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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. 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.
On June 6, 1944, 150,000 Allied troops landed on the beaches of Normandy and suffered an astonishingly low rate of casualties. D-Day was a stunning military accomplishment, but it was also a masterpiece of trickery. Operation Fortitude, which protected and enabled the invasion, and the Double Cross system, which specialized in turning German spies into double agents, deceived the Nazis into believing that the Allies would attack at Calais and Norway rather than Normandy.
Britain's Special Air Service - or SAS - was the brainchild of David Stirling, a young, gadabout aristocrat whose aimlessness in early life belied a remarkable strategic mind. Where most of his colleagues looked at a battlefield map of World War II's African theater and saw a protracted struggle with Rommel's desert forces, Stirling saw an opportunity: Given a small number of elite, well-trained men, he could parachute behind enemy lines and sabotage their airplanes and war matériel.
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.
In The Ghost, investigative reporter Jefferson Morley tells Angleton's dramatic story, from his friendship with the poet Ezra Pound through the underground gay milieu of mid-century Washington to the Kennedy assassination to the Watergate scandal. From the agency's MKULTRA mind-control experiments to the wars of the Mideast, Angleton wielded far more power than anyone knew.
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.
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. 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.
On June 6, 1944, 150,000 Allied troops landed on the beaches of Normandy and suffered an astonishingly low rate of casualties. D-Day was a stunning military accomplishment, but it was also a masterpiece of trickery. Operation Fortitude, which protected and enabled the invasion, and the Double Cross system, which specialized in turning German spies into double agents, deceived the Nazis into believing that the Allies would attack at Calais and Norway rather than Normandy.
Britain's Special Air Service - or SAS - was the brainchild of David Stirling, a young, gadabout aristocrat whose aimlessness in early life belied a remarkable strategic mind. Where most of his colleagues looked at a battlefield map of World War II's African theater and saw a protracted struggle with Rommel's desert forces, Stirling saw an opportunity: Given a small number of elite, well-trained men, he could parachute behind enemy lines and sabotage their airplanes and war matériel.
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.
In The Ghost, investigative reporter Jefferson Morley tells Angleton's dramatic story, from his friendship with the poet Ezra Pound through the underground gay milieu of mid-century Washington to the Kennedy assassination to the Watergate scandal. From the agency's MKULTRA mind-control experiments to the wars of the Mideast, Angleton wielded far more power than anyone knew.
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.
Circle of Treason is the first account written by CIA agents who were key members of the CIA team that conducted the intense "Ames Mole Hunt." Sandra Grimes and Jeanne Vertefeuille were two of the five principals of the CIA team tasked with hunting one of their own and were directly responsible for identifying Ames as the mole, leading to his arrest and conviction.
This book reveals the most complete picture ever of the KGB and its operations in the United States and Europe. It is based on an extremely top secret archive which details the full extent of its worldwide network. Christopher Andrew is professor of modern and contemporary history and chair of the history department at Cambridge University, a former visiting professor of national security at Harvard, a frequent guest lecturer at other United States universities, and a regular host of BBC radio and TV programs.
The news-breaking inside account of Israel's state-sponsored assassination programs, from the man hailed by David Remnick as "arguably [Israel's] best investigative reporter."
One decision can end everything...or lead to unlikely redemption. Millions watched the CBS 60 Minutes special on Jack Barsky in 2015. Now, in this fascinating memoir, the Soviet KGB agent tells his story of gut-wrenching choices, appalling betrayals, his turbulent inner world, and the secret life he lived for years without getting caught.
George Smiley is no one's idea of a spy - which is perhaps why he's such a natural. But Smiley apparently made a mistake. After a routine security interview, he concluded that the affable Samuel Fennan had nothing to hide. Why, then, did the man from the Foreign Office shoot himself in the head only hours later? Or did he? The heart-stopping tale of intrigue that launched both novelist and spy, Call for the Dead is an essential introduction to le Carre's chillingly amoral universe.
A Murder of Quality, set in the early 1960s, sees George Smiley investigating a murder in a public school. When the wife of one of the masters is found bludgeoned to death, Smiley, out of loyalty to an old friend, agrees to look into the case. But his investigation raises a multitude of questions. Who could have hated Stella Rode enough to kill her? Why was her dog put down shortly before the murder? And what did Mad Janie see on that fatal night?
On November 1, 2006, journalist and Russian dissident Alexander Litvinenko was poisoned in London. He died 22 days later. The cause of death? Polonium - a rare, lethal, and highly radioactive substance. Here Luke Harding unspools a real-life political assassination story complete with KGB, CIA, MI6, and Russian mobsters.
In Operation Whisper, Barnes Carr tells the true story of the most effective Soviet spy couple in America, a pair who vanished under the FBI's nose only to turn up posing as rare book dealers in London, where they continued their atomic spying. The Cohens were talented, dedicated, worldly spies - an urbane, jet-set couple loyal to their service and their friends. Most people they met seemed to think they represented the best of America. The Soviets certainly thought so.
From his years serving in British Intelligence during the Cold War, to a career as a writer that took him from war-torn Cambodia to Beirut on the cusp of the 1982 Israeli invasion to Russia before and after the collapse of the Berlin Wall, John le Carré has always written from the heart of modern times. In this, his first memoir, le Carré is as funny as he is incisive, reading into the events he witnesses the same moral ambiguity with which he imbues his novels.
The incredible, harrowing account of how American democracy was hacked by Moscow as part of a covert operation to influence the US election and help Donald Trump gain the presidency.
Good Hunting: An American Spymaster's Story is the spellbinding memoir of Devine's time in the CIA, where he served for more than 30 years, rising to become the acting deputy director of operations, responsible for all of the agency's spying operations. This is a story of intrigue and high-stakes maneuvering - all the more gripping when the fate of our geopolitical order hangs in the balance. But this audiobook also sounds a warning to our nation's decision makers.
This is the book the CIA does not want you to read. For the last 60 years, the CIA has maintained a formidable reputation in spite of its terrible record, never disclosing its blunders to the American public. It spun its own truth to the nation while reality lay buried in classified archives. Now, Pulitzer Prize-winning New York Times reporter Tim Weiner offers a stunning indictment of the CIA, a deeply flawed organization that has never deserved America's confidence.
Master storyteller Ben Macintyre's most ambitious work to date offers a powerful new angle on the 20th century's greatest spy story.
Kim Philby was the greatest spy in history, a brilliant and charming man who rose to head Britain's counterintelligence against the Soviet Union during the height of the Cold War - while he was secretly working for the enemy. And nobody thought he knew Philby like Nicholas Elliott, Philby's best friend and fellow officer in MI6. The two men had gone to the same schools, belonged to the same exclusive clubs, grown close through the crucible of wartime intelligence work and long nights of drink and revelry. It was madness for one to think the other might be a communist spy, bent on subverting Western values and the power of the free world.
But Philby was secretly betraying his friend. Every word Elliott breathed to Philby was transmitted back to Moscow - and not just Elliott's words, for in America, Philby had made another powerful friend: James Jesus Angleton, the crafty, paranoid head of CIA counterintelligence. Angleton's and Elliott's unwitting disclosures helped Philby sink almost every important Anglo-American spy operation for twenty years, leading countless operatives to their doom. Even as the web of suspicion closed around him, and Philby was driven to greater lies to protect his cover, his two friends never abandoned him - until it was too late. The stunning truth of his betrayal would have devastating consequences on the two men who thought they knew him best, and on the intelligence services he left crippled in his wake.
Told with heart-pounding suspense and keen psychological insight, and based on personal papers and never-before-seen British intelligence files, A Spy Among Friends is Ben Macintyre's best book yet, a high-water mark in Cold War history telling.
Any additional comments?
I must say at the outset that John Lee is the perfect narrator for this book. He is clear, properly British, and adds just enough inflection to what you would expect from a spy story.Ben Macintyre, in turn, has written a book which gives you great insight into the personalities of Philby and those around him. You come away both admiring Philby and deeply detesting him. MI5, during World War II, pulled off amazing stunts of extremely effective trickery against Germany, but then after the war Philby and friends managed to destroy one of the greatest intelligence services in the world. This is his story and one you will not soon forget.Let us hope there are not other, even more capable spies working against us in these current times.
15 of 15 people found this review helpful
Would you listen to A Spy Among Friends again? Why?
Probably not--I do not listen to books again (because I have so many new ones to read!)
What did you like best about this story?
It was a thrilling book. I wanted to listen to the entire book in one sitting because I wanted to know what happened (even though I knew the story). It really was written like a spy novel.
Which scene was your favorite?
It was not so much a scene as a theme that was compelling. The idea that Philby was "one of them" in background and status and therefore was treated with kid gloves which allowed him to continue to commit treason even after he was brought back into MI6 because he was "cleared". And that even when they knew he was guilty, because of who he was, he somehow deserved a lighter punishment than others who were not as bad as he was.
Was there a moment in the book that particularly moved you?
The epilogue by the author John LeCarre, who had been in MI5 for a period--he met with Elliot (Philby's close friend and MI6 colleague) when they were both older. Elliot's continuing nonchalance about what he allowed to happen, and his recollection of how much he enjoyed being with Philby (Elliot's loose lips when they were drinking allowed Philby to know many secrets) was amazing. It was frustrating to see how the good old boy's club allowed so many to lose their lives.
10 of 10 people found this review helpful
In the hands of Ben Macintyre, I think any story would be interesting, but this was so outstanding it was as if I had heard nothing about Kim Philby before. Aided by John Lee's perfect narration and the seal of approval from John le Carre, this book takes you into the private world of Kim Philby, as much as any book can, with wonderful results. Ben Macintyre is a terrific writer, conveying the subtleties of the British secret service in that time period, as well as the very real damage Philby's subterfuge brought on those both close to him and afar. Best book I've read for awhile!
8 of 8 people found this review helpful
Thoroughly researched bringing in a multitude of viewpoints about the Kim Philby affair. Beautifully written with much delightful English wit and humor tossed in the telling, or quoted from the participants in this incredible (true) yarn.
One confusing annoyance, created by Audible.com describing the contents of the audiobook: they list the narrator as John LeCarre. It is narrated (elegantly) by John Lee. LeCarre provides a postscript but to my ears it sounds like John Lee reading it.
8 of 8 people found this review helpful
The narrator is John Lee, who has a very distinctive voice and is a terrific voice actor. The info on both web sites; Audible, and Amazon, tell us that the narrator is John Le Carre! Somebody had a mind slippage there.
34 of 38 people found this review helpful
I was thoroughly engrossed in this book, beginning to end. It provided insight into the behind-the- scenes working of those we entrust with our most important political and military secrets. Harold “Kim” Philby (1912-1988) during the 1940’s and 50’s was an officer in the U.K. secret intelligence service (MI6). All the time he was spying for the Soviet Union remitting many damaging Anglo-American secrets to Moscow. Hundreds died because of his treachery.
Ben Macintyre tells the story of Kim Philby a member of the British upper class. His father was linguist who became an advisor of King Ibn Saud of Saudi Arabia. Philby became a Communist while at Cambridge University. He married Litzi Friedman a Communist of Hungarian Jewish descent. It is claimed she was the one to recruit him as a Soviet spy. Macintyre suggest that although Philby was a sincere Communist, the impelling motive for his treachery was conceit. Cheating people made him feel clever. He betrayed anti-Soviet insurgents in Albania, Georgia, Lithuania, Estonia, Armenia and Ukraine, causing many deaths. The KGB defector Anatoly Golitsyn provided information against Philby in 1962. He made a confession and then escaped to Russia in 1963.
Ben Macintyre was a journalist with the Times of London. He conducted an enormous amount of research and found new sources of information in the office diaries of MI5’s deputy Chief Guy Liddell which became available in 2012. The book ends with an afterword by John le Carrie who worked in MI6 during the same time as Philby. The book reads like a spy novel but it is a solidly researched true story. John Lee does an excellent job narrating the book.
11 of 12 people found this review helpful
"Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy" was the first book I owned in hardback. And Peter Wright's "Spycatcher" is in my library - and the story behind the book's publishing is almost as good as the printed book.
So I was a little surprised that there was anything left to tell about these rogues. But Ben Macintyre does a great job of storytelling and adds a lot of facts I didn't know or had forgotten.
So much of post WWII politics can be read through the actions and outing of these men. Maybe McCarthy never gains prominence in the U.S. Senate if they hadn't existed. McCarthyism never would have occurred.
Until I read this book, I think I was of the Angleton frame of mind; that Philby was an active poison right up until he defected from Beirut. This is an excellent telling of how Philby SEEMED to fool everyone, andt Macintyre does a great job of showing the toll it took on Philby, and the incredible luck that seemed to follow him everywhere. The amount of alcohol consumed, as Macintyre tells it, is astonishing.
A very good book on a topic that has already been well documented. Kudos to Macintyre for an amazing accomplishment.
5 of 5 people found this review helpful
Reads like a novel, John Lee does an excellent job narrating as usual. Highly recommend for anyone interested in this era of history.
9 of 10 people found this review helpful
This was a fascinating book, and answered a number of questions I'd always had about Kim Philby. For one thing, just how does that work, exactly, going to MI6 everyday and pulling a lie of that magnitude over everybody's eyes, day after day? This book lays it out as well as any I have read about real-life spies, and it goes a long way to connecting the dots of character and action. It read like a spy novel, although it was unexpectedly depressing in parts, because unfortunately, this is all real.
Ben Macintyre did a good job keeping an objective tone throughout. He challenged some of Philby's beliefs and assumptions, but when he did, it came across as reasonable inquiry.
8 of 9 people found this review helpful
Would you recommend this audiobook to a friend? If so, why?
Definitely, the story is mesmerizing!
With regard to the audiobook itself, John Lee has done a magnificent job as narrator.
Which scene was your favorite?
The last afterwords, where Thomas Eliott is interviewed. It is extraordinarily written by Macintyre and narrated by Lee.
Was there a moment in the book that particularly moved you?
All the book is memorable!
2 of 2 people found this review helpful