Spy Memoir

In the famous photograph of the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. on the balcony of Memphis’s Lorraine Motel, one man kneeled down beside King, trying to staunch the blood from his fatal head wound with a borrowed towel. This kneeling man was a member of the Invaders, an activist group that was in talks with King in the days leading up to the murder. But he also had another identity: an undercover Memphis police officer reporting on the activities of this group, which was thought to be possibly dangerous and potentially violent. This kneeling man is Leta McCollough Seletzky’s father.

Sulick reveals six fundamental elements of espionage in these stories: the motivations that drove them to spy; their access and the secrets they betrayed; their tradecraft, i.e., the techniques of concealing their espionage; their exposure; their punishment; and, finally, the damage they inflicted on America's national security.

Born a privileged child of America’s Gilded Age, Marguerite Harrison rebelled against her mother’s ambitions, married the man she loved, was widowed at thirty-seven, and set off on a life of adventure. Hired as a society reporter, when America entered World War I she applied to Military Intelligence to work as a spy. Over a decade, Harrison’s mysterious adventures took her to Europe, Baghdad, and the Far East, as a socialite, secret agent, and documentary filmmaker. Janet Wallach captures Harrison’s daring and glamour in this stranger-than-fiction history of a woman drawn to the impossible.

Cambridge spy Guy Burgess was a supreme networker. He also set a gold standard for conflicts of interest, working variously for the BBC, MI5, MI6, the War Office, the Ministry of Information and the KGB. Yet Burgess was never challenged by Britain's spy catchers: his superiors were convinced he was too much of a liability to have been recruited by Moscow. Now, with a major new release of hundreds of files into the National Archives, Purvis and Hulbert reveal just how this charming establishment insider was able to fool everyone for so long.

Seventy-five years have passed since D-Day, the greatest seaborne invasion in history. The outcome of the Second World War hung in the balance on that chill June morning. Giles Milton’s bold new history narrates the day’s events through the tales of survivors from all sides: the teenage Allied conscript, the crack German defender, the French resistance fighter. Soldier, Sailor, Frogman, Spy, Airman, Gangster, Kill or Die lays bare the absolute terror of those trapped in the front line of Operation Overlord.

Call me naïve, but when I was a girl - watching James Bond and devouring Harriet the Spy - all I wanted was to grow up to be a spy. Unlike most kids, I didn't lose my secret-agent aspirations. So as a bright-eyed, idealistic college grad, I sent my resume to the CIA. Getting in was a story in itself.

Kim Philby, the so-called Third Man in the Cambridge spy ring, was the Cold War's most infamous traitor, a Soviet spy at the heart of British intelligence. Philby joined Britain's secret service MI6 during the war and went on to head the section tasked with rooting out Russian spies before becoming the service's chief liaison officer with the CIA. He betrayed hundreds of British and US agents to the Russians and compromised numerous operations inside the Soviet Union.

John (Jack) Downey, Jr., was a new Yale graduate in the post-World War II years who, like other Yale grads, was recruited by the young CIA. He joined the Agency and was sent to Japan in 1952, during the Korean War. In a violation of protocol, he took part in an air drop that failed and was captured over China. His sources on the ground had been compromised, and his identity was known. Although he first tried to deny who he was, he eventually admitted the truth. But government policy forbade ever acknowledging the identity of spies, no matter the consequences.

Donald Maclean was one of the most treacherous spies of the Cold War era, a member of the infamous "Cambridge Five" spy ring. Yet little is known of this shrewd, secretive man. The full extent of his betrayal has never been documented - until now. Drawing on the recent release of previously classified files, A Spy Named Orphan meticulously documents the extraordinary story of a man leading a chilling double life until his exposure and defection to the USSR.

For three nerve-wracking years, Naveed Jamali spied on America for the Russians, trading thumb drives of sensitive technical data for envelopes of cash, selling out his own beloved country across noisy restaurant tables and in quiet parking lots. Or so the Russians believed. In fact this young American civilian was a covert double agent working with the FBI. The Cold War wasn't really over. It had just gone high tech.

Just days after the 9-11 attacks, a senior Pentagon analyst eased her red Toyota Echo into traffic and headed to work. She never saw the undercover cars tracking her every turn. As she settled into her cubicle on the 6th floor of the Defense Intelligence Agency in Washington, FBI Agents and twitchy DIA officers were hiding in nearby offices. For this was the day that Ana Montes--the US Intelligence Community superstar who had just won a prestigious fellowship at the CIA--was to be arrested and publicly exposed as a secret agent for Cuba.

Basada en hechos reales, Las alas del águila es una novela que ofrece emociones a raudales: la penetración secreta en un país peligroso y convulsionado, la dramática fuga de una cárcel y la azarosa huida hacia la frontera turca. Disfrútala ya en versión audiolibro.

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?

Discover how brave and daring female spies crossed enemy borders and infiltrated countries as they couriered military and political secrets. Many officers were usually unsuspecting of the women they met in brothels and late-night cafés. These female spies excelled at wheedling secrets out of high officials through their powers of seduction.

Written by one of its own graduates, Class 11: Inside the CIA's First Post-9/11 Spy Class is an insider's view of the first CIA training class after September 11, 2001 - a look at the most elite and secretive espionage training program in the country.

Spies on Trial brings the listener fast-paced stories of foreign spies engaged in daring deeds of sleuthing that undoubtedly have more than their fair share of intriguing moments. But nowhere is this suspense more intense than inside the courtroom, where the drama of intense covert activities is fully unfurled, offering fascinating glimpses into this vast and nefarious underground world of international espionage.

As an MI6 spy—known as secret agent A12—in Berlin in 1919, he evaded gunfire and shook off pursuers to break open the emerging Nazi conspiracy. His reports, the first warning of the Nazi plot for World War II, went directly to the man known as C, the mysterious founder of MI6, as well as to various prime ministers. But a powerful fascist politician quietly worked to suppress his alerts. Nevertheless, Dr. Bell’s intelligence sabotaged the Nazis in ways only now revealed in Cracking the Nazi Code.

The abolitionist legacies of Orville Brown and his son, Spencer, live on in this historic and daring 19th-century account. Journeying apart from each other, but with similar passion, Orville and Spencer's stories span virtually every major abolitionist event: from the battles of Bleeding Kansas and the establishment of the free-soil movement to the river wars of Memphis, Vicksburg, and Shiloh. Listeners will follow Orville west as he strikes out for Kansas Territory to help ensure its entry as a free state.

This is the story of the most dangerous triple-agent in US history. Peter Lance, author of the highly acclaimed 1000 Years for Revenge and Cover Up, returns to uncover the story of Ali Mohamed, a trusted security advisor of Osama bin Laden who hoodwinked the United States for more than a decade. As Lance reveals for this first time, this one man served in a series of high-security position within the United States security establishment, as a Special Forces advisor, FBI informant, and CIA operative.

Today's global economy has a dark underbelly. Using cutting-edge technology and age-old techniques of deceit and manipulation, corporate spies are the hidden puppeteers of globalized business. In his gripping, alarming exposé, Eamon Javers recounts the sordid history of this hidden world - from Allan Pinkerton, the nation's first "private eye" through Howard Hughes's private CIA, to the shocking realities of a vast modern-day spying network with tentacles reaching into virtually every corner of the globe.