Story Of Ten Greatest Spies

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Washington's Spies

Author : Alexander Rose
Publisher : Bantam
ISBN 13 : 055339259X
Total Pages : 402 pages
Book Rating : 4.5/5 (533 download)

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Book Synopsis Washington's Spies by : Alexander Rose

Download or read book Washington's Spies written by Alexander Rose and published by Bantam. This book was released on 2014-03-25 with total page 402 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • Turn: Washington’s Spies, now an original series on AMC Based on remarkable new research, acclaimed historian Alexander Rose brings to life the true story of the spy ring that helped America win the Revolutionary War. For the first time, Rose takes us beyond the battlefront and deep into the shadowy underworld of double agents and triple crosses, covert operations and code breaking, and unmasks the courageous, flawed men who inhabited this wilderness of mirrors—including the spymaster at the heart of it all. In the summer of 1778, with the war poised to turn in his favor, General George Washington desperately needed to know where the British would strike next. To that end, he unleashed his secret weapon: an unlikely ring of spies in New York charged with discovering the enemy’s battle plans and military strategy. Washington’s small band included a young Quaker torn between political principle and family loyalty, a swashbuckling sailor addicted to the perils of espionage, a hard-drinking barkeep, a Yale-educated cavalryman and friend of the doomed Nathan Hale, and a peaceful, sickly farmer who begged Washington to let him retire but who always came through in the end. Personally guiding these imperfect everyday heroes was Washington himself. In an era when officers were gentlemen, and gentlemen didn’ t spy, he possessed an extraordinary talent for deception—and proved an adept spymaster. The men he mentored were dubbed the Culper Ring. The British secret service tried to hunt them down, but they escaped by the closest of shaves thanks to their ciphers, dead drops, and invisible ink. Rose’s thrilling narrative tells the unknown story of the Revolution–the murderous intelligence war, gunrunning and kidnapping, defectors and executioners—that has never appeared in the history books. But Washington’s Spies is also a spirited, touching account of friendship and trust, fear and betrayal, amid the dark and silent world of the spy.

The Spy and the Traitor

Author : Ben Macintyre
Publisher : Crown
ISBN 13 : 1101904208
Total Pages : 417 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (19 download)

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Book Synopsis The Spy and the Traitor by : Ben Macintyre

Download or read book The Spy and the Traitor written by Ben Macintyre and published by Crown. This book was released on 2018-09-18 with total page 417 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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.

M. Butterfly

Author : David Henry Hwang
Publisher : Penguin
ISBN 13 : 1101077034
Total Pages : 113 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (1 download)

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Book Synopsis M. Butterfly by : David Henry Hwang

Download or read book M. Butterfly written by David Henry Hwang and published by Penguin. This book was released on 1993-10-01 with total page 113 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: David Henry Hwang’s beautiful, heartrending play featuring an afterword by the author – winner of a 1988 Tony Award for Best Play and nominated for the 1989 Pulitzer Prize Based on a true story that stunned the world, M. Butterfly opens in the cramped prison cell where diplomat Rene Gallimard is being held captive by the French government—and by his own illusions. In the darkness of his cell he recalls a time when desire seemed to give him wings. A time when Song Liling, the beautiful Chinese diva, touched him with a love as vivid, as seductive—and as elusive—as a butterfly. How could he have known, then, that his ideal woman was, in fact, a spy for the Chinese government—and a man disguised as a woman? In a series of flashbacks, the diplomat relives the twenty-year affair from the temptation to the seduction, from its consummation to the scandal that ultimately consumed them both. But in the end, there remains only one truth: Whether or not Gallimard's passion was a flight of fancy, it sparked the most vigorous emotions of his life. Only in real life could love become so unreal. And only in such a dramatic tour de force do we learn how a fantasy can become a man's mistress—as well as his jailer. M. Butterfly is one of the most compelling, explosive, and slyly humorous dramas ever to light the Broadway stage, a work of unrivaled brilliance, illuminating the conflict between men and women, the differences between East and West, racial stereotypes—and the shadows we cast around our most cherished illusions. M. Butterfly remains one of the most influential romantic plays of contemporary literature, and in 1993 was made into a film by David Cronenberg starring Jeremy Irons and John Lone.

Undercover Washington

Author : Pamela Kessler
Publisher : Capital Books
ISBN 13 : 9781931868976
Total Pages : 196 pages
Book Rating : 4.8/5 (689 download)

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Book Synopsis Undercover Washington by : Pamela Kessler

Download or read book Undercover Washington written by Pamela Kessler and published by Capital Books. This book was released on 2004-11 with total page 196 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Step into the life of a spy! Follow some of history's most infamous espionage agents in their travels and exploits in and around our Nation's Capital.

Ace of Spies

Author : Andrew Cook
Publisher : The History Press
ISBN 13 : 0752469533
Total Pages : 387 pages
Book Rating : 4.7/5 (524 download)

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Book Synopsis Ace of Spies by : Andrew Cook

Download or read book Ace of Spies written by Andrew Cook and published by The History Press. This book was released on 2011-08-26 with total page 387 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Ace of Spies reveals for the first time the true story of Sidney Reilly, the real-life inspiration behind fictional hero James Bond. Andrew Cook's startling biography cuts through the myths to tell the full story of the greatest spy the world has ever know. Sidney Reilly influenced world history through acts of extraordinary courage and sheer audacity. He was a master spy, a brilliant con man, a charmer, a cad and a lovable rogue who lived on his wits and thrived on danger, using women shamelessly and killing where necessary - and unnecessary. Sidney Reilly is one of the most fascinating spies of the twentieth century, yet he remains one of the most enigmatic - until now.

Agent Zigzag

Author : Ben Macintyre
Publisher : Crown
ISBN 13 : 0307405508
Total Pages : 400 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (74 download)

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Book Synopsis Agent Zigzag by : Ben Macintyre

Download or read book Agent Zigzag written by Ben Macintyre and published by Crown. This book was released on 2007-09-04 with total page 400 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “Ben Macintyre’s rollicking, spellbinding Agent Zigzag blends the spy-versus-spy machinations of John le Carré with the high farce of Evelyn Waugh.”—William Grimes, The New York Times (Editors’ Choice) “Wildly improbable but entirely true . . . [a] compellingly cinematic spy thriller with verve.”—Entertainment Weekly ONE OF THE TEN BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR: Entertainment Weekly ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR: The New York Times Book Review, The Washington Post Eddie Chapman was a charming criminal, a con man, and a philanderer. He was also one of the most remarkable double agents Britain has ever produced. In 1941, after training as German spy in occupied France, Chapman was parachuted into Britain with a revolver, a wireless, and a cyanide pill, with orders from the Abwehr to blow up an airplane factory. Instead, he contacted M15, the British Secret service, and for the next four years, Chapman worked as a double agent, a lone British spy at the heart of the German Secret Service. Inside the traitor was a man of loyalty; inside the villain was a hero. The problem for Chapman, his spymasters, and his lovers was to know where one persona ended and the other began. Based on recently declassified files, Agent Zigzag tells Chapman’s full story for the first time. It’s a gripping tale of loyalty, love, treachery, espionage, and the thin and shifting line between fidelity and betrayal.

Spies, Lies, and Algorithms

Author : Amy B. Zegart
Publisher : Princeton University Press
ISBN 13 : 0691147132
Total Pages : 424 pages
Book Rating : 4.6/5 (911 download)

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Book Synopsis Spies, Lies, and Algorithms by : Amy B. Zegart

Download or read book Spies, Lies, and Algorithms written by Amy B. Zegart and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2022-02 with total page 424 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Intelligence challenges in the digital age : Cloaks, daggers, and tweets -- The education crisis : How fictional spies are shaping public opinion and intelligence policy -- American intelligence history at a glance-from fake bakeries to armed drones -- Intelligence basics : Knowns and unknowns -- Why analysis is so hard : The seven deadly biases -- Counterintelligence : To catch a spy -- Covert action - "a hard business of agonizing choices" -- Congressional oversight : Eyes on spies -- Intelligence isn't just for governments anymore : Nuclear sleuthing in a Google earth world -- Decoding cyber threats.

Family of Spies

Author : Pete Earley
Publisher : Bantam
ISBN 13 : 9780553282221
Total Pages : 486 pages
Book Rating : 4.2/5 (822 download)

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Book Synopsis Family of Spies by : Pete Earley

Download or read book Family of Spies written by Pete Earley and published by Bantam. This book was released on 1989 with total page 486 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: For seventeen years, John Walker sold many of America's most vital secrets to the Soviets, using accomplices and even members of his own family to help him do his dirty work. Here is the whole story--told in Walker's own words--that exposes the most important spy operation in KGB history.

The Scientist and the Spy

Author : Mara Hvistendahl
Publisher : Penguin
ISBN 13 : 0735214298
Total Pages : 338 pages
Book Rating : 4.7/5 (352 download)

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Book Synopsis The Scientist and the Spy by : Mara Hvistendahl

Download or read book The Scientist and the Spy written by Mara Hvistendahl and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2021-02-02 with total page 338 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A riveting true story of industrial espionage in which a Chinese-born scientist is pursued by the U.S. government for trying to steal trade secrets, by a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in nonfiction. In September 2011, sheriff’s deputies in Iowa encountered three ethnic Chinese men near a field where a farmer was growing corn seed under contract with Monsanto. What began as a simple trespassing inquiry mushroomed into a two-year FBI operation in which investigators bugged the men’s rental cars, used a warrant intended for foreign terrorists and spies, and flew surveillance planes over corn country—all in the name of protecting trade secrets of corporate giants Monsanto and DuPont Pioneer. In The Scientist and the Spy, Hvistendahl gives a gripping account of this unusually far-reaching investigation, which pitted a veteran FBI special agent against Florida resident Robert Mo, who after his academic career foundered took a questionable job with the Chinese agricultural company DBN—and became a pawn in a global rivalry. Industrial espionage by Chinese companies lies beneath the United States’ recent trade war with China, and it is one of the top counterintelligence targets of the FBI. But a decade of efforts to stem the problem have been largely ineffective. Through previously unreleased FBI files and her reporting from across the United States and China, Hvistendahl describes a long history of shoddy counterintelligence on China, much of it tinged with racism, and questions the role that corporate influence plays in trade secrets theft cases brought by the U.S. government. The Scientist and the Spy is both an important exploration of the issues at stake and a compelling, involving read.

Spy Sites of Washington, DC

Author : H. Keith Melton
Publisher : Georgetown University Press
ISBN 13 : 1626163820
Total Pages : 451 pages
Book Rating : 4.6/5 (261 download)

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Book Synopsis Spy Sites of Washington, DC by : H. Keith Melton

Download or read book Spy Sites of Washington, DC written by H. Keith Melton and published by Georgetown University Press. This book was released on 2017-04-01 with total page 451 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Washington Post Bestseller Washington, DC, stands at the epicenter of world espionage. Mapping this history from the halls of government to tranquil suburban neighborhoods reveals scoresof dead drops, covert meeting places, and secret facilities—a constellation ofclandestine sites unknown to even the most avid history buffs. Until now. Spy Sites of Washington, DC traces more than two centuries of secret history from the Mount Vernon study of spymaster George Washington to the Cleveland Park apartment of the “Queen of Cuba.” In 220 main entries as well as listings for dozens more spy sites, intelligence historians Robert Wallace and H. Keith Melton weave incredible true stories of derring-do and double-crosses that put even the best spy fiction to shame. Maps and more than three hundred photos allow readers to follow in the winding footsteps of moles and sleuths, trace the covert operations that influenced wars hot and cold, and understand the tradecraft traitors and spies alike used in the do-or-die chess games that have changed the course of history. Informing and entertaining, Spy Sites of Washington, DC is the comprehensive guidebook to the shadow history of our nation’s capital.

I Lie for a Living

Author : Antony Shugaar
Publisher : National Geographic Books
ISBN 13 : 9780792253167
Total Pages : 196 pages
Book Rating : 4.2/5 (531 download)

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Book Synopsis I Lie for a Living by : Antony Shugaar

Download or read book I Lie for a Living written by Antony Shugaar and published by National Geographic Books. This book was released on 2006 with total page 196 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Organized thematically into such categories as Femme Fatales or The Traitor Next Door, a collection of spy biographies portrays the lives and careers of masters of espionage from around the world, with profiles of Mata Hari, Christopher Marlowe, Graham Greene, Aldrich Aimes, Robert Hansson, and many others.

Best of Enemies

Author : Gus Russo
Publisher : Twelve
ISBN 13 : 1538761327
Total Pages : 403 pages
Book Rating : 4.5/5 (387 download)

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Book Synopsis Best of Enemies by : Gus Russo

Download or read book Best of Enemies written by Gus Russo and published by Twelve. This book was released on 2018-10-02 with total page 403 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The thrilling story of two Cold War spies, CIA case officer Jack Platt and KGB agent Gennady Vasilenko -- improbable friends at a time when they should have been anything but. In 1978, CIA maverick Jack Platt and KGB agent Gennady Vasilenko were new arrivals on the Washington, DC intelligence scene, with Jack working out of the CIA's counterintelligence office and Gennady out of the Soviet Embassy. Both men, already notorious iconoclasts within their respective agencies, were assigned to seduce the other into betraying his country in the urgent final days of the Cold War, but instead the men ended up becoming the best of friends-blood brothers. Theirs is a friendship that never should have happened, and their story is chock full of treachery, darkly comic misunderstandings, bureaucratic inanity, the Russian Mafia, and landmark intelligence breakthroughs of the past half century. In Best of Enemies, two espionage cowboys reveal how they became key behind-the-scenes players in solving some of the most celebrated spy stories of the twentieth century, including the crucial discovery of the Soviet mole Robert Hanssen, the 2010 Spy Swap which freed Gennady from Soviet imprisonment, and how Robert De Niro played a real-life role in helping Gennady stay alive during his incarceration in Russia after being falsely accused of spying for the Americans. Through their eyes, we see the distinctions between the Russian and American methods of conducting espionage and the painful birth of the new Russia, whose leader, Vladimir Putin, dreams he can roll back to the ideals of the old USSR.

Leaving Berlin

Author : Joseph Kanon
Publisher : Simon and Schuster
ISBN 13 : 147670466X
Total Pages : 384 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (767 download)

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Book Synopsis Leaving Berlin by : Joseph Kanon

Download or read book Leaving Berlin written by Joseph Kanon and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2015-03-03 with total page 384 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: New York Times Notable Book * Named one of NPR and Wall Street Journal's Best Books of the Year * The acclaimed author of The Good German “deftly captures the ambience” (The New York Times Book Review) of postwar East Berlin in his “thought-provoking, pulse-pounding” (Wall Street Journal) New York Times bestseller—a sweeping spy thriller about a city caught between political idealism and the harsh realities of Soviet occupation. Berlin, 1948. Almost four years after the war’s end, the city is still in ruins, a physical wasteland and a political symbol about to rupture. In the West, a defiant, blockaded city is barely surviving on airlifted supplies; in the East, the heady early days of political reconstruction are being undermined by the murky compromises of the Cold War. Espionage, like the black market, is a fact of life. Even culture has become a battleground, with German intellectuals being lured back from exile to add credibility to the competing sectors. Alex Meier, a young Jewish writer, fled the Nazis for America before the war. But the politics of his youth have now put him in the crosshairs of the McCarthy witch-hunts. Faced with deportation and the loss of his family, he makes a desperate bargain with the fledgling CIA: he will earn his way back to America by acting as their agent in his native Berlin. But almost from the start things go fatally wrong. A kidnapping misfires, an East German agent is killed, and Alex finds himself a wanted man. Worse, he discovers his real assignment—to spy on the woman he left behind, the only woman he has ever loved. Changing sides in Berlin is as easy as crossing a sector border. But where do we draw the lines of our moral boundaries? At betrayal? Survival? Murder? Joseph Kanon’s compelling thriller is a love story that brilliantly brings a shadowy period of history vividly to life.

Setting the East Ablaze

Author : Peter Hopkirk
Publisher : John Murray
ISBN 13 : 1848547250
Total Pages : 174 pages
Book Rating : 4.8/5 (485 download)

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Book Synopsis Setting the East Ablaze by : Peter Hopkirk

Download or read book Setting the East Ablaze written by Peter Hopkirk and published by John Murray. This book was released on 2012-02-16 with total page 174 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 'Let us turn our faces towards Asia', exhorted Lenin when the long-awaited revolution in Europe failed to materialize. 'The East will help us conquer the West.' Peter Hopkirk's book tells for the first time the story of the Bolshevik attempt to set the East ablaze with the heady new gospel of Marxism. Lenin's dream was to liberate the whole of Asia, but his starting point was British India. A shadowy undeclared war followed. Among the players in this new Great Game were British spies, Communist revolutionaries, Muslim visionaries and Chinese warlords - as well as a White Russian baron who roasted his Bolshevik captives alive. Here is an extraordinary tale of intrigue and treachery, barbarism and civil war, whose violent repercussions continue to be felt in Central Asia today.

Wolves at the Door

Author : Judith Pearson
Publisher : Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN 13 : 1493078682
Total Pages : 289 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (93 download)

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Book Synopsis Wolves at the Door by : Judith Pearson

Download or read book Wolves at the Door written by Judith Pearson and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2023-05-01 with total page 289 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Virginia Hall left her Baltimore home in 1931 to enter the Foreign Service and went to work for the British Special Operations Executive (SOE) when Hitler was building toward the peak of his power in Europe. She was assigned to France, where she helped the Resistance movement, escaped prisoners of war, and American Allied paratroopers. By 1942 she was considered so dangerous to the Gestapo that she had to escape over the Pyrenees mountains—on an artificial leg, no less. When she got to England, she was reassigned to France by the OSS, disguised as an old peasant woman. She helped capture 500 German soldiers and kill more than 150, while she sabotaged Nazi communications and transportation. Hitler's forces were hot on her trail, however, and her daring intelligence activities and indomitable spirit defied the expectations of even the Allies until the very end of the war. Her story was ignored for more than fifty years, and this book now brings Virginia Hall's story to patriots young and old.

Mission France

Author : Kate Vigurs
Publisher : Yale University Press
ISBN 13 : 0300258844
Total Pages : 352 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (2 download)

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Book Synopsis Mission France by : Kate Vigurs

Download or read book Mission France written by Kate Vigurs and published by Yale University Press. This book was released on 2021-05-18 with total page 352 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The full story of the thirty-nine female SOE agents who went undercover in France Formed in 1940, Special Operations Executive was to coordinate Resistance work overseas. The organization’s F section sent more than four hundred agents into France, thirty-nine of whom were women. But while some are widely known—Violette Szabo, Odette Sansom, Noor Inayat Khan—others have had their stories largely overlooked. Kate Vigurs interweaves for the first time the stories of all thirty-nine female agents. Tracing their journeys from early recruitment to work undertaken in the field, to evasion from, or capture by, the Gestapo, Vigurs shows just how greatly missions varied. Some agents were more adept at parachuting. Some agents’ missions lasted for years, others’ less than a few hours. Some survived, others were murdered. By placing the women in the context of their work with the SOE and the wider war, this history reveals the true extent of the differences in their abilities and attitudes while underlining how they nonetheless shared a common mission and, ultimately, deserve recognition.

King of Spies

Author : Blaine Harden
Publisher : Penguin
ISBN 13 : 0143128868
Total Pages : 274 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (431 download)

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Book Synopsis King of Spies by : Blaine Harden

Download or read book King of Spies written by Blaine Harden and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2018-10-02 with total page 274 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The New York Times bestselling author of Escape from Camp 14 returns with the untold story of one of the most powerful spies in American history, shedding new light on the U.S. role in the Korean War, and its legacy In 1946, master sergeant Donald Nichols was repairing jeeps on the sleepy island of Guam when he caught the eye of recruiters from the army's Counter Intelligence Corps. After just three months' training, he was sent to Korea, then considered a backwater and beneath the radar of MacArthur's Pacific Command. Though he lacked the pedigree of most U.S. spies—Nichols was a 7th grade dropout—he quickly metamorphosed from army mechanic to black ops phenomenon. He insinuated himself into the affections of America’s chosen puppet in South Korea, President Syngman Rhee, and became a pivotal player in the Korean War, warning months in advance about the North Korean invasion, breaking enemy codes, and identifying most of the targets destroyed by American bombs in North Korea. But Nichols's triumphs had a dark side. Immersed in a world of torture and beheadings, he became a spymaster with his own secret base, his own covert army, and his own rules. He recruited agents from refugee camps and prisons, sending many to their deaths on reckless missions. His closeness to Rhee meant that he witnessed—and did nothing to stop or even report—the slaughter of tens of thousands of South Korean civilians in anticommunist purges. Nichols’s clandestine reign lasted for an astounding eleven years. In this riveting book, Blaine Harden traces Nichols's unlikely rise and tragic ruin, from his birth in an operatically dysfunctional family in New Jersey to his sordid postwar decline, which began when the U.S. military sacked him in Korea, sent him to an air force psych ward in Florida, and subjected him—against his will—to months of electroshock therapy. But King of Spies is not just the story of one American spy. It is a groundbreaking work of narrative history that—at a time when North Korea is threatening the United States with long-range nuclear missiles—explains the origins of an intractable foreign policy mess.