Stealing Secrets, Telling Lies: How Spies & Codebreakers Helped Shape the Twentieth Century - Hardcover

Gannon, James

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1574883674 ISBN 13: 9781574883671

Publisher: University of Nebraska Press, 2001

Synopsis

How important is it to know your enemy’s secrets? The German victory at the Battle of Tannenberg in 1914, the entrance of the United States into World War I, the defeat of Nazi Germany, and the Soviet Union’s faster-than-anticipated development of the atomic bomb were all facilitated by stealing enemy secrets. Espionage and codebreaking have, throughout history, been instrumental in the rise, fall, and preservation of world powers. In Stealing Secrets, Telling Lies James Gannon provides the full story behind the critical intelligence breakthroughs that helped alter the course of history in the twentieth century. The interception of the Zimmerman Telegram, the deciphering of the German Enigma machine, the Soviet’s damaging penetration of the British Foreign Service through the “Cambridge Five” spy ring, and the U.S. counterintelligence coup known as Operation Venona (still secret until 1995) are just some of the episodes detailed here.

About this title

About the Author:

James Gannon is a freelance writer and former award-winning producer-writer of documentaries for NBC News. His articles have appeared in The Nation, American Legion Magazine, and National Parks and Conservation Magazine. Mr. Gannon lives in Stony Point, Long Island, New York.

From Library Journal:

Quality intelligence is vital to effective decision-making, and this book reviews some of the crucial personalities and operations that helped shape our world. World War II was the central event of the last 100 years, and much of the book is given over to recounting the desperate efforts to gather information during that conflict. Most of these stories are well known, so the history of the Polish spy who helped bring down the Communist government is a welcome addition. Gannon believes that Donald Maclean was a more important spy than Kim Philby because of the former's greater access to American secrets, but perhaps most important was Klaus Fuchs, who passed America's atomic secrets to the Soviets. The resulting Cold War stalemate came to define the century. The author is a freelance writer and former TV documentary producer. Although he used some archival sources, he culled most of the information from the open literature. Suitable for public and academic libraries, alongside Phillip Knightley's The Second Oldest Profession: Spies and Spying in the Twentieth Century (LJ 12/86) and Jeffrey T. Richelson's A Century of Spies: Intelligence in the Twentieth Century (LJ 8/95). Daniel K. Blewett, Coll. of DuPage Lib., Glen Ellyn, IL
Copyright 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc.

About this edition

• Publisher: University of Nebraska Press
• Publication date: 2001
• ISBN 10: 1574883674
• ISBN 13: 9781574883671
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 324