-
A Brotherhood of Spies
- The U-2 and the CIA's Secret War
- Narrated by: Paul Michael
- Length: 14 hrs and 12 mins
Failed to add items
Add to Cart failed.
Add to Wish List failed.
Remove from wishlist failed.
Adding to library failed
Follow podcast failed
Unfollow podcast failed
Get 2 free audiobooks during trial.
Buy for $20.25
No default payment method selected.
We are sorry. We are not allowed to sell this product with the selected payment method
Publisher's summary
A thrilling dramatic narrative of the top-secret Cold War-era spy plane operation that transformed the CIA and brought the US and the Soviet Union to the brink of disaster
On May 1, 1960, an American U-2 spy plane was shot down over the Soviet Union just weeks before a peace summit between the two nations. The CIA concocted a cover story for President Eisenhower to deliver, assuring him that no one could have survived a fall from that altitude. And even if pilot Francis Gary Powers had survived, he had been supplied with a poison pin with which to commit suicide.
But against all odds, Powers emerged from the wreckage and was seized by the KGB. He confessed to espionage charges, revealing to the world that Eisenhower had just lied to the American people - and to the Soviet Premier. Infuriated, Nikita Khrushchev slammed the door on a rare opening in Cold War relations.
In A Brotherhood of Spies, award-winning journalist Monte Reel reveals how the U-2 spy program, principally devised by four men working in secret, upended the Cold War and carved a new mission for the CIA. This secret fraternity, made up of Edwin Land, best known as the inventor of instant photography and the head of Polaroid Corporation; Kelly Johnson, a hard-charging taskmaster from Lockheed; Richard Bissell, the secretive and ambitious spymaster; and ace Air Force flyer Powers, set out to replace yesterday's fallible human spies with tomorrow's undetectable eye in the sky. Their clandestine successes and all-too-public failures make this brilliantly reported account a true-life thriller with the highest stakes and tragic repercussions.
Listeners also enjoyed...
-
The Billion Dollar Spy
- A True Story of Cold War Espionage and Betrayal
- By: David E. Hoffman
- Narrated by: Dan Woren
- Length: 11 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
While getting into his car on the evening of February 16, 1978, the chief of the CIA's Moscow station was handed an envelope by an unknown Russian. Its contents stunned the Americans: details of top-secret Soviet research and development in military technology that was totally unknown to the United States.
-
-
Compelling as historical thriller, character study
- By Mr. Pointy on 08-25-15
By: David E. Hoffman
-
The Mysterious Case of Rudolf Diesel
- Genius, Power, and Deception on the Eve of World War I
- By: Douglas Brunt
- Narrated by: Scott Brick
- Length: 12 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
September 29, 1913: the steamship Dresden is halfway between Belgium and England. On board is one of the most famous men in the world, Rudolf Diesel, whose new internal combustion engine is on the verge of revolutionizing global industry forever. But Diesel never arrives at his destination. He vanishes during the night and headlines around the world wonder if it was an accident, suicide, or murder.
-
-
Great book!
- By Scott F on 09-24-23
By: Douglas Brunt
-
Elon Musk
- By: Walter Isaacson
- Narrated by: Jeremy Bobb, Walter Isaacson
- Length: 20 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
When Elon Musk was a kid in South Africa, he was regularly beaten by bullies. One day a group pushed him down some concrete steps and kicked him until his face was a swollen ball of flesh. He was in the hospital for a week. But the physical scars were minor compared to the emotional ones inflicted by his father, an engineer, rogue, and charismatic fantasist.
-
-
megalomania on display
- By JP on 09-12-23
By: Walter Isaacson
-
The Fourth Man
- The Hunt for a KGB Spy at the Top of the CIA and the Rise of Putin's Russia
- By: Robert Baer
- Narrated by: Robert Baer, Eric Jason Martin
- Length: 7 hrs and 46 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In the aftermath of the Cold War, American intelligence caught three high-profile Russian spies: Aldrich Ames, Edward Lee Howard, and Robert Hanssen. However, rumors have long swirled of another mole, one perhaps more damaging than all the others combined. Perhaps the greatest traitor in American history, perhaps a Russian ruse to tear the CIA apart, or perhaps nothing more than a bogeyman, he is often referred to as the Fourth Man.
-
-
A Who Done it without The Who Did it
- By Amazon Customer on 05-25-22
By: Robert Baer
-
The Final Witness
- By: Paul Landis
- Narrated by: Lane Hakel
- Length: 6 hrs and 44 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Dallas, Texas. November 22, 1963. Shots ring out at Dealey Plaza. The president is struck in the head by a rifle bullet. Confusion reigns. Special Agent Paul Landis is in the follow-up car directly behind JFK’s and is at the president’s limo as soon as it stops at Parkland Memorial Hospital. He is inside Trauma Room #1, where the president is pronounced dead. He is on Air Force One with the president’s casket on the flight back to Washington, DC, an eyewitness to Lyndon Johnson taking the oath of office. What he saw is indelibly imprinted upon his psyche.
-
-
Unique Perspective
- By PL on 12-04-23
By: Paul Landis
-
Area 51
- An Uncensored History of America's Top Secret Military Base
- By: Annie Jacobsen
- Narrated by: Annie Jacobsen
- Length: 16 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
It is the most famous military installation in the world. And it doesn't exist. Located a mere s75 miles outside of Las Vegas in Nevada's desert, the base has never been acknowledged by the US government - but Area 51 has captivated imaginations for decades. Annie Jacobsen had exclusive access to 19 men who served the base proudly and secretly for decades and are now aged 75-92, and unprecedented access to 55 additional military and intelligence personnel, scientists, pilots, and engineers linked to the secret base, 32 of whom lived and worked there for extended periods.
-
-
Disappointing
- By Mike From Mesa on 06-06-11
By: Annie Jacobsen
-
The Billion Dollar Spy
- A True Story of Cold War Espionage and Betrayal
- By: David E. Hoffman
- Narrated by: Dan Woren
- Length: 11 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
While getting into his car on the evening of February 16, 1978, the chief of the CIA's Moscow station was handed an envelope by an unknown Russian. Its contents stunned the Americans: details of top-secret Soviet research and development in military technology that was totally unknown to the United States.
-
-
Compelling as historical thriller, character study
- By Mr. Pointy on 08-25-15
By: David E. Hoffman
-
The Mysterious Case of Rudolf Diesel
- Genius, Power, and Deception on the Eve of World War I
- By: Douglas Brunt
- Narrated by: Scott Brick
- Length: 12 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
September 29, 1913: the steamship Dresden is halfway between Belgium and England. On board is one of the most famous men in the world, Rudolf Diesel, whose new internal combustion engine is on the verge of revolutionizing global industry forever. But Diesel never arrives at his destination. He vanishes during the night and headlines around the world wonder if it was an accident, suicide, or murder.
-
-
Great book!
- By Scott F on 09-24-23
By: Douglas Brunt
-
Elon Musk
- By: Walter Isaacson
- Narrated by: Jeremy Bobb, Walter Isaacson
- Length: 20 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
When Elon Musk was a kid in South Africa, he was regularly beaten by bullies. One day a group pushed him down some concrete steps and kicked him until his face was a swollen ball of flesh. He was in the hospital for a week. But the physical scars were minor compared to the emotional ones inflicted by his father, an engineer, rogue, and charismatic fantasist.
-
-
megalomania on display
- By JP on 09-12-23
By: Walter Isaacson
-
The Fourth Man
- The Hunt for a KGB Spy at the Top of the CIA and the Rise of Putin's Russia
- By: Robert Baer
- Narrated by: Robert Baer, Eric Jason Martin
- Length: 7 hrs and 46 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In the aftermath of the Cold War, American intelligence caught three high-profile Russian spies: Aldrich Ames, Edward Lee Howard, and Robert Hanssen. However, rumors have long swirled of another mole, one perhaps more damaging than all the others combined. Perhaps the greatest traitor in American history, perhaps a Russian ruse to tear the CIA apart, or perhaps nothing more than a bogeyman, he is often referred to as the Fourth Man.
-
-
A Who Done it without The Who Did it
- By Amazon Customer on 05-25-22
By: Robert Baer
-
The Final Witness
- By: Paul Landis
- Narrated by: Lane Hakel
- Length: 6 hrs and 44 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Dallas, Texas. November 22, 1963. Shots ring out at Dealey Plaza. The president is struck in the head by a rifle bullet. Confusion reigns. Special Agent Paul Landis is in the follow-up car directly behind JFK’s and is at the president’s limo as soon as it stops at Parkland Memorial Hospital. He is inside Trauma Room #1, where the president is pronounced dead. He is on Air Force One with the president’s casket on the flight back to Washington, DC, an eyewitness to Lyndon Johnson taking the oath of office. What he saw is indelibly imprinted upon his psyche.
-
-
Unique Perspective
- By PL on 12-04-23
By: Paul Landis
-
Area 51
- An Uncensored History of America's Top Secret Military Base
- By: Annie Jacobsen
- Narrated by: Annie Jacobsen
- Length: 16 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
It is the most famous military installation in the world. And it doesn't exist. Located a mere s75 miles outside of Las Vegas in Nevada's desert, the base has never been acknowledged by the US government - but Area 51 has captivated imaginations for decades. Annie Jacobsen had exclusive access to 19 men who served the base proudly and secretly for decades and are now aged 75-92, and unprecedented access to 55 additional military and intelligence personnel, scientists, pilots, and engineers linked to the secret base, 32 of whom lived and worked there for extended periods.
-
-
Disappointing
- By Mike From Mesa on 06-06-11
By: Annie Jacobsen
-
The Main Enemy
- The Inside Story of the CIA's Final Showdown with the KGB
- By: Milton Bearden, James Risen
- Narrated by: Christopher Lane
- Length: 19 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A landmark collaboration between a thirty-year veteran of the CIA and a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, The Main Enemy is the inside story of the CIA-KGB spy wars, told through the actions of the men who fought them. Based on hundreds of interviews with operatives from both sides, The Main Enemy puts us inside the heads of CIA officers as they dodge surveillance and walk into violent ambushes in Moscow. This is the story of the generation of spies who came of age in the shadow of the Cuban missile crisis and rose to run the CIA and KGB in the last days of the Cold War.
-
-
A masterpiece of espionage history
- By kucherv on 08-21-18
By: Milton Bearden, and others
-
Prisoners of the Castle
- An Epic Story of Survival and Escape from Colditz, the Nazis' Fortress Prison
- By: Ben Macintyre
- Narrated by: Ben Macintyre
- Length: 13 hrs and 25 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In this gripping narrative, Ben Macintyre tackles one of the most famous prison stories in history and makes it utterly his own. During World War II, the German army used the towering Colditz Castle to hold the most defiant Allied prisoners. For four years, these prisoners of the castle tested its walls and its guards with ingenious escape attempts that would become legend. But as Macintyre shows, the story of Colditz was about much more than escape.
-
-
Another chapter of history brought to life by a master
- By Steve on 09-28-22
By: Ben Macintyre
-
Spies
- The Epic Intelligence War Between East and West
- By: Calder Walton
- Narrated by: Dugald Bruce-Lockhart
- Length: 20 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Spies is the history of the secret war that Russia and the West have been waging for a century. Espionage, sabotage, and subversion were the Kremlin’s means to equalize the imbalance of resources between the East and West before, during, and after the Cold War. There was nothing “unprecedented” about Russian meddling in the 2016 US presidential election. It was simply business as usual, new means used for old ends.
-
-
A detailed history, inexcusably marred by politics
- By Thomas Randolph on 08-12-23
By: Calder Walton
-
Bridge of Spies
- A True Story of the Cold War
- By: Giles Whittell
- Narrated by: Jonathan Keeble
- Length: 10 hrs and 55 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Who were the three men the American and Soviet superpowers exchanged at Berlin’s Glienicke Bridge and Checkpoint Charlie in the first prisoner exchange of the nuclear age? Bridge of Spies vividly traces their paths to that electrifying moment on February 10, 1962, when their fates helped to define the conflicts and lethal undercurrents of the most dangerous years of the cold war.
-
-
Bridge of Spies
- By BookReader on 09-28-15
By: Giles Whittell
-
Skunk Works
- A Personal Memoir of My Years of Lockheed
- By: Ben R. Rich, Leo Janos
- Narrated by: Pete Larkin
- Length: 12 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
From the development of the U-2 to the Stealth fighter, the never-before-told story behind America's high-stakes quest to dominate the skies. Skunk Works is the true story of America's most secret and successful aerospace operation. As recounted by Ben Rich, the operation's brilliant boss for nearly two decades, the chronicle of Lockheed's legendary Skunk Works is a drama of Cold War confrontations and Gulf War air combat, of extraordinary feats of engineering and human achievement against fantastic odds.
-
-
Ben Rich's life story...but not in that order
- By Allstar on 11-05-16
By: Ben R. Rich, and others
-
Yeager
- An Autobiography
- By: Chuck Yeager
- Narrated by: Chris Browning, Pamela Dillman, David Stifel, and others
- Length: 14 hrs and 23 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
General Chuck Yeager was the greatest test pilot of them all - the first man to fly faster than the speed of sound...the World War II flying ace who shot down a Messerschmitt jet with a prop-driven P-51 Mustang...the hero who defined a certain quality that all hotshot fly-boys of the postwar era aimed to achieve: the right stuff. Now he tells his whole incredible life story with the same “wide-open, full throttle” approach that has marked his astonishing career.
-
-
Just an Amazing Life
- By John on 05-08-20
By: Chuck Yeager
-
The Aviators
- Eddie Rickenbacker, Jimmy Doolittle, Charles Lindbergh, and the Epic Age of Flight
- By: Winston Groom
- Narrated by: Robertson Dean
- Length: 17 hrs and 23 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Gifted storyteller Winston Groom, the best-selling author of Forrest Gump, has written the fascinating story of three extraordinary heroes who defined aviation during the great age of flight: Charles Lindbergh, Eddie Rickenbacker, and Jimmy Doolittle. These cleverly interwoven tales of their heart-stopping adventures take us from the feats of World War I through the heroism of World War II and beyond, including daring military raids and survival at sea, and will appeal to fans of Unbroken, The Greatest Generation, and Flyboys.
-
-
Too much a hagiography
- By Joseph Valenzi on 09-08-15
By: Winston Groom
-
Operation Paperclip
- The Secret Intelligence Program that Brought Nazi Scientists to America
- By: Annie Jacobsen
- Narrated by: Annie Jacobsen
- Length: 19 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In the chaos following World War II, the US government faced many difficult decisions, including what to do with the Third Reich's scientific minds. These were the brains behind the Nazis' once-indomitable war machine. So began Operation Paperclip, a decades-long, covert project to bring Hitler's scientists and their families to the United States. Many of these men were accused of war crimes, and others had stood trial at Nuremberg; one was convicted of mass murder and slavery.
-
-
The Osenberg list
- By Jean on 08-07-14
By: Annie Jacobsen
-
Operation Overflight
- A Memoir of the U-2 Incident
- By: Francis Gary Powers, Curt Gentry
- Narrated by: Jon Lindstrom
- Length: 14 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
U-2 pilot Francis Gary Powers is a central character in the movie Bridge of Spies starring Tom Hanks. In his classic 1970 memoir, Powers reveals the full story behind what happened in the most sensational espionage case in Cold War history. After his U-2 reconnaissance plane was shot down, Powers was captured on May 1, 1960 and endured 61 days of rigorous interrogation by the KGB, a public trial, a conviction for espionage, and the start of a 10-year sentence.
-
-
Astonding
- By JP on 07-12-17
By: Francis Gary Powers, and others
-
Blind Man's Bluff
- The Untold Story of American Submarine Espionage
- By: Sherry Sontag, Christopher Drew
- Narrated by: George Wilson
- Length: 15 hrs and 47 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
No espionage missions have been kept more secret than those involving American submarines. Now, Blind Man's Bluff shows for the first time how the navy sent submarines wired with self-destruct charges into the heart of Soviet seas to tap crucial underwater telephone cables. It unveils how the navy's own negligence might have been responsible for the loss of the USS Scorpion, a submarine that disappeared, all hands lost, 30 years ago.
-
-
best Cold War documentary...
- By Kojoukhinator Sr. on 11-15-17
By: Sherry Sontag, and others
-
The Pentagon's Brain
- An Uncensored History of DARPA, America's Top-Secret Military Research Agency
- By: Annie Jacobsen
- Narrated by: Annie Jacobsen
- Length: 18 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Discover the definitive history of DARPA, the Defense Advanced Research Project Agency, in this Pulitzer Prize finalist from the author of the New York Times best seller Area 51. No one has ever written the history of the Defense Department's most secret, most powerful, and most controversial military science R&D agency. In the first-ever history about the organization, New York Times best-selling author Annie Jacobsen draws on inside sources, exclusive interviews, private documents, and declassified memos to paint a picture of DARPA, or "the Pentagon's brain".
-
-
Scientia Est Potentia/Knowledge is Power
- By Cynthia on 10-08-15
By: Annie Jacobsen
-
American Prometheus
- The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer
- By: Kai Bird, Martin J. Sherwin
- Narrated by: Jeff Cummings
- Length: 26 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
J. Robert Oppenheimer was one of the iconic figures of the 20th century, a brilliant physicist who led the effort to build the atomic bomb but later confronted the moral consequences of scientific progress. When he proposed international controls over atomic materials, opposed the development of the hydrogen bomb, and criticized plans for a nuclear war, his ideas were anathema to powerful advocates of a massive nuclear buildup during the anti-Communist hysteria of the early 1950s.
-
-
An American Tragedy
- By Edith on 12-13-07
By: Kai Bird, and others
Critic reviews
“A Brotherhood of Spies is an old-fashioned tale of the American ingenuity, resourcefulness and grit that remade intelligence gathering.... Casts intriguing light on this familiar history. The rock-steady, nuanced leadership of Ike and JFK in these crises, supported by deeply experienced advisers desperately seeking to avert nuclear war, is a sobering contrast to today's White House melodramas.” (Edward Kosner, Wall Street Journal)
“[A] fresh and fascinating life to an oft-told story by concentrating on the four men who were instrumental in the U-2 story.” (The Washington Times)
"A brilliant investigation into one of the most important - and least examined - milestones of the Cold War. With a novelist’s eye for the telling detail, Monte Reel gets into the minds of the remarkably small group of men who masterminded the top-secret U-2 spy plane program, and their coldblooded calculation that, in the event of a mishap, no pilot should survive to tell of it. At the book’s core is the deeply poignant story of Francis Gary Powers, the man who against all odds did survive, and how he and his wife, Barbara, became pawns in an international political chess game. A wonderful read.” (Scott Anderson, New York Times best-selling author of Lawrence in Arabia)
Related to this topic
-
Bridge of Spies
- A True Story of the Cold War
- By: Giles Whittell
- Narrated by: Jonathan Keeble
- Length: 10 hrs and 55 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Who were the three men the American and Soviet superpowers exchanged at Berlin’s Glienicke Bridge and Checkpoint Charlie in the first prisoner exchange of the nuclear age? Bridge of Spies vividly traces their paths to that electrifying moment on February 10, 1962, when their fates helped to define the conflicts and lethal undercurrents of the most dangerous years of the cold war.
-
-
Bridge of Spies
- By BookReader on 09-28-15
By: Giles Whittell
-
Red Moon Rising
- Sputnik and the Hidden Rivals That Ignited the Space Age
- By: Matthew Brzezinski
- Narrated by: Charles Stransky
- Length: 11 hrs and 34 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
On October 4, 1957, a time of Cold War paranoia, the Soviet Union secretly launched the Earth's first artificial moon. No bigger than a basketball, the tiny satellite was powered by a car battery. Yet, for all its simplicity, Sputnik stunned the world.
-
-
awesome
- By Thomas on 06-25-09
-
The Main Enemy
- The Inside Story of the CIA's Final Showdown with the KGB
- By: Milton Bearden, James Risen
- Narrated by: Christopher Lane
- Length: 19 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A landmark collaboration between a thirty-year veteran of the CIA and a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, The Main Enemy is the inside story of the CIA-KGB spy wars, told through the actions of the men who fought them. Based on hundreds of interviews with operatives from both sides, The Main Enemy puts us inside the heads of CIA officers as they dodge surveillance and walk into violent ambushes in Moscow. This is the story of the generation of spies who came of age in the shadow of the Cuban missile crisis and rose to run the CIA and KGB in the last days of the Cold War.
-
-
A masterpiece of espionage history
- By kucherv on 08-21-18
By: Milton Bearden, and others
-
Area 51
- An Uncensored History of America's Top Secret Military Base
- By: Annie Jacobsen
- Narrated by: Annie Jacobsen
- Length: 16 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
It is the most famous military installation in the world. And it doesn't exist. Located a mere s75 miles outside of Las Vegas in Nevada's desert, the base has never been acknowledged by the US government - but Area 51 has captivated imaginations for decades. Annie Jacobsen had exclusive access to 19 men who served the base proudly and secretly for decades and are now aged 75-92, and unprecedented access to 55 additional military and intelligence personnel, scientists, pilots, and engineers linked to the secret base, 32 of whom lived and worked there for extended periods.
-
-
Disappointing
- By Mike From Mesa on 06-06-11
By: Annie Jacobsen
-
Curveball
- Spies, Lies, and the Con Man Who Caused a War
- By: Bob Drogin
- Narrated by: Erik Singer
- Length: 6 hrs and 15 mins
- Abridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Curveball answers the crucial question of the Iraq war: How and why was America’s intelligence so catastrophically wrong? In this dramatic and explosive book, award-winning Los Angeles Times reporter Bob Drogin delivers a narrative that takes us to Europe, the Middle East, and deep inside the CIA to find the truth—the truth about the lies and self-deception that led us into a military and political nightmare.
-
-
George W. Bush lied...
- By Jonathan Love on 11-21-14
By: Bob Drogin
-
Raid on the Sun
- Inside Israel's Secret Campaign that Denied Saddam the Bomb
- By: Rodger W. Claire
- Narrated by: Adam Grupper
- Length: 5 hrs and 50 mins
- Abridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
From the earliest days of his dictatorship, Saddam Hussein had vowed to destroy Israel. So, when France sold Iraq a top-of-the-line nuclear reactor in 1975, the Israelis were justifiably concerned, especially when they discovered that Iraqi scientists had already formulated a secret program to extract weapon-grade plutonium from the reactor, a first critical step in creating an atomic bomb.
-
-
Fascinating detail of a historic strike
- By Kevin on 04-27-04
By: Rodger W. Claire
-
Bridge of Spies
- A True Story of the Cold War
- By: Giles Whittell
- Narrated by: Jonathan Keeble
- Length: 10 hrs and 55 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Who were the three men the American and Soviet superpowers exchanged at Berlin’s Glienicke Bridge and Checkpoint Charlie in the first prisoner exchange of the nuclear age? Bridge of Spies vividly traces their paths to that electrifying moment on February 10, 1962, when their fates helped to define the conflicts and lethal undercurrents of the most dangerous years of the cold war.
-
-
Bridge of Spies
- By BookReader on 09-28-15
By: Giles Whittell
-
Red Moon Rising
- Sputnik and the Hidden Rivals That Ignited the Space Age
- By: Matthew Brzezinski
- Narrated by: Charles Stransky
- Length: 11 hrs and 34 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
On October 4, 1957, a time of Cold War paranoia, the Soviet Union secretly launched the Earth's first artificial moon. No bigger than a basketball, the tiny satellite was powered by a car battery. Yet, for all its simplicity, Sputnik stunned the world.
-
-
awesome
- By Thomas on 06-25-09
-
The Main Enemy
- The Inside Story of the CIA's Final Showdown with the KGB
- By: Milton Bearden, James Risen
- Narrated by: Christopher Lane
- Length: 19 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A landmark collaboration between a thirty-year veteran of the CIA and a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, The Main Enemy is the inside story of the CIA-KGB spy wars, told through the actions of the men who fought them. Based on hundreds of interviews with operatives from both sides, The Main Enemy puts us inside the heads of CIA officers as they dodge surveillance and walk into violent ambushes in Moscow. This is the story of the generation of spies who came of age in the shadow of the Cuban missile crisis and rose to run the CIA and KGB in the last days of the Cold War.
-
-
A masterpiece of espionage history
- By kucherv on 08-21-18
By: Milton Bearden, and others
-
Area 51
- An Uncensored History of America's Top Secret Military Base
- By: Annie Jacobsen
- Narrated by: Annie Jacobsen
- Length: 16 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
It is the most famous military installation in the world. And it doesn't exist. Located a mere s75 miles outside of Las Vegas in Nevada's desert, the base has never been acknowledged by the US government - but Area 51 has captivated imaginations for decades. Annie Jacobsen had exclusive access to 19 men who served the base proudly and secretly for decades and are now aged 75-92, and unprecedented access to 55 additional military and intelligence personnel, scientists, pilots, and engineers linked to the secret base, 32 of whom lived and worked there for extended periods.
-
-
Disappointing
- By Mike From Mesa on 06-06-11
By: Annie Jacobsen
-
Curveball
- Spies, Lies, and the Con Man Who Caused a War
- By: Bob Drogin
- Narrated by: Erik Singer
- Length: 6 hrs and 15 mins
- Abridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Curveball answers the crucial question of the Iraq war: How and why was America’s intelligence so catastrophically wrong? In this dramatic and explosive book, award-winning Los Angeles Times reporter Bob Drogin delivers a narrative that takes us to Europe, the Middle East, and deep inside the CIA to find the truth—the truth about the lies and self-deception that led us into a military and political nightmare.
-
-
George W. Bush lied...
- By Jonathan Love on 11-21-14
By: Bob Drogin
-
Raid on the Sun
- Inside Israel's Secret Campaign that Denied Saddam the Bomb
- By: Rodger W. Claire
- Narrated by: Adam Grupper
- Length: 5 hrs and 50 mins
- Abridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
From the earliest days of his dictatorship, Saddam Hussein had vowed to destroy Israel. So, when France sold Iraq a top-of-the-line nuclear reactor in 1975, the Israelis were justifiably concerned, especially when they discovered that Iraqi scientists had already formulated a secret program to extract weapon-grade plutonium from the reactor, a first critical step in creating an atomic bomb.
-
-
Fascinating detail of a historic strike
- By Kevin on 04-27-04
By: Rodger W. Claire
-
The Brilliant Disaster
- JFK, Castro, and America's Doomed Invasion of Cuba
- By: Jim Rasenberger
- Narrated by: Bob Walter
- Length: 17 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The U.S.-backed military invasion of Cuba in 1961 remains one of the most ill-fated blunders in American history, with echoes of the event reverberating even today. Despite the Kennedy administration’s initial public insistence that the United States had nothing to do with the invasion, it soon became clear that the complex operation had been planned and approved by the best and brightest minds at the highest reaches of Washington, including the Joint Chiefs of Staff and President John F. Kennedy himself.
-
-
US Government Perspective
- By Kindle Customer on 05-25-11
By: Jim Rasenberger
-
Wise Gals
- The Spies Who Built the CIA and Changed the Future of Espionage
- By: Nathalia Holt
- Narrated by: Erin Bennett
- Length: 11 hrs and 31 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In the wake of World War II, four agents were critical in helping build a new organization that we now know as the CIA. Adelaide Hawkins, Mary Hutchison, Eloise Page, and Elizabeth Sudmeier, called the “wise gals” by their male colleagues because of their sharp sense of humor and even quicker intelligence, were not the stereotypical femme fatale of spy novels.
-
-
Intriguing untold history
- By Andrea Guzman on 12-15-22
By: Nathalia Holt
-
Guests of the Ayatollah
- The First Battle in America's War with Militant Islam
- By: Mark Bowden
- Narrated by: Mark Bowden
- Length: 9 hrs and 55 mins
- Abridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The Iran hostage crisis was a watershed moment in American history. It was America's first showdown with Islamic fundamentalism, a confrontation at the forefront of American policy to this day. It was also a powerful dramatic story that captivated the American people, launched yellow-ribbon campaigns, made celebrities of the hostage's families, and crippled the reelection campaign of President Jimmy Carter.
-
-
Worth a listen, with a few reservations
- By Eunice on 06-02-09
By: Mark Bowden
-
Above and Beyond
- By: Casey Sherman
- Narrated by: Maxwell Hamilton
- Length: 12 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
From the authors of the best-selling The Finest Hours comes the riveting, deeply human story of President John F. Kennedy and two U-2 pilots, Rudy Anderson and Chuck Maultsby, who risked their lives to save America during the Cuban Missile Crisis. During the ominous two weeks of the Cold War's terrifying peak, two things saved humanity: the strategic wisdom of John F. Kennedy and the U-2 aerial spy program. On October 27, 1962, Kennedy, strained from back pain, sleeplessness, and days of impossible tension, was briefed about a missing spy plane.
-
-
Narrator’s mispronunciations detracted from the story
- By Stephen E. Smith on 08-01-18
By: Casey Sherman
-
A Pretext for War
- 9/11, Iraq, and the Abuse of America's Intelligence Agencies
- By: James Bamford
- Narrated by: Robertson Dean
- Length: 11 hrs and 52 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
This book says outright what many have merely hinted at: that President George W. Bush knowingly misused the findings of the erroneous and incompetent U.S. intelligence community to provide a pretext for war with Iraq. The author hones in on the systematic weaknesses of the intelligence agencies that caused them to ignore the crucial signs leading up to the attacks of 9/11.
-
-
A must read before you vote
- By FGP on 09-30-04
By: James Bamford
-
A Fiery Peace in a Cold War
- Bernard Schriever and the Ultimate Weapon
- By: Neil Sheehan
- Narrated by: Robertson Dean
- Length: 19 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
From Neil Sheehan, author of the Pulitzer Prize-winning classic A Bright Shining Lie, comes this long-awaited, magnificent epic. Here is the never-before-told story of the nuclear arms race that changed history - and of the visionary American Air Force officer Bernard Schriever, who led the high-stakes effort. A Fiery Peace in a Cold War is a masterly work about Schriever’s quests to prevent the Soviet Union from acquiring nuclear superiority, to penetrate and exploit space for America, and to build the first weapons meant to deter an atomic holocaust.
-
-
Schriever rhymes with beaver.
- By John Gardner on 11-13-09
By: Neil Sheehan
-
109 East Palace
- Robert Oppenheimer and the Secret City of Los Alamos
- By: Jennet Conant
- Narrated by: Anne Twomey
- Length: 5 hrs and 57 mins
- Abridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
They were told as little as possible. Their orders were to go to Santa Fe, New Mexico, and report for work at a classified Manhattan Project site, a location so covert it was known to them only by the mysterious address: 109 East Palace.
-
-
Great Listen
- By John H. Davis III on 10-22-05
By: Jennet Conant
-
The Dead Hand
- The Untold Story of the Cold War Arms Race and its Dangerous Legacy
- By: David E. Hoffman
- Narrated by: Bob Walter
- Length: 20 hrs and 46 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The Dead Hand is the suspense-filled story of the people who sought to brake the speeding locomotive of the arms race, then rushed to secure the nuclear and biological weapons left behind by the collapse of the Soviet Union—a dangerous legacy that haunts us even today.The Cold War was an epoch of massive overkill.
-
-
Eye opening
- By Brian on 11-16-10
By: David E. Hoffman
-
The Book of Honor
- The Secret Lives and Deaths of CIA Operatives
- By: Ted Gup
- Narrated by: Frank Muller
- Length: 6 hrs and 2 mins
- Abridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In the entrance of the CIA headquarters looms a huge marble wall in to which seventy-one stars are carved - each representing an agent who has died in the line of duty. At the base of this wall lies "The Book of Honor," in which the names of these agents are inscribed, or at least thirty-five of them... In this remarkable program, author Ted Gup delves into covert lives and classified deaths at the CIA.
-
-
Painfully narrated.
- By RM on 08-16-19
By: Ted Gup
-
The Arsenal of Democracy
- FDR, Detroit, and an Epic Quest to Arm an America at War
- By: A. J. Baime
- Narrated by: Peter Berkrot
- Length: 11 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The Arsenal of Democracy tells the incredible story of how Detroit answered the call, centering on Henry Ford and his tortured son Edsel, who, when asked if they could deliver 50,000 airplanes, made an outrageous claim: Ford Motor Company would erect a plant that could yield a “bomber an hour”. Critics scoffed: Ford didn’t make planes; they made simple, affordable cars. But bucking his father’s resistance, Edsel charged ahead.
-
-
Misleading title
- By Kindle Customer on 12-01-14
By: A. J. Baime
-
The Dream Machine
- The Untold History of the Notorious V-22 Osprey
- By: Richard Whittle
- Narrated by: Kevin Foley
- Length: 18 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
When the Marines decided to buy a helicopter-airplane hybrid "tiltrotor" called the V-22 Osprey, they saw it as their dream machine. The tiltrotor was the aviation equivalent of finding the Northwest Passage: an aircraft able to take off, land, and hover with the agility of a helicopter yet fly as fast and as far as an airplane. Many predicted it would reshape civilian aviation. The Marines saw it as key to their very survival. Opponents called it one of the worst boondoggles in Pentagon history.
-
-
Innovation runs into government
- By Cx30 on 09-25-10
By: Richard Whittle
-
Operation Overflight
- A Memoir of the U-2 Incident
- By: Francis Gary Powers, Curt Gentry
- Narrated by: Jon Lindstrom
- Length: 14 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
U-2 pilot Francis Gary Powers is a central character in the movie Bridge of Spies starring Tom Hanks. In his classic 1970 memoir, Powers reveals the full story behind what happened in the most sensational espionage case in Cold War history. After his U-2 reconnaissance plane was shot down, Powers was captured on May 1, 1960 and endured 61 days of rigorous interrogation by the KGB, a public trial, a conviction for espionage, and the start of a 10-year sentence.
-
-
Astonding
- By JP on 07-12-17
By: Francis Gary Powers, and others