents also show that scholars in the OSS, many of them recruited from ivy-league universities, looked for anti-Nazi movements and leaders to help create a democratic Germany after the war.Such intelligence gathering was a major task of the OSS. However, OSS director ?Wild Bill? Donovan and others favored subversive operations, spreading disinformation, and issuing propaganda. Unorthodox and often dangerous schemes were developed, including bogus ?resistance newspapers,? anti-Nazi letters and postcards distributed through the German postal service, sabotage, and fake radio broadcasts from ?German generals? calling for uprisings against the regime.This is much more than a documentary collection. Explanatory footnotes supply a wealth of background information for the reader, and a comprehensive introduction puts the documents into their wider historical perspective. Arranged in chronological order, these intelligence reports provide a fascinating new perspective on the story of the German resistance to Hitler and reveal an intriguing and previously unexplored aspect of America's war with Hitler.
Foreword by Rabbi Abraham Cooper, Associate Dean, Simon Wiesenthal Center A real-life adventure story told by a New York Times bestselling author and war correspondent who reveals how he became a hostage, an arms dealer, and an Israeli spy. And the Rest Is History takes readers on a traveling circus from Paris to Beirut, Baghdad, and beyond, introducing them to spies and terrorists, arms dealers and crooks, and along the way reveals a few surprises about the secret underbelly of recent history you won't find in WikiLeaks. This book pinpoints precisely when the era of "fake news" actually began in America, and will change the way you think about journalism and journalists. It includes: * riveting testimony of the author's torture and born-again experience as a hostage in a Beirut cellar; * unusual insight into the beginnings of the Iran-Contra scandal; * eyewitness reporting from the battlefields of the Middle East; * the inside scoop on Saddam Hussein's WMD programs; * astonishing stories of French government dirty tricks, the intelligence underworld, Israeli hostage negotiations, and the real-life escapades of a Soviet sleeper agent. And the Rest Is History is a reporter's journey from Left-Bank leftist to born-again Christian conservative. But most of all it's a rollicking good read full of unusual characters, places, and events you will never hear about on the evening news. "Ken Timmerman is a superb investigative reporter-and old school-which means he does his research. His behind-the-scenes adventures in Iraq, Syria, Egypt, Israel, and even France are a terrific read for those of us who share his passion for tracking down the facts, not molding the facts to a 'narrative.'" -Peter Schweizer, president of the Government Accountability Institute and NY Times bestselling author of Clinton Cash and Profiles in Corruption "I have followed for some time your excellent reporting on the Mid-East. You consistently provide insights and facts nowhere else available to the public. Your professionalism and persistence make a great contribution to our understanding, to the public debate, and ultimately to our national security." -R. James Woolsey, former director, Central Intelligence Agency "I have spent my life tracking the murderers of yesterday. Mr. Timmerman is tracking the murderers of tomorrow." -Nazi hunter Simon Wiesenthal, introducing the author to an audience in Paris, France, in 2002
Published specially by After the Battle to coincide with the suspension of Allied occupation rights in Berlin in October 1990, this map was produced in 1944 by the War Office and lists the location and use of all important buildings in Berlin to be used in the occupation of the city. Every building associated with the Reich Government, NSDAP, police, fire service, Reichsbahn, U-Bahn, hospitals, telephone exchanges, embassies, prisons, etc., is numbered and referenced to an index printed on the reverse of the map. This sheet covers the central area at 1:12500.
'One of the biggest intelligence coups in recent years' The Times For years KGB operative Vasili Mitrokhin risked his life hiding top-secret material from Russian secret service archives beneath his family dacha. When he was exfiltrated to the West he took with him what the FBI called 'the most complete and extensive intelligence ever received from any source'. This extraordinary bestselling book is the result. 'Co-authored in a brilliant partnership by Christopher Andrew and the renegade Soviet archivist himself ... This is a truly global expose of major KGB penetrations throughout the Western world' The Times 'This tale of malevolent spymasters, intricate tradecraft and cold-eyed betrayal reads like a cold war novel' Time 'Sensational ... the most informed and detailed study of Soviet subversive intrigues worldwide' Spectator 'The most comprehensive addition to the subject ever published' Sunday Telegraph
Intelligence and Espionage: Secrets and Spies provides a global introduction to the role of intelligence - a key, but sometimes controversial, aspect of ensuring national security. Separating fact from fiction, the book draws on past examples to explore the use and misuse of intelligence, examine why failures take place and address important ethical issues over its use. Divided into two parts, the book adopts a thematic approach to the topic, guiding the reader through the collection and analysis of information and its use by policymakers, before looking at intelligence sharing. Lomas and Murphy also explore the important associated activities of counterintelligence and the use of covert action, to influence foreign countries and individuals. Topics covered include human and signals intelligence, the Cuban Missile Crisis, intelligence and Stalin, Trump and the US intelligence community, and the Soviet Bloc. This analysis is supplemented by a comprehensive documents section, containing newly released documents, including material from Edward Snowden's leaks of classified material. Supported by images, a comprehensive chronology, glossary, and 'who's who' of key figures, Intelligence and Espionage is an invaluable resource for anyone interested in the role of intelligence in policymaking, international relations and diplomacy, warfighting and politics to the present day.
This book is an absorbing account of secret operations and political intrigue in wartime Thailand. During World War II Free Thai organizations cooperated with Allied intelligence agencies in an effort to rescue their nation from the consequences of its 1941 alliance with Japan. They largely succeeded despite internal differences and the conflicting interests and policies of their would-be-allies, China, Great Britain and the United States. London's determination to punish Thailand placed the British Special Operations Executive (SOE) at a serious disadvantage in its rivalry with the American Office of Strategic Services (OSS). The US State Department, in contrast, strongly supported OSS operations in Thailand, viewing them as a vehicle for promoting American political and economic influence in mainland Southeast Asia. Declassification of the records of the OSS and the SOE now permits full revelation of this complex story of heroic action and political intrigue.
Like No Other Soldier continues the true story told in Fishers of Men of Rob Lewis’s life after he leaves the Force Research Unit (FRU). Staying on in Northern Ireland as a civilian after years of working on undercover missions against terrorists, Rob eventually gains employment in Bristol, undertaking security work, but things don’t work out and Rob ends up living in a squat. After a job offer from an old colleague, Rob heads to London to work in close-protection security for some of Hollywood’s royalty - Tom Cruise, Liam Neeson, Nicole Kidman and Mel Gibson among them - and later becomes involved in the rescue of some very well-connected people from a dangerous religious cult. Rob’s life seems to be getting back on track. But Rob’s work soon becomes more covert, and he ends up being on the wrong side of a police armed response unit whilst undertaking surveillance tasks, and is later arrested as a suspect when the ‘Stevens Enquiry’ building in Belfast - where detectives investigating the alleged collusion between his old unit and Loyalist paramilitaries are based - is set on fire. As Rob becomes involved in ever more shadowy surveillance and private security operations, he attracts further unwanted police attention, this time from the Serious Organised Crime Agency, and he is charged with fraud, found guilty and sentenced to prison at HMP Wandsworth. Can Rob prove his innocence and reclaim his life?
Intelligence on the Frontier Between State and Civil Society shows how today's intelligence practices constantly contest the frontiers between normal politics and security politics, and between civil society and the state. Today's intelligence services face the difficult task of having to manage the uncertainties associated with new threats by inviting civil actors in to help, while also upholding their own institutional authority and responsibility to act in the interest of the nation. This volume examines three different perspectives: Managerial practices of intelligence collection and communication; the increased use of new forms of data (i.e. of social media information); and the expansion of intelligence practices into new areas of concern, for example cybersecurity and the policing of (mis-)information. This book accurately addresses these three topics, and all chapters shine more light on the inclusion, and exclusion, of civil society in the secret world of intelligence. By scrutinizing how intelligence services balance the inclusion of civil society in security tasks with the need to uphold their institutional authority, Intelligence on the Frontier Between State and Civil Society will be of great interest to scholars of Security Studies and Intelligence Studies. The chapters were originally published as a special issue of Intelligence and National Security.
'So much of what I know about trust I learned from Rich Diviney'- Simon Sinek 'Incredible... explains why some people thrive - even when things get hard' - Charles Duhigg 'If you care about getting better, you need to buy this book' Daniel Coyle Learn the secret to being your best During his twenty years as a Navy officer and SEAL, Rich Diviney was intimately involved in specialized SEAL selection, whittling hundreds of extraordinary candidates down to a handful of elite performers. But Diviney was often surprised by who succeeded. Those with the right skills sometimes failed, while others he had initially dismissed became top performers. Why weren't the most skillful candidates the ones who would succeed best in some of the world's toughest military assignments? Through years of observation, Diviney cracked the code: beneath obvious skills are a successful recruit's core attributes, the innate traits for a person's performance as an individual and in a team. This book defines these key attributes - including cunning, adaptability, even narcissism - so you can identify and understand your own and those of people around you, helping you perform optimally in all areas of your life.
Building on Goldman's Words of Intelligence and Maret's On Their Own Terms this is a one-stop reference tool for anyone studying and working in intelligence, security, and information policy. This comprehensive resource defines key terms of the theoretical, conceptual, and organizational aspects of intelligence and national security information policy. It explains security classifications, surveillance, risk, technology, as well as intelligence operations, strategies, boards and organizations, and methodologies. It also defines terms created by the U.S. legislative, regulatory, and policy process, and routinized by various branches of the U.S. government. These terms pertain to federal procedures, policies, and practices involving the information life cycle, national security controls over information, and collection and analysis of intelligence information. This work is intended for intelligence students and professionals at all levels, as well as information science students dealing with such issues as the Freedom of Information Act.
Why Spy? is the result of Brian Stewart's seventy years of working in, and studying the uses and abuses of, intelligence in the real world. Few books currently available to those involved either as professionals or students in this area have been written by someone like the present author, who has practical experience both of field work and of the intelligence bureaucracy at home and abroad. It relates successes and failures via case studies, and draws conclusions that should be pondered by all those concerned with the limitations and usefulness of the intelligence product, as well as with how to avoid the tendency to abuse or ignore it when its conclusions do not fit with preconceived ideas. It reminds the reader of the multiplicity of methods and organisations and the wide range of talents making up the intelligence world.The co-author, scholar Samantha Newbery, examines such current issues as the growth of intelligence studies in universities, and the general emphasis throughout the volume is on the necessity of embracing a range of sources, including police, political, military and overt, to ensure that secret intelligence is placed in as wide a context as possible when decisions are made.
What makes a good missionary makes a good American spy, or so thought Office of Special Services (OSS) founder "Wild" Bill Donovan when he recruited religious activists into the first ranks of American espionage. Called upon to serve Uncle Sam, Donovan's recruits saw the war as a means of expanding their godly mission, believing an American victory would guarantee the safety of their fellow missionaries and their coreligionists abroad. Drawing on never-before-seen archival materials, acclaimed historian Matthew Sutton shows how religious activists proved to be true believers in Franklin Roosevelt's crusade for global freedom of religion. Sutton focuses on William Eddy, a warrior for Protestantism who was fluent in Arabic; Stewart Herman, a young Lutheran minister rounded up by the Nazis while pastoring in Berlin; Stephen B. L. Penrose, Jr., who left his directorship over missionary schools in the Middle East to join the military rank and file; and John Birch, a fundamentalist missionary in China. Donovan chose these men because they already had the requisite skills for good intelligence analysis, espionage, and covert operations, skills that allowed them to seamlessly blend into different environments. Working for eternal rewards rather than temporal spoils, they proved willing to sacrifice and even to die for their country during the conflict, becoming some of the United States' most loyal secret soldiers. Acutely aware of how their actions conflicted with their spiritual calling, these spies nevertheless ran covert operations in the centers of global religious power, including Mecca, the Vatican, and Palestine. In the end, they played an outsized role in leading the US to victory in WWII: Eddy laid the groundwork for the Allied invasion of North Africa, while Birch led guerilla attacks against the Japanese and, eventually, Chinese Communists. After the war, some of them -- those who survived -- helped launch the Central Intelligence Agency, so that their nation, and American Christianity, could maintain a strong presence throughout the rest of the world. Surprising and absorbing at every turn, Double Crossedis an untold story of World War II spycraft and a profound account of the compromises and doubts that war forces on those who wage it.
'Pulse-pounding' Sinclair McKay | 'Truly masterful' Damien Lewis | 'Who needs spy fiction, when fact can provide as thrilling a story as this?' Lindsey Hilsum The Spymaster of Baghdad is the gripping story of the top-secret Iraqi intelligence unit that infiltrated the Islamic State. More so than that of any foreign power, the information they gathered turned the tide against the insurgency, paving the way to the killing of ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi in 2019. Against the backdrop of the most brutal conflict of recent decades, we chart the spymaster's struggle to develop the unit from scratch in challenging circumstances after the American invasion of Iraq in 2003, we follow the fraught relationship of two of his agents, the al-Sudani brothers - one undercover in ISIS for sixteen long months, the other his handler - and we track a disillusioned scientist as she turns bomb-maker, threatening the lives of thousands. With unprecedented access to characters on all sides, Pulitzer Prize-finalist Margaret Coker challenges the conventional view that Western coalition forces defeated ISIS and reveals a page-turning story of unlikely heroes, unbelievable courage and good old-fashioned spycraft. 'Moving, visceral, utterly revelatory. A stunning tour de force by an author who has lived every word of it on the ground' Damien Lewis, author of Zero Six Bravo 'This compelling account of how Iraqi agents infiltrated ISIS takes us deep beneath the lurid headlines and into a sharply focused world of courage, ingenuity, terror and love' Sinclair McKay, author of Dresden 'In Margaret Coker's deeply reported, unputdownable account, the previously unknown Iraqi heros of the war against the Islamic State turn out to be braver than Bond and as subtle as Smiley' Lindsey Hilsum, author of In Extremis 'We all owe a debt of gratitude to the Falcons Unit for their important role in the fight against the most lethal terrorist group of our time' Anne Speckhard, Director of the International Center for the Study of Violent Extremism
This book discusses the application of hypothesis testing to the practice of intelligence analysis. By drawing on longstanding procedures of scientific method, particularly hypothesis testing, this book strongly critiques standard intelligence analytic practices. It shows these practices to be inadequate, as they are illogical in terms of what formal philosophy says any intelligence analysts can realistically be expected to know, and for the future when analysts will face pressures to adapt to digital age modeling techniques. The methodology focuses on identifying and remedying analytic errors caused by analyst cognitive biases and by foreign denial and deception. To demonstrate that it is a practical tool, it walks analysts through a case study, step by step, to show how its hypothesis testing can be implemented. It also invites a comparative test in the real world with any other intelligence methodologies to assess its strengths and weaknesses in predicting the outcome of an actual "live" intelligence issue. This book will be of much interest to students of intelligence studies, public policy and national security, as well as practitioners.
This text draws together the various strands of Irish national security policy and practice in a single chronological study, from independence in 1922, analyzing the rapid emergence of a complex external security policy combining an absolute commitment to military neutrality and independent defence. The author traces the development of the army and police force in the new Irish state and the close co-operation with Britain over issues of joint concern such as security and immigration. He also examines the state's reaction to the enduring republican threat, casting fresh light on how far the state was willing to put key constitutional protections into abeyance in its conflict with the republican movement. The book also examines the clandestine intelligence activities of belligerent powers during the World War II, documenting the growth of the state's close wartime security understandings with the Allied powers, and the evolution of Cold War links with MI5 and the CIA. This book is intended for general readers of Irish history and scholars and students of 20th-century British and Irish history, and of politics and international relations.
Top analyst Leslie Gruis's timely new book argues that privacy is an individual right and democratic value worth preserving, even in a cyberized world. Since the time of the printing press, technology has played a key role in the evolution of individual rights and helped privacy emerge as a formal legal concept. All governments exercise extraordinary powers during national security crises. In the United States, many imminent threats during the twentieth century induced heightened government intrusion into the privacy of Americans. The Privacy Act of 1974 and the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA, 1978) reversed that trend. Other laws protect the private information of individuals held in specific sectors of the commercial world. Risk management practices were extended to computer networks, and standards for information system security began to emerge. The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) incorporated many such standards into its Cybersecurity Framework, and is currently developing a Privacy Framework. These standards all contribute to a patchwork of privacy protection which, so far, falls far short of what the U.S. constitutional promise offers and what our public badly needs. Greater privacy protections for U.S. citizens will come as long as Americans remember how democracy and privacy sustain one another, and demonstrate their commitment to them.
"Remember, you are not going out there to start a war," Rear Admiral Frank Johnson reminded Commander Pete Bucher just prior to the maiden voyage of the U.S.S. Pueblo. And yet a war--one that might have gone nuclear--was what nearly happened when the Pueblo was attacked and captured by North Korean gunships in January 1968. Diplomacy prevailed in the end, but not without great cost to the lives of the imprisoned crew and to a nation already mired in an unwinnable war in Vietnam. The Pueblo was an aging cargo ship poorly refurbished as a signals intelligence collector for the top-secret Operation Clickbeetle. It was sent off with a first-time captain, an inexperienced crew, and no back-up, and was captured well before the completion of its first mission. Ignored for a quarter of a century, the Pueblo incident has been the subject of much polemic but no scholarly scrutiny. Mitchell Lerner now examines for the first time the details of this crisis and uses the incident as a window through which to better understand the limitations of American foreign policy during the Cold War. Drawing on thousands of pages of recently declassified documents from President Lyndon Johnson's administration, along with dozens of interviews with those involved, Lerner provides the most complete and accurate account of the Pueblo incident. He weaves on a grand scale a dramatic story of international relations, presidential politics, covert intelligence, capture on the high seas, and secret negotiations. At the same time, he highlights the very intimate struggles of the Pueblo's crew-through capture, imprisonment, indoctrination, torture, and release-and the still smoldering controversy over Commander Bucher's actions. In fact, Bucher emerges here for the first time as the truly steadfast hero his men have always considered him. More than an account of misadventure, The Pueblo Incident is an indictment of Cold War mentality that shows how the premises underlying the Pueblo's risky mission and the ensuing efforts to win the release of her crew were seriously flawed. Lerner argues that had U.S. policymakers regarded the North Koreans as people with a national agenda rather than one serving a global Communist conspiracy, they might have avoided the crisis or resolved it more effectively. He also addresses such unanswered questions as what the Pueblo's mission exactly was, why the ship had no military support, and how damaging the intelligence loss was to national security. With North Korea still seen as a rogue state by some policymakers, "The Pueblo Incident" provides key insights into the domestic imperatives behind that country's foreign relations. It astutely assesses the place of gunboat diplomacy in the modern world and is vital for understanding American foreign policy failures in the Cold War.
In 1942, Lieutenant-Commander Ian Fleming was personal assistant to the Director of Naval Intelligence - the dynamic figure behind James Bond's fictional chief, 'M'. Here, Fleming had a brilliant idea: why not set up a unit of authorised looters, men who would go in hard with the front-line troops and steal enemy intelligence? Known as '30 Assault Unit', they took part in the major campaigns of the Second World War, landing on the Normandy beaches and helping to liberate Paris. 30AU's final amazing coup was to seize the entire archives of the German Navy - thirty tons of documents. Ian Fleming flew out in person to get the loot back to Britain, where it was combed for evidence to use in the Nuremburg trials. In this gripping and highly enjoyable book, Nicholas Rankin, author of the best-selling Churchill's Wizards, puts 30 Assault Unit's fascinating story in a strategic and intelligence context. He also argues that Ian Fleming's Second World War service was one of the most significant periods of his life - without this, the most popular spy fiction of the twentieth century would not have been written. |
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