Tiger Trap: America's Secret Spy War with China - Hardcover

Wise, David

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0547553102 ISBN 13: 9780547553108

Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2011

Synopsis

For decades, while America obsessed over Soviet spies, China quietly penetrated the highest levels of government. Now, for the first time, based on numerous interviews with key insiders at the FBI and CIA as well as with Chinese agents and people close to them, David Wise tells the full story of China€™s many victories and defeats in its American spy wars.Two key cases interweave throughout: Katrina Leung, code-named Parlor Maid, worked for the FBI for years, even after she became a secret double agent for China, aided by love affairs with both of her FBI handlers. Here, too, is the inside story of the case, code-named Tiger Trap, of a key Chinese-American scientist suspected of stealing nuclear weapons secrets. These two cases led to many others, involving famous names from Wen Ho Lee to Richard Nixon, stunning national security leaks, and sophisticated cyberspying. The story takes us up to the present, with a West Coast spy ring whose members were sentenced in 2010€”b

About this title

From the Inside Flap

Honey traps, double agents, nuclear-weapons secrets, and a future president’s female friend: a revelatory history of Chinese espionage in America

 

For decades, while the United States obsessed over Soviet spies, China quietly penetrated the highest levels of government—indeed, all along, China arguably has been America’s most formidable spy foe. Now, for the first time, based on numerous interviews with key insiders at the FBI and CIA as well as with Chinese agents and people close to them, David Wise tells the full story of China’s many victories and defeats in its U.S. spy wars.

 

Among his many revelations:

 

*How China’s intelligence service penetrated the FBI via Katrina Leung, code name parlor maid, an FBI asset who became a double agent for Beijing and maintained longtime affairs with the Bureau’s top two agents in charge of Chinese counterintelligence, and how the FBI finally, belatedly, broke the case.

 

*How a task force with the secret code name SEGO PALM, using 300 U.S. agents from 11 agencies, failed to solve the mystery of how China stole the design of America’s most sophisticated nuclear warhead, the W-88, after a “walk-in” revealed the leak.

 

*The astonishing inside story of how China acquired U.S. secrets of the neutron bomb in the case code-named TIGER TRAP.

 

*The text of an FBI document citing unconfirmed reports that Richard Nixon in the 1960s was “a regular bedmate” of Marianna Liu, a beautiful Hong Kong bar hostess and suspected Chinese intelligence operative.

 

*How China’s cyber-spying has penetrated the State Department, the Pentagon, and nuclear weapons labs right up to the present day.

 

The story will surely continue for years to come, as China faces off against America. Tiger Trap is as urgently essential as it is fascinating.

 

From the Back Cover

PRAISE FOR TIGER TRAP

 

“Extraordinary. A stunningly detailed history of China’s spy war with us—from sexy socialite double agents to ‘kill switches’ implanted offshore in the computer chips for our electric grid. Wise remains the master.” —R. James Woolsey, former Director of Central Intelligence

 

“David Wise has done it again. He's taken us deep into the American efforts to root out Chinese spies here and abroad. As always, Wise is the master—writing with clarity and style about the murky and consequential underworld of nuclear espionage. ” —Tom Brokaw

 

“David Wise is a master of the nonfiction thriller and, once again, he delivers a fact-filled inside account, with sources named and no one spared, including some very amorous and reckless FBI agents. There is an important message in Tiger Trap—about the often overlooked threat posed by China’s demonstrated ability to dig out America’s most important military and economic secrets.” —Seymour M. Hersh

 

“David Wise has given us a rare combination in today’s literary world—a book that is great reading, while at the same time shedding light on a subject whose seriousness should concern every thinking American.” —Jim Webb, US Senator from Virginia, author of Born Fighting, Fields of Fire, and other books

 

 

Edition details

• Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
• Publication date: 2011
• ISBN 10: 0547553102
• ISBN 13: 9780547553108
• Binding: Hardcover
• Language: English
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 292