Gideon's Spies: The Secret History of the Mossad - Softcover

Thomas, Gordon

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0312252846 ISBN 13: 9780312252847

Publisher: St. Martin's Griffin, 2000

Synopsis

Created in 1951 to ensure the future of an embattled Israel, the Mossad has been responsible for the most audacious and thrilling feats of espionage, counterterrorism, and assassination ever ventured. For the first time ever, resulting from closed-door interviews between the author and Mossad agents, informants, and spymasters, as well as classified documents and top-secret sources, the truth about the Mossad is about to be revealed. From the Mossad agent in the Clinton White House who enabled Israel to call the shots in the ongoing Middle East peace process to the nuclear secrets smuggled out of the U.S. and used to jump-start Israel's own atomic weapons program, Gideon's Spies reveals the Mossad as it truly is: brilliant, ruthless, flawed, but ultimately awesome.

About this title

Review:

The Mossad was formed in 1951 to coordinate the intelligence-gathering efforts of the still-young nation of Israel. In the nearly half century since, it has become a force to be reckoned with, boasting an impressive track record of counterterrorist actions and assassinations. Gideon's Spies is loaded with anecdotes of their greatest exploits (and a few colossal blunders). Among the most interesting sections are the suggestions that Mossad agents killed media tycoon Robert Maxwell in 1991, that the agency's attempted recruitment of Henri Paul, the driver of Princess Diana's car that fateful night, may have caused sufficient emotional distress to be a contributing factor in the accident, and that Mossad operatives in America had tapes of the phone-sex conversations between President Bill Clinton and his lover Monica Lewinsky. There's also some extensive material on the links between the Israelis and the Vatican, including the Mossad's role in the investigation into the attempted 1981 assassination of Pope John Paul II and the agency's constant battles against the PLO. An interesting nonfiction read for fans of international spy thrillers.

From the Publisher:

"This is an anecdote-rich ...series of tales about the extraordinary derring-do of Israels' vaunted elite foreign intelligence service. {a} fu read...containing much juicy ready-for-film adaption material."-Kirkus Reviews

About this edition

• Publisher: St. Martin's Griffin
• Publication date: 2000
• ISBN 10: 0312252846
• ISBN 13: 9780312252847
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 400