The Spy Who Changed the World

Author: Mike Rossiter
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1510726756
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 394

Book Description
The incredible true story of a British physicist who was an undercover spy for the Soviets. The world first heard of Klaus Fuchs, the head of theoretical physics at the British Research Establishment at Harwell in February 1950 when he appeared at the Old Bailey, accused of passing secrets to the Soviet Union. For over sixty years disinformation and lies surrounded the story of Klaus Fuchs as the Governments of Britain, the United States and Russia all tried to cover up the truth about his treachery. Piecing together the story from archives in Britain, the United States, Russia and Germany, The Spy Who Changed the World unravels the truth about Fuchs and reveals for the first time his long career of espionage. It proves that he played a pivotal role in Britain's bomb program in the race to keep up with the United States in the atomic age, and that he revealed vital secrets about the atom bomb, as well as the immensely destructive hydrogen bomb to the Soviet Government. It is a dramatic tale of clandestine meetings, deadly secrets, family entanglements and illicit love affairs, all set against the tumultuous years from the rise of Hitler to the start of the Cold War.

The Spy Who Changed History: The Untold Story of How the Soviet Union Won the Race for America’s Top Secrets

Author: Svetlana Lokhova
Publisher: HarperCollins UK
ISBN: 000823812X
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 409

Book Description
‘A superbly researched and groundbreaking account of Soviet espionage in the Thirties ... remarkable’ 5* review, Telegraph On the trail of Soviet infiltrator Agent Blériot, in this bestseller, Svetlana Lokhova takes the reader on a thrilling journey through Stalin’s most audacious intelligence operation.

The Spy who Saved the World

Author: Jerrold L. Schecter
Publisher: Potomac Books Incorporated
ISBN: 9781574880465
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 488

Book Description
A true story detailing how the CIA runs its agents, and how brutally the KGB hunts down its turncoats

Atomic Spy

Author: Nancy Thorndike Greenspan
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 0593083415
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 416

Book Description
"Nancy Greenspan dives into the mysteries of the Klaus Fuchs espionage case and emerges with a classic Cold War biography of intrigue and torn loyalties. Atomic Spy is a mesmerizing morality tale, told with fresh sources and empathy." --Kai Bird, author of The Good Spy and coauthor of American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer "Enthralling and riveting."--The New York Times Book Review The gripping biography of a notorious Cold War villain--the German-born British scientist who handed the Soviets top-secret American plans for the plutonium bomb--showing a man torn between conventional loyalties and a sense of obligation to a greater good. German by birth, British by naturalization, Communist by conviction, Klaus Fuchs was a fearless Nazi resister, a brilliant scientist, and an infamous spy. He was convicted of espionage by Britain in 1950 for handing over the designs of the plutonium bomb to the Russians, and has gone down in history as one of the most dangerous agents in American and British history. He put an end to America's nuclear hegemony and single-handedly heated up the Cold War. But, was Klaus Fuchs really evil? Using archives long hidden in Germany as well as intimate family correspondence, Nancy Thorndike Greenspan brings into sharp focus the moral and political ambiguity of the times in which Fuchs lived and the ideals with which he struggled. As a university student in Germany, he stood up to Nazi terror without flinching, and joined the Communists largely because they were the only ones resisting the Nazis. After escaping to Britain in 1933, he was arrested as a German émigré--an "enemy alien"--in 1940 and sent to an internment camp in Canada. His mentor at university, renowned physicist Max Born, worked to facilitate his release. After years of struggle and ideological conflict, when Fuchs joined the atomic bomb project, his loyalties were firmly split. He started handing over top secret research to the Soviets in 1941, and continued for years from deep within the Manhattan Project at Los Alamos. Greenspan's insights into his motivations make us realize how he was driven not just by his Communist convictions but seemingly by a dedication to peace, seeking to level the playing field of the world powers. With thrilling detail from never-before-seen sources, Atomic Spy travels across the Germany of an ascendant Nazi party; the British university classroom of Max Born; a British internment camp in Canada; the secret laboratories of Los Alamos; and Eastern Germany at the height of the Cold War. Atomic Spy shows the real Klaus Fuchs--who he was, what he did, why he did it, and how he was caught. His extraordinary life is a cautionary tale about the ambiguity of morality and loyalty, as pertinent today as in the 1940s.

The Spy and the Traitor

Author: Ben Macintyre
Publisher: Crown
ISBN: 1101904208
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 417

Book Description
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • The celebrated author of Double Cross and Rogue Heroes returns with a thrilling Americans-era tale of Oleg Gordievsky, the Russian whose secret work helped hasten the end of the Cold War. “The best true spy story I have ever read.”—JOHN LE CARRÉ Named a Best Book of the Year by The Economist • Shortlisted for the Bailie Giffords Prize in Nonfiction If anyone could be considered a Russian counterpart to the infamous British double-agent Kim Philby, it was Oleg Gordievsky. The son of two KGB agents and the product of the best Soviet institutions, the savvy, sophisticated Gordievsky grew to see his nation's communism as both criminal and philistine. He took his first posting for Russian intelligence in 1968 and eventually became the Soviet Union's top man in London, but from 1973 on he was secretly working for MI6. For nearly a decade, as the Cold War reached its twilight, Gordievsky helped the West turn the tables on the KGB, exposing Russian spies and helping to foil countless intelligence plots, as the Soviet leadership grew increasingly paranoid at the United States's nuclear first-strike capabilities and brought the world closer to the brink of war. Desperate to keep the circle of trust close, MI6 never revealed Gordievsky's name to its counterparts in the CIA, which in turn grew obsessed with figuring out the identity of Britain's obviously top-level source. Their obsession ultimately doomed Gordievsky: the CIA officer assigned to identify him was none other than Aldrich Ames, the man who would become infamous for secretly spying for the Soviets. Unfolding the delicious three-way gamesmanship between America, Britain, and the Soviet Union, and culminating in the gripping cinematic beat-by-beat of Gordievsky's nail-biting escape from Moscow in 1985, Ben Macintyre's latest may be his best yet. Like the greatest novels of John le Carré, it brings readers deep into a world of treachery and betrayal, where the lines bleed between the personal and the professional, and one man's hatred of communism had the power to change the future of nations.

The Secret World

Author: Christopher Andrew
Publisher: Yale University Press
ISBN: 030024052X
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 1019

Book Description
“A comprehensive exploration of spying in its myriad forms from the Bible to the present day . . . Easy to dip into, and surprisingly funny.” —Ben Macintyre in The New York Times Book Review The history of espionage is far older than any of today’s intelligence agencies, yet largely forgotten. The codebreakers at Bletchley Park, the most successful WWII intelligence agency, were completely unaware that their predecessors had broken the codes of Napoleon during the Napoleonic wars and those of Spain before the Spanish Armada. Those who do not understand past mistakes are likely to repeat them. Intelligence is a prime example. At the outbreak of WWI, the grasp of intelligence shown by US President Woodrow Wilson and British Prime Minister Herbert Asquith was not in the same class as that of George Washington during the Revolutionary War and eighteenth-century British statesmen. In the first global history of espionage ever written, distinguished historian and New York Times–bestselling author Christopher Andrew recovers much of the lost intelligence history of the past three millennia—and shows us its continuing relevance. “Accurate, comprehensive, digestible and startling . . . a stellar achievement.” —Edward Lucas, The Times “For anyone with a taste for wide-ranging and shrewdly gossipy history—or, for that matter, for anyone with a taste for spy stories—Andrew’s is one of the most entertaining books of the past few years.” —Adam Gopnik, The New Yorker “Remarkable for its scope and delightful for its unpredictable comparisons . . . there are important lessons for spymasters everywhere in this breathtaking and brilliant book.” —Richard J. Aldrich, Times Literary Supplement “Fans of Fleming and Furst will delight in this skillfully related true-fact side of the story.” —Kirkus Reviews “A crowning triumph of one of the most adventurous scholars of the security world.” —Financial Times Includes illustrations

Sacred Secrets

Author: Jerrold L. Schecter
Publisher: Potomac Books
ISBN:
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 664

Book Description
Analyzes how government secrets, such as President Truman??'s decision to make a sacred secret of the Venona intercepts, distort politics and our understanding of history

Spies and Scholars

Author: Gregory Afinogenov
Publisher: Belknap Press
ISBN: 0674241851
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 385

Book Description
A Financial Times Best Book of the Year The untold story of how Russian espionage in imperial China shaped the emergence of the Russian Empire as a global power. From the seventeenth to the nineteenth century, the Russian Empire made concerted efforts to collect information about China. It bribed Chinese porcelain-makers to give up trade secrets, sent Buddhist monks to Mongolia on intelligence-gathering missions, and trained students at its Orthodox mission in Beijing to spy on their hosts. From diplomatic offices to guard posts on the Chinese frontier, Russians were producing knowledge everywhere, not only at elite institutions like the Academy of Sciences in St. Petersburg. But that information was secret, not destined for wide circulation. Gregory Afinogenov distinguishes between the kinds of knowledge Russia sought over the years and argues that they changed with the shifting aims of the state and its perceived place in the world. In the seventeenth century, Russian bureaucrats were focused on China and the forbidding Siberian frontier. They relied more on spies, including Jesuit scholars stationed in China. In the early nineteenth century, the geopolitical challenge shifted to Europe: rivalry with Britain drove the Russians to stake their prestige on public-facing intellectual work, and knowledge of the East was embedded in the academy. None of these institutional configurations was especially effective in delivering strategic or commercial advantages. But various knowledge regimes did have their consequences. Knowledge filtered through Russian espionage and publication found its way to Europe, informing the encounter between China and Western empires. Based on extensive archival research in Russia and beyond, Spies and Scholars breaks down long-accepted assumptions about the connection between knowledge regimes and imperial power and excavates an intellectual legacy largely neglected by historians.

Spy Satellites and Other Intelligence Technologies That Changed History

Author: Thomas Graham
Publisher: Donald R. Ellegood Internation
ISBN: 9780295997216
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 0

Book Description
Much has been said and written about the failure of U.S. intelligence to prevent the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001, and its overestimation of Iraq's weapons of mass destruction under Saddam Hussein. This book focuses instead on the central role that intelligence-collection systems play in promoting arms control and disarmament. Ambassador Thomas Graham Jr. and Keith Hansen bring more than fifty combined years of experience to this discussion of the capabilities of technical systems, which are primarily based in space. Their history of the rapid advancement of surveillance technology is a window into a dramatic reconceptualization of Cold War strategies and policy planning. Graham and Hansen focus on the intelligence successes against Soviet strategic nuclear forces and the quality of the intelligence that has made possible accurate assessments of WMD programs in North Korea, Iran, and Libya. Their important insights shed a much-needed light on the process of verifying how the world harnesses the proliferation of nuclear arms and the continual drive for advancements in technology.

Operation Mincemeat

Author: Ben Macintyre
Publisher: Crown
ISBN: 0307453294
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 434

Book Description
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • NOW A NETFLIX FILM STARRING COLIN FIRTH • The “brilliant and almost absurdly entertaining” (Malcolm Gladwell, The New Yorker) true story of the most successful—and certainly the strangest—deception carried out in World War II, from the acclaimed author of The Spy and the Traitor “Pure catnip to fans of World War II thrillers and a lot of fun for everyone else.”—Joseph Kanon, The Washington Post Book World Near the end of World War II, two British naval officers came up with a brilliant and slightly mad scheme to mislead the Nazi armies about where the Allies would attack southern Europe. To carry out the plan, they would have to rely on the most unlikely of secret agents: a dead man. Ben Macintyre’s dazzling, critically acclaimed bestseller chronicles the extraordinary story of what happened after British officials planted this dead body—outfitted in a British military uniform with a briefcase containing false intelligence documents—in Nazi territory, and how this secret mission fooled Hitler into changing military positioning, paving the way for the Allies’ drive to victory. NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY THE NEW YORK TIMES