INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER“Fast and thrilling . . . Life Undercover reads as if a John le Carré character landed in Eat Pray Love." —The New York TimesAmaryllis Fox's riveting memoir tells the story of her ten years in the most elite clandestine ops unit of the CIA, hunting the world's most dangerous terrorists in sixteen countries while marrying and giving birth to a daughterAmaryllis Fox was in her last year as an undergraduate at Oxford studying theology and international law when her writing mentor Daniel Pearl was captured and beheaded. Galvanized by this brutality, Fox applied to a master's program in conflict and terrorism at Georgetown's School of Foreign Service, where she created an algorithm that predicted, with uncanny certainty, the likelihood of a terrorist cell arising in any village around the world. At twenty-one, she was recruited by the CIA. Her first assignment was reading and analyzing hundreds of classified cables a day from foreign governments and synthesizing them into daily briefs for the president. Her next assignment was at the Iraq desk in the Counterterrorism center. At twenty-two, she was fast-tracked into advanced operations training, sent from Langley to "the Farm," where she lived for six months in a simulated world learning how to use a Glock, how to get out of flexicuffs while locked in the trunk of a car, how to withstand torture, and the best ways to commit suicide in case of captivity. At the end of this training she was deployed as a spy under non-official cover--the most difficult and coveted job in the field as an art dealer specializing in tribal and indigenous art and sent to infiltrate terrorist networks in remote areas of the Middle East and Asia.Life Undercover is exhilarating, intimate, fiercely intelligent--an impossible to put down record of an extraordinary life, and of Amaryllis Fox's astonishing courage and passion.

The incredible untold story of WWII’s greatest secret fighting force, as told by our great modern master of wartime intrigueBritain’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 material. Paired with his constitutional opposite, the disciplined martinet Jock Lewes, Stirling assembled a revolutionary fighting force that would upend not just the balance of the war, but the nature of combat itself. He faced no little resistance from those who found his tactics ungentlemanly or beyond the pale, but in the SAS’s remarkable exploits facing the Nazis in the Africa and then on the Continent can be found the seeds of nearly all special forces units that would follow.Bringing his keen eye for psychological detail to a riveting wartime narrative, Ben Macintyre uses his unprecedented access to SAS archives to shine a light inside a legendary unit long shrouded in secrecy. The result is not just a tremendous war story, but a fascinating group portrait of men of whom history and country asked the most.

From top secret spy missions to recently declassified WWII documents, this richly illustrated account of the covert espionage operations of World War II takes readers behind the battle lines and into the undercover war effort. National Geographic’s landmark book includes recently released never-before-seen photographs, coded messages, classified maps, and more than 700 rare artifacts that shed light on the war's darkest secrets.This is the shocking story behind the covert activity that shaped the outcome of one of the world’s greatest conflicts—and the destiny of millions of people. Illuminating World War II as never before, this fascinating book takes you inside the secret lives of spies and spy masters; secret agents and secret armies; Enigma machines and code breakers; psychological warfare and black propaganda; secret weapons and secret battle strategies.Six heavily illustrated narrative chapters reveal the truth behind the lies and deception that shaped the secret war; six pictorial essays showcase hundreds of rare photos and artifacts (many never before seen); more than 45 specially created sidebars tell the stories of spies and secret operations.Renowned historian and top-selling author Stephen Hyslop reveals this little-known side of the war in captivating detail, weaving in extraordinary eyewitness accounts and information only recently declassified. Rare photographs, artifacts, and illuminating graphics enrich this absorbing reference book.

A highly entertaining account of a young woman who went straight from her college sorority to the CIA, where she hunted terrorists and WMDs"Reads like the show bible for Homeland only her story is real." ―Alison Stewart, WNYC"A thrilling tale...Walder’s fast-paced and intense narrative opens a window into life in two of America’s major intelligence agencies" ―Publishers Weekly (starred review)When Tracy Walder enrolled at the University of Southern California, she never thought that one day she would offer her pink beanbag chair in the Delta Gamma house to a CIA recruiter, or that she’d fly to the Middle East under an alias identity.The Unexpected Spy is the riveting story of Walder's tenure in the CIA and, later, the FBI. In high-security, steel-walled rooms in Virginia, Walder watched al-Qaeda members with drones as President Bush looked over her shoulder and CIA Director George Tenet brought her donuts. She tracked chemical terrorists and searched the world for Weapons of Mass Destruction. She created a chemical terror chart that someone in the White House altered to convey information she did not have or believe, leading to the Iraq invasion. Driven to stop terrorism, Walder debriefed terrorists―men who swore they’d never speak to a woman―until they gave her leads. She followed trails through North Africa, Europe, and the Middle East, shutting down multiple chemical attacks.Then Walder moved to the FBI, where she worked in counterintelligence. In a single year, she helped take down one of the most notorious foreign spies ever caught on American soil. Catching the bad guys wasn’t a problem in the FBI, but rampant sexism was. Walder left the FBI to teach young women, encouraging them to find a place in the FBI, CIA, State Department or the Senate―and thus change the world.

"Monumental." --New York Times Book ReviewNEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLERFrom one of the foremost historians of the period and the acclaimed author of Inferno and Catastrophe: 1914, The Secret War is a sweeping examination of one of the most important yet underexplored aspects of World War II—intelligence—showing how espionage successes and failures by the United States, Britain, Russia, Germany, and Japan influenced the course of the war and its final outcome.Spies, codes, and guerrillas played unprecedentedly critical roles in the Second World War, exploited by every nation in the struggle to gain secret knowledge of its foes, and to sow havoc behind the fronts. In The Secret War, Max Hastings presents a worldwide cast of characters and some extraordinary sagas of intelligence and resistance, to create a new perspective on the greatest conflict in history.

In an age fraught with terrorism, United States Secret Service canine teams risk their lives to safeguard the president, vice president, their families, visiting heads of state, and a host of others. Unprecedented access to these heroic dog teams has allowed a fascinating first-time-ever look at a very special breed of heroes.Wherever the president goes, there will be dogs. They’ll be there no matter what the country or state. They’ll be there regardless of the political climate, the danger level, the weather, or the hour.“If you let down your guard on the job,” says Special Agent Bill G., canine program manager, “it can change the history of the world.” It’s a burden Secret Service dog handlers take extremely seriously regardless of their specialty. Tactical dog handlers on the White House lawn, handlers whose dogs sniff for explosives around the world, and those who walk their amiable floppy-eared dogs up and down Pennsylvania Avenue all live one common mantra: Not on my watch. Or my dog’s.Secret Service Dogs immerses readers into the heart of this elite world of canine teams who protect first families, popes, and presidential candidates: the selection of dogs and handlers, their year-round training, their missions around the world, and, most important, the bond—the glue that holds the teams together and can mean the difference between finding bombs and terrorists or letting them slip by.“These animals will gladly run into a hail of gunfire,” says '"Stew," a Secret Service ERT tactical canine unit supervisor. “All they ask in return is for their handlers to throw the ball with them, pet them, and talk to them in an embarrassingly high voice.”Secret Service Dogs celebrates the Secret Service’s most unforgettable canine heroes. It is a must-read for fans of Maria Goodavage, anyone who wants a rare inside view of the United States Secret Service, or just loves dogs.

“Recounted with the storytelling élan of a master raconteur — by turns dramatic and funny, charming, tart and melancholy.” -Michiko Kakutani, The New York TimesThe New York Times bestselling memoir from John le Carré, the legendary author of Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy; The Spy Who Came in from the Cold; and The Night Manager, now an Emmy-nominated television series starring Tom Hiddleston and Hugh Laurie. John le Carré’s new novel, A Legacy of Spies, is now available.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, 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. Whether he's writing about the parrot at a Beirut hotel that could perfectly mimic machine gun fire or the opening bars of Beethoven’s Fifth; visiting Rwanda’s museums of the unburied dead in the aftermath of the genocide; celebrating New Year’s Eve 1982 with Yasser Arafat and his high command; interviewing a German woman terrorist in her desert prison in the Negev; listening to the wisdoms of the great physicist, dissident, and Nobel Prize winner Andrei Sakharov; meeting with two former heads of the KGB; watching Alec Guinness prepare for his role as George Smiley in the legendary BBC TV adaptations of Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy and Smiley’s People; or describing the female aid worker who inspired the main character in The Constant Gardener, le Carré endows each happening with vividness and humor, now making us laugh out loud, now inviting us to think anew about events and people we believed we understood.Best of all, le Carré gives us a glimpse of a writer’s journey over more than six decades, and his own hunt for the human spark that has given so much life and heart to his fictional characters.

For the 50th anniversary of the Watergate break-in: The untold story of President Richard Nixon, CIA Director Richard Helms, and their volatile shared secrets that ended a presidency.Scorpions' Dance by intelligence expert and investigative journalist Jefferson Morley reveals the Watergate scandal in a completely new light: as the culmination of a concealed, deadly power struggle between President Richard Nixon and CIA Director Richard Helms.Nixon and Helms went back decades; both were 1950s Cold Warriors, and both knew secrets about the disastrous Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba as well as off-the-books American government and CIA plots to remove Fidel Castro and other leaders in Latin America. Both had enough information on each other to ruin their careers.After the Watergate burglary on June 17, 1972, Nixon was desperate to shut down the FBI's investigation. He sought Helms' support and asked that the CIA intervene―knowing that most of the Watergate burglars were retired CIA agents, contractors, or long-term assets with deep knowledge of the Agency's most sensitive secrets. The two now circled each other like scorpions, defending themselves with the threat of lethal attack. The loser would resign his office in disgrace; the winner, however, would face consequences for the secrets he had kept.Rigorously researched and dramatically told, Scorpions' Dance uses long-neglected evidence to reveal a new perspective on one of America's most notorious presidential scandals.

A real-life political thriller about an American financier in the Wild East of Russia, the murder of his principled young tax attorney, and his dangerous mission to expose the Kremlin’s corruption.Bill Browder’s journey started on the South Side of Chicago and moved through Stanford Business School to the dog-eat-dog world of hedge fund investing in the 1990s. It continued in Moscow, where Browder made his fortune heading the largest investment fund in Russia after the Soviet Union’s collapse. But when he exposed the corrupt oligarchs who were robbing the companies in which he was investing, Vladimir Putin turned on him and, in 2005, had him expelled from Russia.In 2007, a group of law enforcement officers raided Browder’s offices in Moscow and stole $230 million of taxes that his fund’s companies had paid to the Russian government. Browder’s attorney Sergei Magnitsky investigated the incident and uncovered a sprawling criminal enterprise. A month after Sergei testified against the officials involved, he was arrested and thrown into pre-trial detention, where he was tortured for a year. On November 16, 2009, he was led to an isolation chamber, handcuffed to a bedrail, and beaten to death by eight guards in full riot gear.Browder glimpsed the heart of darkness, and it transformed his life: he embarked on an unrelenting quest for justice in Sergei’s name, exposing the towering cover-up that leads right up to Putin. A financial caper, a crime thriller, and a political crusade, Red Notice is the story of one man taking on overpowering odds to change the world.

From the author of the Pulitzer Prize-winning history The Dead Hand comes the riveting story of a spy who cracked open the Soviet military research establishment and a penetrating portrait of the CIA’s Moscow station, an outpost of daring espionage in the last years of the Cold WarWhile driving out of the American embassy in Moscow on the evening of February 16, 1978, the chief of the CIA’s Moscow station heard a knock on his car window. A man on the curb handed him an envelope whose contents stunned U.S. intelligence: details of top-secret Soviet research and developments in military technology that were totally unknown to the United States. In the years that followed, the man, Adolf Tolkachev, an engineer in a Soviet military design bureau, used his high-level access to hand over tens of thousands of pages of technical secrets. His revelations allowed America to reshape its weapons systems to defeat Soviet radar on the ground and in the air, giving the United States near total superiority in the skies over Europe.One of the most valuable spies to work for the United States in the four decades of global confrontation with the Soviet Union, Tolkachev took enormous personal risks—but so did the Americans. The CIA had long struggled to recruit and run agents in Moscow, and Tolkachev was a singular breakthrough. Using spy cameras and secret codes as well as face-to-face meetings in parks and on street corners, Tolkachev and his handlers succeeded for years in eluding the feared KGB in its own backyard, until the day came when a shocking betrayal put them all at risk.Drawing on previously secret documents obtained from the CIA and on interviews with participants, David Hoffman has created an unprecedented and poignant portrait of Tolkachev, a man motivated by the depredations of the Soviet state to master the craft of spying against his own country. Stirring, unpredictable, and at times unbearably tense, The Billion Dollar Spy is a brilliant feat of reporting that unfolds like an espionage thriller.

The best-selling author of The Liberator brings to life the incredible true story of an American doctor in Paris, and his heroic espionage efforts during World War IIThe leafy Avenue Foch, one of the most exclusive residential streets in Nazi-occupied France, was Paris's hotbed of daring spies, murderous secret police, amoral informers, and Vichy collaborators. So when American physician Sumner Jackson, who lived with his wife and young son Phillip at Number 11, found himself drawn into the Liberation network of the French resistance, he knew the stakes were impossibly high. Just down the road at Number 31 was the "mad sadist" Theodor Dannecker, an Eichmann protégé charged with deporting French Jews to concentration camps. And Number 84 housed the Parisian headquarters of the Gestapo, run by the most effective spy hunter in Nazi Germany.From his office at the American Hospital, itself an epicenter of Allied and Axis intrigue, Jackson smuggled fallen Allied fighter pilots safely out of France, a job complicated by the hospital director's close ties to collaborationist Vichy. After witnessing the brutal round-up of his Jewish friends, Jackson invited Liberation to officially operate out of his home at Number 11--but the noose soon began to tighten. When his secret life was discovered by his Nazi neighbors, he and his family were forced to undertake a journey into the dark heart of the war-torn continent from which there was little chance of return.Drawing upon a wealth of primary source material and extensive interviews with Phillip Jackson, Alex Kershaw recreates the City of Light during its darkest days. The untold story of the Jackson family anchors the suspenseful narrative, and Kershaw dazzles readers with the vivid immediacy of the best spy thrillers. Awash with the tense atmosphere of World War II's Europe, Avenue of Spies introduces us to the brave doctor who risked everything to defy Hitler.From the Hardcover edition.

This revelatory and dramatic history of disinformation traces the rise of secret organized deception operations from the interwar period to contemporary internet troll farmsWe live in the age of disinformation―of organized deception. Spy agencies pour vast resources into hacking, leaking, and forging data, often with the goal of weakening the very foundation of liberal democracy: trust in facts. Thomas Rid, a renowned expert on technology and national security, was one of the first to sound the alarm. More than four months before the 2016 election, he warned that Russian military intelligence was “carefully planning and timing a high-stakes political campaign" to disrupt the democratic process. But as crafty as such so-called active measures have become, they are not new.The story of modern disinformation begins with the post-Russian Revolution clash between communism and capitalism, which would come to define the Cold War. In Active Measures, Rid reveals startling intelligence and security secrets from materials written in more than ten languages across several nations, and from interviews with current and former operatives. He exposes the disturbing yet colorful history of professional, organized lying, revealing for the first time some of the century’s most significant operations―many of them nearly beyond belief. A White Russian ploy backfires and brings down a New York police commissioner; a KGB-engineered, anti-Semitic hate campaign creeps back across the Iron Curtain; the CIA backs a fake publishing empire, run by a former Wehrmacht U-boat commander, that produces Germany’s best jazz magazine. Rid tracks the rise of leaking, and shows how spies began to exploit emerging internet culture many years before WikiLeaks. Finally, he sheds new light on the 2016 election, especially the role of the infamous “troll farm” in St. Petersburg as well as a much more harmful attack that unfolded in the shadows.Active Measures takes the reader on a guided tour deep into a vast hall of mirrors old and new, pointing to a future of engineered polarization, more active and less measured―but also offering the tools to cut through the deception.

A NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLERThe thrilling, true-life account of the FBI’s hunt for the ingenious traitor Brian Regan—known as the Spy Who Couldn’t Spell.Before Edward Snowden’s infamous data breach, the largest theft of government secrets was committed by an ingenious traitor whose intricate espionage scheme and complex system of coded messages were made even more baffling by his dyslexia. His name is Brian Regan, but he came to be known as The Spy Who Couldn’t Spell.In December of 2000, FBI Special Agent Steven Carr of the bureau’s Washington, D.C., office received a package from FBI New York: a series of coded letters from an anonymous sender to the Libyan consulate, offering to sell classified United States intelligence. The offer, and the threat, were all too real. A self-proclaimed CIA analyst with top secret clearance had information about U.S. reconnaissance satellites, air defense systems, weapons depots, munitions factories, and underground bunkers throughout the Middle East.Rooting out the traitor would not be easy, but certain clues suggested a government agent with a military background, a family, and a dire need for money. Leading a diligent team of investigators and code breakers, Carr spent years hunting down a dangerous spy and his cache of stolen secrets.In this fast-paced true-life spy thriller, Yudhijit Bhattacharjee reveals how the FBI unraveled Regan’s strange web of codes to build a case against a man who nearly collapsed America's military security.INCLUDES PHOTOGRAPHS

Recounts how CIC agents were trained, searched out spies and saboteurs, and worked behind enemy lines

Invisible Ink is the story of Guy Stern's remarkable life. This is not a Holocaust memoir; however, Stern makes it clear that the horrors of the Holocaust and his remarkable escape from Nazi Germany created the central driving force for the rest of his life. Stern gives much credit to his father's profound cautionary words, "You have to be like invisible ink. You will leave traces of your existence when, in better times, we can emerge again and show ourselves as the individuals we are." Stern carried these words and their psychological impact for much of his life, shaping himself around them, until his emergence as someone who would be visible to thousands over the years.This book is divided into thirteen chapters, each marking a pivotal moment in Stern's life. His story begins with Stern's parents - "the two met, or else this chronicle would not have seen the light of day (nor me, for that matter)." Then, in 1933, the Nazis come to power, ushering in a fiery and destructive timeline that Stern recollects by exact dates and calls "the end of [his] childhood and adolescence." Through a series of fortunate occurrences, Stern immigrated to the United States at the tender age of fifteen. While attending St. Louis University, Stern was drafted into the U.S. Army and soon found himself selected, along with other German-speaking immigrants, for a special military intelligence unit that would come to be known as the Ritchie Boys (named so because their training took place at Ft. Ritchie, MD). Their primary job was to interrogate Nazi prisoners, often on the front lines. Although his family did not survive the war (the details of which the reader is spared), Stern did. He went on to have a long and illustrious career as a scholar, author, husband and father, mentor, decorated veteran, and friend.Invisible Ink is a story that will have a lasting impact. If one can name a singular characteristic that gave Stern strength time after time, it was his resolute determination to persevere. To that end Stern's memoir provides hope, strength, and graciousness in times of uncertainty.

"The CIA exposé to end all CIA exposés." ―New York A 'Manchurian Candidate' is an unwitting assassin brainwashed and programmed to kill. In this book, former State Department officer John Marks tells the explosive story of the CIA's highly secret program of experiments in mind control. His curiosity first aroused by information on a puzzling suicide. Marks worked from thousands of pages of newly released documents as well as interviews and behavioral science studies, producing a book that 'accomplished what two Senate committees could not' (Senator Edward Kennedy).

"This final homage to one of the nation's bravest patriots will be an instant bestseller. It is the real-life spy thriller one can't put down."―Malcolm Nance, New York Times bestselling author of The Plot to Destroy DemocracyFrom the spymaster and inspiration for the movie Argo, discover the legendary, though under-supported CIA operatives who developed breakthrough spy tactics that helped turn the tide of the Cold War.Antonio Mendez and his future wife Jonna were CIA operatives working to spy on Moscow in the late 1970s, at one of the most dangerous moments in the Cold War. Soviets kept files on all foreigners, studied their patterns, and tapped their phones. Intelligence work was effectively impossible. The Soviet threat loomed larger than ever.The Moscow Rules tells the story of the intelligence breakthroughs that turned the odds in America's favor. As experts in disguise, Antonio and Jonna were instrumental in developing a series of tactics -- Hollywood-inspired identity swaps, ingenious evasion techniques, and an armory of James Bond-style gadgets -- that allowed CIA officers to outmaneuver the KGB.As Russia again rises in opposition to America, this remarkable story is a tribute to those who risked everything for their country, and to the ingenuity that allowed them to succeed.

With a thrilling narrative that sheds much light on recent events, this national bestseller brings to life the 1953 CIA coup in Iran that ousted the country’s elected prime minister, ushered in a quarter-century of brutal rule under the Shah, and stimulated the rise of Islamic fundamentalism and anti-Americanism in the Middle East. Selected as one of the best books of the year by the Washington Post and The Economist, it now features a new preface by the author on the folly of attacking Iran.

Richard Tomlinson was recruited by MI6, the British foreign intelligence service, during his senior year at Cambridge University. He quickly gained the trust and confidence of one of the world's most effective intelligence organisations. MI6 relied on Tomlinson to smuggle nuclear secrets out of Moscow, to run an undercover operation in Sarajevo while the city was under siege, and to infiltrate and dismantle a criminal group that sought to export chemical weapons capabilities to Iran.Four years after joining MI6, Tomlinson's career was abruptly terminated for reasons that are still unclear. When he tried to fight the unjust dismissal, government accused him in breaching the Official Secrets Act and imprisoned him in one of the Britain's toughest maximum security prisons.Following his release, MI6 kept up its pressure, hounding Tomlinson, launching a smear campaign in the international press, and pressuring its allies around the world to illegally arrest and expel him.The British intelligence service has used threats of legal action to force publishers in several European countries to abandon plans to publish this book.

Every president has had a unique and complicated relationship with the intelligence community. While some have been coolly distant, even adversarial, others have found their intelligence agencies to be among the most valuable instruments of policy and power.Since John F. Kennedy's presidency, this relationship has been distilled into a personalized daily report: a short summary of what the intelligence apparatus considers the most crucial information for the president to know that day about global threats and opportunities. This top-secret document is known as the President's Daily Brief, or, within national security circles, simply "the Book." Presidents have spent anywhere from a few moments (Richard Nixon) to a healthy part of their day (George W. Bush) consumed by its contents; some (Bill Clinton and George H. W. Bush) consider it far and away the most important document they saw on a regular basis while commander in chief.The details of most PDBs are highly classified, and will remain so for many years. But the process by which the intelligence community develops and presents the Book is a fascinating look into the operation of power at the highest levels. David Priess, a former intelligence officer and daily briefer, has interviewed every living president and vice president as well as more than one hundred others intimately involved with the production and delivery of the president's book of secrets. He offers an unprecedented window into the decision making of every president from Kennedy to Obama, with many character-rich stories revealed here for the first time.

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. I peed in more cups than you could imagine, and was nearly condemned as a sexual deviant by the staff psychologist. My roommates were getting freaked out by government investigators lurking around, asking questions about my past.Finally, the CIA was training me to crash cars into barriers at 60 mph. Jump out of airplanes with cargo attached to my body. Survive interrogation, travel in alias, lose a tail. One thing they didn't teach us was how to date a guy while lying to him about what you do for a living. That I had to figure out for myself.Then I was posted overseas. And that's when the real fun began.

"A State of Mind: Faith and the CIA" is a memoir of the life and work of a CIA officer. It is also a journey of faith. During the Cold War, the art of handling and recruiting spies was the focus of intelligence work. In those days, the practice of espionage raised serious moral and ethical issues, but it was a well-established and universally accepted form of statecraft. The shocking 9/11/2001 terrorist attack on America forced a fundamental reassessment of the purpose of intelligence and its role in safeguarding a nation. US intelligence, the military, and their allies waged a global war against terrorism using extraordinary means that raised unprecedented moral and ethical issues. Spies were joined by drones. Extreme measures were developed to kill, capture and interrogate terrorists. A reluctant witness to history was compelled to answer the call from God and country.

Who knew the CIA needed librarians? More Stories from Langley reveals the lesser-known operations of one of the most mysterious government agencies in the United States. Edward Mickolus is back with more stories to answer the question, “What does a career in the CIA look like?” Advice and anecdotes from both current and former CIA officers provide a look at the side of intelligence operations that is often left out of the movies. What was it like working for the CIA during 9/11? Do only spies get to travel? More Stories from Langley has physicists getting recruited to “the agency” during the Cold War, foreign-language majors getting lucky chances, and quests to “learn by living” turning into sweaty-palmed calls to the U.S. embassy after being detained by Russian intelligence officers.The world only needs so many suave super spies. More Stories from Langley shows how important academics, retired soldiers, and bilingual nannies can be in preserving the security of our nation.

A lot of confusion, a lot of humor, a lot of broken dreams and broken promises, an occasional triumph.1978—a chance meeting on a remote military airbase between two Green Berets involved in the same operation leads to a partnership that will last over forty years. Four years after that meeting, Nick Brokhausen and Jeff Miller leave the service within a few weeks of each other and begin an odyssey that takes them to dozens of countries on five continents.Along with a small coterie of fellow former Special Operations and intelligence community veterans like Penguini, Max, Reek, The Spider Woman and a score of others—some heroes and some villains—they undertake a variety of missions for the government, other governments, large multinational corporations mostly in the aerospace or resource development industries, and occasionally just for suffering individuals who cannot find help anywhere else. In the process they lay the groundwork for an entire new industry of private military contractors. Two men sadly just a bit ahead of their time.Every episode in this book actually happened. Not always precisely as described herein, but close. Changes have been made sometimes to make the narrative flow more smoothly, some to obfuscate events that might be flirting with classification issues… Names have been changed, not always to protect the innocent. But the underlying story is, for the most part, the reality as they lived it.

The previously unpublished second volume of Nick Brokhausen's vivid and riveting memoir of his experiences in MACV-SOG in Vietnam.“This battle-scarred memoir is an excellent tribute to the generation that fought, laughed, and died in Southeast Asia.” -New York Journal of BooksWhispers in the Tall Grass is the second volume of Nick Brokhausen’s riveting memoir of his time serving in Recon Teams Habu and Crusader, CNN, part of MACV-SOG. These small recon teams, comprising Americans and indigenous Montagnards, conducted some of the most dangerous missions of the war, infiltrating areas controlled by the North Vietnamese in Laos, Vietnam, and Cambodia.Picking up where We Few left off, Whispers in the Tall Grass opens as the war moves into a new phase. The enemy are using special formations to hunt recon teams and missions are now rarely accomplished without heavy contact. Despite the teams’ careful prep, losses are mounting. More and more missions are extracted by Bright Lights until eventually classic recon missions are almost impossible, and the teams briefly trial HALO insertion. Finally, as the US prepares to withdraw, the teams undertake back-to-back missions directing air strikes and disrupting supply lines to ease the pressure on the ARVN. Broken by the pace, but desperate not to leave the Yards, Brokhausen is ordered to out-process, his request for extension denied, and is forced to leave his friends—his brothers—behind.Written in the same vivid, immediate style that made We Few a cult classic, Whispers in the Tall Grass follows Habu, Crusader and other teams as they undertake missions in this new, deadlier phase of the war. The narrative veers from hair-raising to tragic and back as the teams insert into hot targets, act as Bright Light for stricken teams, and play hard in between missions to diffuse the ever-rising tension.Brokhausen’s account brings home the reality and the detail of operating for days within mere meters of the enemy, and movingly convey the bonds that war creates between soldiers.

A real-life, can’t-put-down spy memoir.The CIA is looking for walking contradictions. Recruiters seek out potential agents who can keep a secret yet pull classified information out of others; who love their country but are willing to leave it behind for dangerous places; who live double lives, but can be trusted with some of the nation’s most highly sensitive tasks.Michele Rigby Assad was one of those people.As a CIA agent and a counterterrorism expert, Michele soon found that working undercover was an all-encompassing job. The threats were real; the assignments perilous. Michele spent over a decade in the agency―a woman leading some of the most highly skilled operatives on the planet, secretly serving in some of the most treacherous areas of the Middle East, and at risk as a target for ISIS. But deep inside, Michele wondered: Could she really do this job? Had she misunderstood what she thought was God’s calling on her life? Did she have what it would take to survive?The answer came when Michele faced her ultimate mission, one with others’ lives on the line―and it turned out to have been the plan for her all along. In Breaking Cover, Michele has at last been cleared to drop cover and tell her story: one of life-or-death stakes; of defeating incredible odds; and most of all, of discovering a faith greater than all her fears.

A Daily Mail Book of the Year and a The Times and Sunday Times Best Book of 2021'Monumental.. Authoritative and highly readable.' Ben Macintyre, The Times'A fascinating history of royal espionage.' Sunday Times'Excellent... Compelling' GuardianFor the first time, The Secret Royals uncovers the remarkable relationship between the Royal Family and the intelligence community, from the reign of Queen Victoria to the death of Princess Diana.In an enthralling narrative, Richard J. Aldrich and Rory Cormac show how the British secret services grew out of persistent attempts to assassinate Victoria and then operated on a private and informal basis, drawing on close personal relationships between senior spies, the aristocracy, and the monarchy. This reached its zenith after the murder of the Romanovs and the Russian revolution when, fearing a similar revolt in Britain, King George V considered using private networks to provide intelligence on the loyalty of the armed forces - and of the broader population.In 1936, the dramatic abdication of Edward VIII formed a turning point in this relationship. What originally started as family feuding over a romantic liaison with the American divorcee Wallis Simpson, escalated into a national security crisis. Fearing the couple's Nazi sympathies as well as domestic instability, British spies turned their attention to the King. During the Second World War, his successor, King George VI gradually restored trust between the secret world and House of Windsor. Thereafter, Queen Elizabeth II regularly enacted her constitutional right to advise and warn, raising her eyebrow knowingly at prime ministers and spymasters alike.Based on original research and new evidence, The Secret Royals presents the British monarchy in an entirely new light and reveals how far their majesties still call the shots in a hidden world.

The true story that inspired the feature film Bridge of SpiesIn this new edition of his classic 1970 memoir about the notorious U-2 incident, pilot Francis Gary Powers reveals the full story of what actually happened in the most sensational espionage case in Cold War history. After surviving the shoot-down of his reconnaissance plane and his capture on May 1, 1960, Powers endured sixty-one days of rigorous interrogation by the KGB, a public trial, a conviction for espionage, and the start of a ten-year sentence. After nearly two years, the U.S. government obtained his release from prison in a dramatic exchange for convicted Soviet spy Rudolph Abel. The narrative is a tremendously exciting suspense story about a man who was labeled a traitor by many of his countrymen but who emerged a Cold War hero.Purchase the audio edition.

The #1 New York Times bestseller and subject of the acclaimed major motion picture Bridge of Spies directed by Steven Spielberg, starring Tom Hanks as James B. Donovan.Originally published in 1964, this is the “enthralling…truly remarkable” (The New York Times Book Review) insider account of the Cold War spy exchange—with a new foreword by Jason Matthews, New York Times bestselling author of Red Sparrow and Palace of Treason.In the early morning of February 10, 1962, James B. Donovan began his walk toward the center of the Glienicke Bridge, the famous “Bridge of Spies” which then linked West Berlin to East. With him, walked Rudolf Ivanovich Abel, master spy and for years the chief of Soviet espionage in the United States. Approaching them from the other side, under equally heavy guard, was Francis Gary Powers, the American U-2 spy plane pilot famously shot down by the Soviets, whose exchange for Abel Donovan had negotiated. These were the strangers on a bridge, men of East and West, representatives of two opposed worlds meeting in a moment of high drama.Abel was the most gifted, the most mysterious, the most effective spy in his time. His trial, which began in a Brooklyn United States District Court and ended in the Supreme Court of the United States, chillingly revealed the methods and successes of Soviet espionage.No one was better equipped to tell the whole absorbing history than James B. Donovan, who was appointed to defend one of his country’s enemies and did so with scrupulous skill. In Strangers on a Bridge, the lead prosecutor in the Nuremburg Trials offers a clear-eyed and fast-paced memoir that is part procedural drama, part dark character study and reads like a noirish espionage thriller. From the first interview with Abel to the exchange on the bridge in Berlin—and featuring unseen photographs of Donovan and Abel as well as trial notes and sketches drawn from Abel’s prison cell—here is an important historical narrative that is “as fascinating as it is exciting” (The Houston Chronicle).

With intrigue that rivals the best le Carré novels, Russians Among Us tells the explosive story of Russia’s espionage efforts against the United States and the West—from the end of the Cold War to the present and the significant threat of hacking the 2020 electionSpies have long been a source of great fascination in the world of fiction, but sometimes the best spy stories happen in real life. Russians Among Us tells the full story of Putin’s escalating espionage campaign in the West, the Russian ‘deep cover’ spies who penetrated the US and the years-long FBI hunt to capture them. This book also details the recruitment, running, and escape of one of the most important spies of modern times, a man who worked inside the heart of Russian intelligence. In this thrilling account Corera tracks not only the history, but the astonishing evolution of Russian espionage, including the use of ‘cyber illegals’ who continue to manipulate us today and pose a significant threat to the 2020 election.Like a scene from the TV drama The Americans, in the summer of 2010 a group of Russian deep cover sleeper agents were arrested. It was the culmination of a decade-long investigation, and ten people, including Anna Chapman, were swapped for four people held in Russia. At the time it was seen simply as a throwback to the Cold War. But that would prove to be a costly mistake. It was a sign that the Russian threat had never gone away and more importantly, it was shifting into a much more disruptive new phase. Today, the danger is clearer than ever following the poisoning in the UK of one of the spies who was swapped, Sergei Skripal, and the growing evidence of Russian interference in American life.Russians Among Us describes for the first time the story of deep cover spies in America and the FBI agents who tracked them. In intimate and riveting detail, it reveals new information about today’s spies—as well as those trying to catch them and those trying to kill them.

Left of Boom is the explosive New York Times bestselling memoir by a young CIA operative on the front lines in Afghanistan.On September 11, 2001, Douglas Laux was a freshman in college, on the path to becoming a doctor. But with the fall of the Twin Towers came a turning point in his life. After graduating he joined the Central Intelligence Agency, determined to get himself to Afghanistan and into the center of the action. Through persistence and hard work he was fast-tracked to a clandestine operations position overseas. Dropped into a remote region of Afghanistan, he received his baptism by fire. Frustrated by bureaucratic red tape, a widespread lack of knowledge of the local customs and culture and an attitude of complacency that hindered his ability to combat the local Taliban, Doug confounded his peers by dressing like a native and mastering the local dialect, making contact and building sources within several deadly terrorist networks. His new approach resulted in unprecedented successes for the CIA, including the uncovering the largest IED network in the world, responsible for killing hundreds of US soldiers.Meanwhile, Doug had to keep up false pretenses with his family, girlfriend and friends--nobody could know what he did for a living--and deal with the emotional turbulence of constantly living a lie. His double life was building to an explosive resolution, with repercussions that would have far reaching consequences. Left of Boom tells his story.

In his explosive New York Times bestseller, top CIA operative Robert Baer paints a chilling picture of how terrorism works on the inside and provides startling evidence of how Washington politics sabotaged the CIA’s efforts to root out the world’s deadliest terrorists, allowing for the rise of Osama bin Laden and Al Qaeda and the continued entrenchment of Saddam Hussein in Iraq.A veteran case officer in the CIA’s Directorate of Operations in the Middle East, Baer witnessed the rise of terrorism first hand and the CIA’s inadequate response to it, leading to the attacks of September 11, 2001. This riveting book is both an indictment of an agency that lost its way and an unprecedented look at the roots of modern terrorism, and includes a new afterword in which Baer speaks out about the American war on terrorism and its profound implications throughout the Middle East.“Robert Baer was considered perhaps the best on-the-ground fieldofficer in the Middle East.”–Seymour M. Hersh, The New YorkerFrom The PrefaceThis book is a memoir of one foot soldier’s career in the other cold war, the one against terrorist networks. It’s a story about places most Americans will never travel to, about people many Americans would prefer to think we don’t need to do business with.This memoir, I hope, will show the reader how spying is supposed to work, where the CIA lost its way, and how we can bring it back again. But I hope this book will accomplish one more purpose as well: I hope it will show why I am angry about what happened to the CIA. And I want to show why every American and everyone who cares about the preservation of this country should be angry and alarmed, too.The CIA was systematically destroyed by political correctness, by petty Beltway wars, by careerism, and much more. At a time when terrorist threats were compounding globally, the agency that should have been monitoring them was being scrubbed clean instead. Americans were making too much money to bother. Life was good. The White House and the National Security Council became cathedrals of commerce where the interests of big business outweighed the interests of protecting American citizens at home and abroad. Defanged and dispirited, the CIA went along for the ride. And then on September 11, 2001, the reckoning for such vast carelessness was presented for all the world to see.

The explosive, never-before-told story of the thrilling hunt for a KGB spy in the top ranks of the CIA, revealing how spies blinded the US to the rise of Putin and Russia’s dangerous future, from New York Times bestselling author and former CIA officer Robert BaerWe think we know all the Cold War’s greatest spy stories. The tales of America’s greatest traitors have been told over and over. However, the biggest story of them all remains untold—until now. Rumors have long swirled of another mole in American intelligence, 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.Blowing the lid off the biggest spy story in decades, Robert Baer tells the full, gripping story for the first time. After arrest of KGB spy Aldrich Ames, the CIA launched another investigation to make sure there wasn't another double agent in its ranks. Led by three of the CIA’s best spy hunters, women who devoted their lives to counterintelligence, its existence was known only to a few. They began methodically investigating their own bosses and colleagues, turning up loose threads, suspicious activity, and shocking intelligence from the CIA’s best Russian asset. In the end, they came to a startling conclusion that, whether true or not, would shake American intelligence to its core, setting the stage for a cat-and-mouse game with enormous geopolitical stakes. Spies and moles may seem like bygone cold war history, but with Russia again a misunderstood belligerent power, the skeletons America would rather keep hidden are emerging, and as Robert Baer shows in this thrilling masterwork of investigative reporting, they matter as much now as ever.

From acclaimed journalist David Talbot comes a groundbreaking narrative account of one of the most tumultuous periods in our history: the Kennedy Administration and its dramatic aftermath.Though countless books have been written about the Kennedy men and their brief, tumultuous time in the White House, few have offered as many explosive revelations as this one. David Talbot describes a JFK administration more besieged by domestic enemies than has been previously realized, from within the Pentagon, the CIA, the FBI, and the mob. It is against this dark backdrop that he charts the emotionally charged journey of Robert Kennedy, whose soul-scouring quest to find the origins of his brother’s murder led him, to his horror, back to the dark corners of American power that had been part of his portfolio: U.S. intelligence, Cuba, and organized crime.From the Kennedy “band of brothers” to RFK’s hope of using executive power to solve Jack’s death once and for all, this probing work of history draws on more than 150 exclusive interviews to produce a bold look at power and vengeance. A topic of perennial interest, Brothers is a multilayered, complex tale of gut-wrenching history.

A cybersecurity expert and former FBI “ghost” tells the thrilling story of how he helped take down notorious FBI mole Robert Hanssen, the first Russian cyber spy.“Both a real-life, tension-packed thriller and a persuasive argument for traditional intelligence work in the information age.”—Bruce Schneier, New York Times bestselling author of Data and Goliath and Click Here to Kill EverybodyEric O’Neill was only twenty-six when he was tapped for the case of a lifetime: a one-on-one undercover investigation of the FBI’s top target, a man suspected of spying for the Russians for nearly two decades, giving up nuclear secrets, compromising intelligence, and betraying US assets. With zero training in face-to-face investigation, O’Neill found himself in a windowless, high-security office in the newly formed Information Assurance Section, tasked officially with helping the FBI secure its outdated computer system against hackers and spies—and unofficially with collecting evidence against his new boss, Robert Hanssen, an exacting and rage-prone veteran agent with a fondness for handguns. In the months that follow, O’Neill’s self-esteem and young marriage unravel under the pressure of life in Room 9930, and he questions the very purpose of his mission. But as Hanssen outmaneuvers an intelligence community struggling to keep up with the new reality of cybersecurity, he also teaches O’Neill the game of spycraft. The student will just have to learn to outplay his teacher if he wants to win.A tension-packed stew of power, paranoia, and psychological manipulation, Gray Day is also a cautionary tale of how the United States allowed Russia to become dominant in cyberespionage—and how we might begin to catch up.

The former Chief Executive of the Secret Services of Israel and director of Operation Eichmann reconstructs in detail the tracing and capturing of the Nazi war criminal and his clandestine removal from Argentina to Israel

New York Times best-selling author Neal Bascomb's Hunting Eichmann is the first complete narrative of the pursuit and capture of SS Nazi officer and Holocaust architect Adolf Eichmann."A fantastic true spy story."—Associated PressWhen the Allies stormed Berlin in the last days of the Third Reich, Adolf Eichmann shed his SS uniform and vanished. Following his escape from two American POW camps, his retreat into the mountains and out of Europe, and his path to an anonymous life in Buenos Aires, his pursuers are a bulldog West German prosecutor, a blind Argentinean Jew and his beautiful daughter, and a budding, ragtag spy agency called the Mossad, whose operatives have their own scores to settle (and whose rare surveillance photographs are published here for the first time).The capture of Eichmann and the efforts by Israeli agents to secret him out of Argentina to stand trial is the stunning conclusion to this thrilling historical account, told with the kind of pulse-pounding detail that rivals anything you'd find in great spy fiction.Includes Mossad's Rare Surveillance Photographs

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.On October 8, 1978, a Canadian national by the name of William Dyson stepped off a plane at O’Hare International Airport and proceeded toward Customs and Immigration.Two days later, William Dyson ceased to exist.The identity was a KGB forgery, used to get one of their own―a young, ambitious East German agent―into the United States.The plan succeeded, and the spy’s new identity was born: Jack Barsky. He would work undercover for the next decade, carrying out secret operations during the Cold War years . . . until a surprising shift in his allegiance challenged everything he thought he believed.Deep Undercover will reveal the secret life of this man without a country and tell the story no one ever expected him to tell.

A NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLERChosen as a BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR by NPR, the New York Public Library, Amazon, the Seattle Times, the Washington Independent Review of Books, PopSugar, the Minneapolis Star Tribune, BookBrowse, the Spectator, and the Times of LondonWinner of the Plutarch Award for Best Biography“Excellent…This book is as riveting as any thriller, and as hard to put down.” -- The New York Times Book Review"A compelling biography of a masterful spy, and a reminder of what can be done with a few brave people -- and a little resistance." - NPR"A meticiulous history that reads like a thriller." - Ben MacintyreA never-before-told story of Virginia Hall, the American spy who changed the course of World War II, from the author of Clementine.In 1942, the Gestapo sent out an urgent transmission: "She is the most dangerous of all Allied spies. We must find and destroy her."The target in their sights was Virginia Hall, a Baltimore socialite who talked her way into Special Operations Executive, the spy organization dubbed Winston Churchill's "Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare." She became the first Allied woman deployed behind enemy lines and--despite her prosthetic leg--helped to light the flame of the French Resistance, revolutionizing secret warfare as we know it.Virginia established vast spy networks throughout France, called weapons and explosives down from the skies, and became a linchpin for the Resistance. Even as her face covered wanted posters and a bounty was placed on her head, Virginia refused order after order to evacuate. She finally escaped through a death-defying hike over the Pyrenees into Spain, her cover blown. But she plunged back in, adamant that she had more lives to save, and led a victorious guerilla campaign, liberating swathes of France from the Nazis after D-Day.Based on new and extensive research, Sonia Purnell has for the first time uncovered the full secret life of Virginia Hall--an astounding and inspiring story of heroism, spycraft, resistance, and personal triumph over shocking adversity. A Woman of No Importance is the breathtaking story of how one woman's fierce persistence helped win the war.

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • The epic true story of Kim Philby, the Cold War’s most infamous spy, from the “master storyteller” (San Francisco Chronicle) and author of Prisoners of the Castle.Now an MGM+ series starring Damian Lewis, Guy Pearce, and Anna Maxwell Martin“[A Spy Among Friends] reads like a story by Graham Greene, Ian Fleming, or John le Carré, leavened with a dollop of P. G. Wodehouse.”—Walter Isaacson, New York Times Book ReviewWho was Kim Philby? Those closest to him—like his fellow MI6 officer and best friend since childhood, Nicholas Elliot, and the CIA’s head of counterintelligence, James Jesus Angleton—knew him as a loyal confidant and an unshakeable patriot. Philby was a brilliant and charming man who rose to head Britain’s counterintelligence against the Soviet Union. Together with Elliott and Angleton he stood on the front lines of the Cold War, holding Communism at bay. But he was secretly betraying them both: He was working for the Russians the entire time.Every word uttered in confidence to Philby made its way to Moscow, sinking almost every important Anglo-American spy operation for twenty years and costing hundreds of lives. So how was this cunning double-agent finally exposed? In A Spy Among Friends, Ben Macintyre expertly weaves the heart-pounding tale of how Philby almost got away with it all—and what happened when he was finally unmasked.Based on personal papers and never-before-seen British intelligence files and told with heart-pounding suspense and keen psychological insight, A Spy Among Friends is a fascinating portrait of a Cold War spy and the countrymen who remained willfully blind to his treachery.ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR: The New York Times Book Review, The Washington Post, Entertainment Weekly, Shelf Awareness

BLACK OPS recounts Carlton King's unique journey from club DJ to Britain’s highest ranking Black secret agent.To outsiders Carlton King was a regular policeman. Those close to him knew he had 'something' to do with Scotland Yard. But, only those in his inner sanctum knew he was a Special Branch officer who held a unique role in Britain’s Secret Intelligence Service (MI6).At home and abroad, from warzones to the playgrounds of the rich and famous Carlton was embroiled in Bondesque espionage, ultra-deep-cover counter-subversive missions, counter-terrorism and national security close protection operations that made him known to world leaders from Blair to the Clintons, Chancellor Merkel to Sir John Major and their royal highnesses Prince Charles and Princess Diana.Helicopters, big guns, fast cars and luxury hotels are all part of Carlton's story, as is his knowledge of extremist politics and the capacity to rapidly evaluate intelligence – not least to stay alive.Having the highest clearance to state secrets for more than a quarter of a century, Carlton provides readers with one of the most authoritative, current and in-depth accounts of British secret intelligence and national security operations ever written. Consequently, it’s taken him more than four years of legal wrangling with Scotland Yard and government to gain publication.Quite simply, BLACK OPS is the book THEY didn’t want you to read!

Meet your next crisis head on and get through it stronger than ever by using the hard-earned strategies and core principles from Marc Polymeropoulos, a highly decorated, 26-year operations officer with the CIA.Marc Polymeropoulos has had to live with the consequences of decisions made under the most high-stress circumstances you can imagine as a senior intelligence officer in the CIA, retiring from his 26 years of service as one of the CIA’s most decorated field officers.Though your crisis situations may not entail international counter terrorism as Marc’s did, in our age of social media and a 24-hour news cycle, the consequences of mishandling a crisis can escalate quickly, leaving irreparable damage to a company’s reputation and bottom line in its wake.In Clarity in Crisis, Marc shares how true leaders need to lead in and through times of crisis and thrive under conditions of ambiguity, rather than message their way out or duck from hard decisions.This book provides proven strategies and core principles that leaders can apply to meet any crisis head on and lead through it, including: The critical elements to managing crisis, such as knowing who you can always count on to execute under high-stress situations. An understanding of the importance of following and stressing key fundamentals and avoiding shortcuts that often do more harm than good. Implementation guidance from the “Mad Minute” section at the end of each chapter that summarizes key points and action items you can begin applying right away. How to gain confidence that you are ready for the next crisis and embrace any situation with no fear.Far from mere theory, Clarity in Crisis outlines the unique mindset and strategies Marc himself practiced and honed throughout his remarkable career. The core principles outlined in these pages will help you find unshakeable clarity in crisis and lead when others want to flee.

After spending more than twenty-six years as a Special Agent with the FBI, Kathy Stearman recounts the global experiences that shaped her life—and the mixed feelings that she now holds about the sacrifices she had to make to survive in a man’s world.When former FBI Agent Kathy Stearman read in the New York Times that sixteen women were suing the FBI for discrimination at the training academy, she was surprised to see the women come forward—no one ever had before. But the truth behind their accusations resonated.After a twenty-six-year career in the Bureau, Kathy Stearman knows from personal experience that this type of behavior has been prevalent for decades. Stearman’s It’s Not About the Gun examines the influence of attitude and gender in her journey to becoming FBI Legal Attaché, the most senior FBI representative in a foreign office.When she entered the FBI Academy in 1987, Stearman was one of about 600 women in a force of 10,000 agents. While there, she evolved into an assertive woman, working her way up the ranks and across the globe to hold positions that very few women have held before. And yet, even at the height of her career, Stearman had to check herself to make sure that she never appeared weak, inferior, or afraid. The accepted attitude for women in power has long been cool, calm, and in control—and sometimes that means coming across as cold and emotionless.Stearman changed for the FBI, but she longs for a different path for future women of the Bureau. If the system changes, then women can remain constant, valuing their female identity and nurturing the people they truly are. In It's Not About the Gun, Stearman describes how she was viewed as a woman and an American overseas, and how her perception of her country and the FBI, observed from the optics of distance, has evolved.

The Psychology of Spies and Spying tells the story of the people involved in the human sources (agents) who betray their country or organisation and the professional intelligence officers who manage the collection and reporting process. It provides a rigorous psychological analysis of the personality and motivation of individuals involved in spying. This book shows the importance of developing trust between agents and handlers, between agencies and their government and ultimately the public. It shows how agent handlers, operating in environments of complete secrecy, need to manage dark side behaviours because agents are selected for their access to secrets, not for their qualities. It explains why motivation is rarely simple since it is invariably a combination of many issues.It explains how fiction writers are good at developing plots and the characterisation of spies, but few capture the motivation of agents well. Finally spy gadgets and techniques are also described in detail. Included are twelve agent case studies in which most were motivated by ideology, had significant misfortune in their youth and offered their services rather than being coerced into betrayal. The Psychology of Spies and Spying promotes the view that in the world of intelligence, it is trust not betrayal which dominates the mindset.