Stealing Secrets, Telling Lies: How Spies and Codebreakers Helped Shape the Twentieth Century

Stealing Secrets, Telling Lies explores how espionage and good intelligence analysis shaped or changed the outcome of many of the major geopolitical events of the twentieth century. 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 been instrumental in the rise, fall, and preservation of the world powers throughout history. 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 (which remained classified until 1995) are just some of the dramatic episodes detailed here.

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.