Need to Know: World War II and the Rise of American Intelligence – How Churchill Built the CIA and Modern Spy Operations from Nothing - Softcover

Reynolds, Nicholas

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0062967487 ISBN 13: 9780062967480

Publisher: Mariner Books, 2023

Synopsis

One of The New Yorker's "Best Books of the Year" * A Gilder Lehrman Military History Prize Finalist

"Authoritative. . . . [Reynolds's] contribution to our understanding of the rise of American intelligence is unparalleled." —Journal of Intelligence History

“The most thorough and detailed history available on the origins of U.S. intelligence.” —Michael Morell, former Deputy Director and Acting Director, CIA

Historian and former CIA officer Nicholas Reynolds, the New York Times bestselling author of Writer, Sailor, Soldier, Spy, uncovers the definitive history of American intelligence during World War II, illuminating its key role in securing victory and its astonishing growth from practically nothing at the start of the war. 

The entire vast, modern American intelligence system—the amalgam of three-letter spy services of many stripes—can be traced back to the dire straits the world faced at the dawn of World War II. Prior to 1940, the United States had no organization to recruit spies and steal secrets or launch covert campaigns against enemies overseas and just a few codebreakers, isolated in windowless vaults. It was only through Winston Churchill’s determination to mobilize the US in the fight against Hitler that the first American spy service was born, built from scratch against the background of the Second World War.

In Need to Know, Nicholas Reynolds explores the birth, infancy, and adolescence of modern American intelligence. In this first-ever look across the entirety of the war effort, Reynolds combines little-known history and gripping spy stories to analyze the origins of American codebreakers and spies as well as their contributions to Allied victory, revealing how they laid the foundation for the Cold War—and beyond.

Need to Know takes you inside the story of how America developed its intelligence services from the ground up, exploring:

• America’s First Spy Service: How Winston Churchill’s desperate plea helped launch the Office of Strategic Services, built from scratch against the backdrop of the war with a collection of lawyers, academics, and adventurers.
• William “Wild Bill” Donovan: A detailed portrait of the charismatic World War I hero and Wall Street lawyer handpicked by FDR to become the father of American central intelligence.
• Codebreakers and Signals Intelligence: The secret history of the army and navy cryptologists in their windowless vaults, and their crucial collaboration with Britain’s Bletchley Park to break Axis codes.
• The Foundation of the CIA: Explore how the OSS’s wartime innovations in espionage and covert campaigns laid the groundwork for the Central Intelligence Agency and the intelligence battles of the Cold War.

About this title

About the Author

Nicholas Reynolds has worked in the fields of modern military history and intelligence off and on for forty years, with some unusual detours. Freshly minted PhD from Oxford University in hand, he joined the United States Marine Corps in the 1970s, serving as an infantry officer and then as a historian. As a colonel in the reserves, he eventually became officer in charge of field history, deploying historians around the world to capture history as it was being made. When not on duty with the USMC, he served as a CIA officer at home and abroad, immersing himself in the very human business of espionage. Most recently, he was the historian for the CIA Museum, responsible for developing its strategic plan and helping to turn remarkable artifacts into compelling stories. He currently teaches as an adjunct professor for Johns Hopkins University and, with his wife, Becky, cares for rescue pugs.

Edition details

• Publisher: Mariner Books
• Publication date: 2023
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0062967487
• ISBN 13: 9780062967480
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 512