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.

An intelligence officer during World War II, Col. James V. Milano, USa (Ret.), commanded the Military Intelligence Service in Austria for a year and a half after the war. From 1947 to 1950, he was cheif of operations for all U.S. forces stationed there. He retired from the Army in 1966.

Patrick Brogran is a Washington correspondent for The Herald (Glasgow). His previous books include Deadly Business: The Story of Sam Cummings and Interarms, The Fighting Never Stopped, and Captive Nations: Eastern Europe, 1945-1989. Both authors live in the Washington, DC area.