Soldiers, Spies, and the Rat Line: America's Undeclared War Against the Soviets

After Germany’s surrender in World War II, Jim Milano, a young U.S. army intelligence officer, led a small, independent group of soldiers charged with carrying out some of the first intelligence efforts of the postwar era. Inventing the techniques of Cold War espionage for themselves and improvising unorthodox methods, the major and his creative cohorts confounded Soviet forces and created escape routes for defectors. In the pages of Milano’s fascinating memoir you'll find the shadowy world populated by spies, prostitutes, refugees, scoundrels, and heroes comes alive.

After Germany's surrender in World War II, Jim Milano, a young U.S. Army intelligence officer, led a small, independent group of soldiers charged with carrying out some of the first intelligence efforts of the postwar era. Inventing the techniques of Cold War espionage for themselves, improvising unorthodox methods that Milano now admits were questionable, the major and his creative cohorts spied on and confounded the Soviet occupation forces in Austria, and arranged for defectors from the East to escape along a "rat line" to South America. After Milano's tour of duty ended, his brilliant underground network was used - as he later learned to his horror - to help Nazi war criminal Klaus Barbie escape punishment. Soldiers, Spies, and the Rat Line recounts the exciting, frequently rowdy adventures of young men in the dangerous late-1940s Austria of Graham Greene's The Third Man. It is an exciting and amusing true story of America's first troops on a new, clandestine, front line.