Intelligence History

"Adam Levin is one of our wildest writers and our funniest, and Bubblegum is a dazzling accomplishment of wit and inventiveness." —George Saunders "Levin's brains may have earned him a cult...but here he swells to a democratic reach. Give him a try sometime. His gate’s wide open...

Good Hunting: An American Spymaster's Story is the spellbinding memoir of Devine's time in the CIA, where he served for more than 30 years, rising to become the acting deputy director of operations, responsible for all of the agency's spying operations. This is a story of intrigue and high-stakes maneuvering - all the more gripping when the fate of our geopolitical order hangs in the balance. But this audiobook also sounds a warning to our nation's decision makers.

Paul Struhsaker’s new book, How the Hell Did We Get Here? is a comprehensive guide to this emerging new Cold War and our need to rebuild deterrence. The book unpacks the players and politics that have brought us to the brink of world war and how deterrence, the application of soft and hard power, can restore peace. Deterrence is a complex subject. Historically, the subject of Cold War deterrence and resilience has been dealt with piecemeal, and a comprehensive overview of deterrence has not been available. The purpose of this book is to fill that void.

A deeply researched account of the life and legacy of the man who defined the profession of private eye. Allan Pinkerton, the world's most famous private detective, has been an enduring source of fascination since the nineteenth century. But the details of his impact, business empire, and private life have been incomplete. Drawing on overlooked primary sources, Rhodri Jeffreys-Jones provides an authoritative account of the man and the Pinkerton National Detective Agency (PNDA).

Peter Mattis and Matthew Brazil present an unprecedented look into the murky world of Chinese espionage both past and present, enabling a better understanding of how pervasive and important its influence is, both in China and abroad.

Already infamous for the arbitrary, paranoid persecution of its own citizens throughout much of the 20th century, the Soviet Union - as is revealed in John Koeher’s revelatory, eye-opening exposé - also waged a vicious espionage campaign against the Catholic Church and its followers. From the persecution of local priests to an assassination order against Pope John Paul II, the KGB viewed Catholicism as a threat to stability in Eastern Europe and treated the church as an enemy of the State. Lifetime journalist and former U.S. Army Intelligence Officer John Koehler has written the definitive book on this startling history.

Despite incredible political, military, and intelligence risks, and after six years of secret preparations, the CIA attempted to salvage the sunken Soviet ballistic missile submarine K-129 from the depths of the North Pacific Ocean in early August 1974. This audacious effort was carried out under the cover of an undersea mining operation sponsored by eccentric billionaire Howard Hughes.

Many people today are so dazzled by the long-term potential for artificial intelligence that they overlook the much clearer and more immediate potential for a new form of "collective intelligence": the intelligence of groups of people and computers working together. In Superminds, Thomas Malone explains what we need to do to take advantage of this potential. Groundbreaking and utterly fascinating, Superminds will change the way you work - both with others and with computers - for the better.

Bletchley Park looked like any other sprawling country estate. In reality, however, it was the top-secret headquarters of Britain’s Government Code and Cypher School - and the site where Germany’s legendary Enigma code was finally cracked. There, the nation’s most brilliant mathematical minds - including Alan Turing, whose discoveries at Bletchley would fuel the birth of modern computing - toiled alongside debutantes, factory workers, and students on projects of international importance. Until now, little has been revealed about ordinary life at this extraordinary facility.

Fifty years ago, a young astronomer named Frank Drake pointed a radio telescope at nearby stars in the hope of picking up a signal from an alien civilization. Thus began one of the boldest scientific projects in history, the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI). But after a half century of scanning the skies, astronomers have little to report but an eerie silence---eerie because many scientists are convinced that the universe is teeming with life.

A top negotiator in countless high-stakes missions to free Americans captured abroad and held in the world's scariest prisons takes readers inside the dramatic and shadowy world of international hostage rescue. Who else are their desperate loved ones supposed to call? Mickey and his tight team...

This program is read by the author. The thrilling, true story of the race to find a leak in the United States Embassy in Moscow—before more American assets are rounded up and killed. Foreword by Gen. Michael V. Hayden (Retd.), Former Director of NSA & CIA. In the late 1970s, the National...

The CIA in Hollywood offers the first full-scale investigation of the relationship between the Agency and the film and television industries. Tricia Jenkins draws on numerous interviews with the CIA's public affairs staff, operations officers, and historians, as well as with Hollywood technical consultants, producers, and screenwriters who have worked with the Agency, to uncover the nature of the CIA's role in Hollywood.

Adrian Levy and Catherine Scott-Clark are internationally renowned investigative journalists. In Deception, they reveal the decades-long story of Pakistan's nuclear program - and how the United States has been complicit in the spread of nuclear arms. Based on hundreds of interviews from around the world, this work will force Americans to reexamine national priorities.

From the acclaimed author of JFK and Vietnam comes a book that uncovers the government's role in the Kennedy assassination more clearly than any previous inquiry. What was the extent of the CIA's involvement with Lee Harvey Oswald? Why was Oswald's file tampered with before the assassination of John F. Kennedy? And why did significant documents from that file mysteriously disappear? Oswald and the CIA answers these questions, not with theories, but with information from the primary sources themselves.

Are you drowning in endless tasks? Stuck using outdated tools that make your workday drag on forever? Does the mere mention of AI make you feel like you're lost in a sci-fi thriller you don't understand? Take a deep breath. You don't have to be a tech guru to harness the game-changing powers of AI and ChatGPT. You're just one listen away from demolishing the barriers that prevent you from unlocking a wealth of new skills and opportunities.

Describing Russian Infantry’s Breaching and Clearing Techniques - Breaching entryways and clearing buildings, particularly in urban combat, are particularly complex and dangerous infantry tasks. ATP 7-100.1 describes Russian tactics for use in Army training, professional education, and leader development. This document is part of the ATP 7-100 series that addresses a nation-state’s military doctrine with a focus on army ground forces and tactical operations in offense, defense, and related mission sets.

In Robot-Proof, Northeastern University president Joseph Aoun proposes a way to educate the next generation of college students to invent, to create, and to discover - to fill needs in society that even the most sophisticated artificial intelligence agent cannot. A "robot-proof" education, Aoun argues, is not concerned solely with topping up students' minds with high-octane facts. Rather, it calibrates them with a creative mindset and the mental elasticity to invent, discover, or create something valuable to society.

Drawing on information sequestered until recently in FBI records, Theoharis shows how these secret activities in the World War II and Cold War eras expanded FBI surveillance powers and, in the process, eroded civil liberties without substantially advancing legitimate security interests.

Eyes in the Sky is the authoritative account of how the Pentagon secretly developed a godlike surveillance system for monitoring America's enemies overseas, and how it is now being used to watch us in our own backyards. Whereas a regular aerial camera can only capture a small patch of ground at any given time, this system - and its most powerful iteration, Gorgon Stare - allow operators to track thousands of moving targets at once, both forwards and backwards in time, across whole city-sized areas.