Intelligence History

The Secrets of the FBI by New York Times best-selling author Ronald Kessler reveals the FBIs most closely guarded secrets and the secrets of celebrities, politicians, and movie stars uncovered by agents during their investigations.

Summertime, 1935. On a lake near Berlin, a young man is out sailing when he glimpses a woman reclining in the prow of a passing boat. Their eyes meet—and one of history’s greatest conspiracies is born.

We live in the age of the algorithm. Increasingly, the decisions that affect our lives—where we go to school, whether we get a loan, how much we pay for insurance—are being made not by humans, but by mathematical models. In theory, this should lead to greater fairness: everyone is judged according to the same rules and bias is eliminated. And yet, as Cathy O'Neil reveals in this urgent and necessary book, the opposite is true. The models being used today are opaque, unregulated and incontestable, even when they're wrong. Most troubling, they reinforce discrimination.

At Bletchley Park, some of Britain's most talented mathematicians, linguists, and intellectuals were assembled to break Nazi codes. It was kept secret for nearly 30 years, but we have now come to realize the crucial role that these codebreakers played in the Allied victory in World War II. Written by Dermot Turing - the nephew of famous codebreaker Alan Turing - this account provides unique insight into the behind-the-scenes action at Bletchley Park. This book brings to life the stories of the men and women who toiled day and night to crack the seemingly unbreakable enigma code.

The Economic Singularity is the time when most people cannot find employment, because machines can do everything that humans can do for money cheaper, faster, and better than they can. Some people say this will never happen, but most AI professionals think it will, although they disagree about when.

Throughout its 40-year history, the Islamic Republic of Iran has remained implacably opposed to the United States, our presence in the Middle East, and our support to Israel. While attempting to strengthen its deterrence against foreign attack and influence, Tehran has committed itself to becoming the dominant power in the turbulent and strategic Middle East. Its ambitions and identity as a largely Persian Shia power in a region composed of primarily Arab Sunni states often put it at odds with its neighbors.

In this gripping narrative history, Seth G. Jones reveals the CIA's involvement in a landmark victory for democracy during the Cold War. In 1983, while Soviet- backed Polish prime minister Wojciech Jaruzelski worked to crush a budding opposition movement through martial law, the CIA launched a sophisticated intelligence campaign supporting dissident groups. With President Ronald Reagan's support, American funds bankrolled clandestine newspapers, broadcasting, and information warfare. This initiative, code-named QRHELPFUL, proved vital in establishing a free and democratic Poland.

The world has entered a second nuclear age. For the first time since the end of the Cold War, the threat of nuclear annihilation is on the rise. Should such an assault occur, there is a strong likelihood that the trail of devastation will lead back to Abdul Qadeer Khan, the Pakistani father of the Islamic bomb and the mastermind behind a vast clandestine enterprise that has sold nuclear secrets to Iran, North Korea, and Libya.

On November 4, 1979, "student" supporters of the Ayatollah seized the U.S. Embassy with over sixty hostages. Although the Cold War was in full swing, the Iran hostage crisis was a watershed for the United States. Detachment A had been established in Berlin early in the Cold War to harass and delay any Soviet military advance west. This Special unit trained relentlessly for every aspect of unconventional warfare, and was later assigned a second mission of counterterrorism. Veteran and historian James Stejskal details Det A's unique and integral role in Operation Eagle Claw.

Guy Burgess was the most important, complex, and fascinating of "The Cambridge Spies" - Maclean, Philby, Blunt - 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 June 1952 a woman was murdered by an obsessed colleague in a hotel in the South Kensington district of London. Her name was Christine Granville. That she died young was perhaps unsurprising; that she had survived the Second World War was remarkable. The daughter of a feckless Polish aristocrat and his wealthy Jewish wife, Granville would become one of Britain's most daring and highly decorated special agents.

Many people today are so dazzled by the long-term potential for artificial intelligence that they overlook the much clearer and more immediate potential for a new form of "collective intelligence": the intelligence of groups of people and computers working together. In Superminds, Thomas Malone explains what we need to do to take advantage of this potential. Groundbreaking and utterly fascinating, Superminds will change the way you work - both with others and with computers - for the better.

The Genius Makers tells the story of AI from pioneering days to current achievements to future potential. At the same time it takes the lid off what has effectively become an arms race between Google, Microsoft, Facebook and OpenAI, in which Google may be the clear frontrunner at present, but Facebook has shown itself to be both nimble and innovative, and OpenAI, the company recently founded by Elon Musk and Sam Altman, has made itself the confident upstart of the pack.

Want to understand the future of AI? AI 2035 provides a clear and insightful look at how artificial intelligence will reshape our world by 2035. This book explores the key trends driving the AI revolution, offering a comprehensive overview of its potential impact on various aspects of our lives. From the rise of autonomous vehicles and smart cities to the transformation of work and the evolution of human-computer interaction, AI 2035 delves into the exciting possibilities that lie ahead.

In this rapid-paced book, a former CIA chief of Soviet bloc counterintelligence breaks open the mysterious case of KGB officer Yuri Nosenko's 1964 defection to the United States. Still a highly controversial chapter in the history of Cold War espionage, the Nosenko affair has inspired debate for more than 40 years. Was Nosenko a bona fide defector with the real information about Lee Harvey Oswald's stay in Soviet Russia, or was he a KGB loyalist, engaged in a complex game of deception?

Ten days before Christmas, 2010, ATF agent John Dodson awoke to the news he had dreaded every day as a member of the elite team called the Group VII Strike Force: a US border patrol agent named Brian Terry had been shot dead by bandits armed with guns that had been supplied to them by ATF. Was this an inevitable consequence of the Obama administration's Project Gunrunner, set in place one year earlier, ostensibly to track Mexican drug cartels?

World War II stood apart in many ways from every earlier war. The responsibility for mounting an attack on American industry was given to the German military secret intelligence service, the Abwehr, which devised a plan to land saboteurs in America to attack factories, railroads, and perhaps conduct a random bombing campaign against American civilians. The Nazi plan was given the codename of Operation Pastorius, and it was launched in June 1942, just six months after Germany had declared war on America. What followed was one of World War II’s most bizarre spy stories.

Decorated army officer Major Ed Dames tells the shocking true story of his time asoperations and training officer for the Defense Intelligence Agency's top-secret Psychic Intelligence Unit. Together with his PSI Spyteam, Dames used the practice of remote viewing to uncover accurate and verifiable military intelligence by going where no intel operatives on the ground could go - into the very mind of the enemy.

Keith Jeffery’s fascinating and revealing account draws on a wealth of archival materials never before seen by any outsider to unveil the inner workings of the world’s first spy agency. Britain’s Secret Intelligence Service—or MI6—was born a century ago amid rising fears of foreign military powers, especially Germany. The next 40 years saw MI6 taking an increasingly important—and, until now, largely hidden—role in shaping the history of Europe and the world.

With predictions of AI global market value reaching an unbelievable $190 billion by 2030, this is a 21st-century marvel you definitely do not want to miss out on. This two-part series will take you by the hand to explore and expand on everything that AI has to offer so that you can harness its limitless potential for your productivity and business needs. Take a lightspeed leap of leveraging the power of AI, from basics to innovative business solutions.