The Second Oldest Profession: Spies and Spying in the Twentieth Century - Softcover

Phillip Knightley

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0393335747 ISBN 13: 9780393335743

Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company, 1980

Synopsis

The first full history of spies, spying, and the intelligence bureaucracy, from the author of The Philby Conspiracy.

In 1909, the business of spying was hoisted from the domain of a few European descendents to the highest reaches of British government with the formation of Britain's SIS. Acting in response to a totally fraudulent fear--the German spy scare that preceded World War I--the British soon had a lot of company as Germany, Russia, France, and other powers large and small joined the mad rush toward information and espionage. Not far behind came the biggest of them all, first with the OSS and then with the CIA, fueled by paranoia and by more money than any new bureaucracy had ever seen. "Bigger than State by '48," was the CIA's slogan on its founding in 1947. And it was.

Now intelligence is a very big business with a very rich history, told here with a depth and verve never before brought to the subject, by a master historian. All of the legends and their immensely readable stories and here--Sorge, Donovan, Philby, Mata Hari, Golitsyn, Angleton, Penkovsky--and behind them a large question: did any act of these spies and their masters make any difference at all in the course of history?

About this title

From Library Journal:

The first modern, permanent intelligence agency was created about 1909, and within a few years all the great powers had similar agencies. Concentrating almost entirely on Britain, France, Germany, Russia, and the United States, Knightley asserts that these services are not worth the enormous sums they cost, that they are not effective in predicting enemy actions, and that they cause more trouble than they prevent. He uses anecdotes of failed operations and jaundiced interpretations of other episodes in an attempt to prove that intelligence services corrode a democratic society's liberty and pervert international relations. Knightley lambasts even such famous operations as ULTRA, MAGIC, and the XX Committee as overrated and mythologized. His argument might have had greater credibility if it were not so shrill and one-sided.Edwin B. Burgess, U.S. Army TRALINET Ctr., Fort Monroe, Va.
Copyright 1986 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Review:

"If Reagan, Gorbachev, Thatcher and Mitterand only manage one book this year, they could do a lot worse than pick up Phillip Knightley's." -- John le Carre

" If Reagan, Gorbachev, Thatcher and Mitterand only manage one book this year, they could do a lot worse than pick up Phillip Knightley' s." -- John le Carre

About this edition

• Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
• Publication date: 1980
• ISBN 10: 0393335747
• ISBN 13: 9780393335743
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 468