This is the story of a man who was born in Transylvania, entered the United States as a teen, volunteered for the U.S. Army, and jumped with the famed 506th Airborne Infantry Regiment (Band of Brothers) on D-Day in 1944. His fluency in many languages made him an indispensable resource as he traversed back and forth from the battlefront to England with Nazi prisoners. He learned of a planned mass prison breakout by 75,000 Nazi POWs intent on taking the battle across England in what their high command called Die Dritte Front (The Third Front). General Matthew B. Ridgway sent Brandy and his report up the chain of command, and the Nazi's Third Front was thwarted. Months later, Brandy was the "blindfolded captain" historians cite as the man who crossed enemy lines to carry General Ridgway's letter to Field Marshal Walter Model in the Ruhr Valley in April of 1945 comparing the German Field Marshal's situation to that of Robert E. Lee's. Brandy served at General Ridgway's side in XVIII Airborne Corps throughout that war and afterward in the Mediterranean Theater of Operations and the fledgling, 5-nation U.N. Organization.
Throughout the rest of his life, Brandy`s civilian occupation as a hotelier served as a perfect front for his duties as an Army Reserve intelligence officer. He hosted Fidel Castro at the Havana Hilton in 1959 and sent privileged information to his "big brother" in the Pentagon. Brandy entertained many who were seeking a safe haven in the restful seclusion of the Las Brisas Hotel and of Brandy's castle-like fortress home on the mountainside above Acapulco Bay--the place he affectionately named Casa Tranquilidad (House of Peace). Brandy also traveled worldwide, often at his own expense, to intriguing places at times when security threats were fomenting. Presidents Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon, Reagan, Yugoslavia's Josip Broz Tito, Mexico's Diaz Ordaz, Spain's King Juan Carlos, and Felix von Habsburg--heir to the defunct Habsburg Dynasty--are in the list of players along with names such as Goldwater, Kissinger, and rocket scientist Dr. Walter Dornberger. Although Brandy was never on the payroll of the CIA nor the FBI, the CIA's director, William Webster, sent him the Meritorious Service Award with a specially minted coin, and J. Edgar Hoover sent personal letters of thanks for capturing two of the FBI's 10 most wanted.
"Aufklarung" (Reconnaissance) was the clue that pierced the veil of secrecy at Camp 23 near Devizes, England in 1944. Aufklarung is what this book is all about--reconnaissance--an expert discovering, collecting and interpreting the hidden "dots" of human intelligence information.
