Intelligence History

In 1954, the US Air Force launched an ambitious program known as WS-117L to develop the world's first reconnaissance satellite. The goal was to take photographic images from space and relay them back to Earth via radio. Because of technical issues and bureaucratic resistance, however, WS-117L was seriously behind schedule by the time Sputnik orbited Earth in 1957 and was eventually cancelled. Eyeing the Red Storm examines the birth of space-based reconnaissance from the perspective of WS-117L.

Beyond the Algorithm: The Future of Artificial Intelligence is a compelling exploration of AI’s transformative potential and the choices that will shape its impact on humanity. Spanning the near future of the 2030s to the distant horizons of 2100, this accessible yet profound book blends vivid storytelling, rigorous analysis, and visionary optimism to guide listeners through AI’s promise and peril. Written for curious minds—from students to policymakers—it demystifies AI’s trajectory while empowering listeners to influence its course.

The OSS and CIA: The History of America’s Intelligence Community during World War II and the Establishment of the Central Intelligence Agency looks at the agencies’ organizational characteristics, historical inception, early Cold War growth, and recent influence. You will learn about the OSS and CIA like never before.

Humanity is racing to create machine intelligence vastly smarter than the human brain. We will succeed. Blending accessible philosophy with the latest in AI developments, Mind Crime: The Moral Frontier of Artificial Intelligence forces listeners to grapple with the moral questions we can no longer afford to ignore. Are we prepared for the consequences of artificial superintelligence? Will humanity's survival be threatened, perhaps within years? Is digital consciousness possible? Are we sleepwalking into horrific moral catastrophe?

Every military must prepare for future wars despite not really knowing the shape such wars will ultimately take. In the face of such great uncertainty, militaries must be able to adapt rapidly in order to win. Adaptation Under Fire identifies the characteristics that make militaries more adaptable, illustrated through historical examples and the recent wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

In this rapid-paced book, a former CIA chief of Soviet bloc counterintelligence breaks open the mysterious case of KGB officer Yuri Nosenko's 1964 defection to the United States. Still a highly controversial chapter in the history of Cold War espionage, the Nosenko affair has inspired debate for more than 40 years. Was Nosenko a bona fide defector with the real information about Lee Harvey Oswald's stay in Soviet Russia, or was he a KGB loyalist, engaged in a complex game of deception?

In this explosive, controversial, and profoundly alarming insider’s report, Senator Bob Graham reveals faults in America’s national security network severe enough to raise fundamental questions about the competence and honesty of public officials in the CIA, the FBI, and the White House. For...

It was the deadliest terror campaign ever mounted against a nation in modern times: the al-Aqsa, or Second, Intifada. This is the untold story of how Israel fought back with an elite force of undercover operatives drawn from the nation's diverse backgrounds and ethnicities - and united in their ability to walk among the enemy as no one else dared.

What do Iran, Guatemala, Congo, Chile, Nicaragua, Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, and Ukraine all have in common? They were all targeted by the same machine. 'Regime Machine' is a brutal, forensic, and unflinching field guide to how the CIA and its partners overthrew governments, assassinated leaders, and destabilized entire nations—often in the name of democracy. From Cold War coups to modern proxy wars, this book traces the blueprint of covert empire and pulls back the curtain on the United States' global playbook for control. If you think you know history, read this.

Originally written in 1944 by the Office of Strategic Services (O.S.S.), the wartime predecessor to the CIA, the Simple Sabotage Field Manual is a fascinating and often startling guide to subtle disruption during World War II. Designed to be used by ordinary citizens behind enemy lines, this manual offered clever, low-risk ways to undermine operations—from misfiling paperwork to tampering with machinery and stalling meetings.

After the fall of France in the mid-1940s, Adolf Hitler faced a British Empire that refused to negotiate for peace. With total war looming, he ordered the Abwehr, Germany's defense and intelligence organization, to carry out Operation Lena - a program to place information-gathering spies within Britain. Quickly, a network of secret agents spread within the United Kingdom and across the British Empire. The stunning truth, though, was that every last one of these German spies had been captured and turned by the British.

The first in-depth examination of the voice intelligence industry, The Voice Catchers exposes how artificial intelligence is enabling personalized marketing and discrimination through voice analysis.

Did you know about Eli Cohen, the legendary Mossad agent who infiltrated the highest ranks of the Syrian government? How about the shadowy State School 4 "Sparrow", rumored to train seductive operatives during the Cold War? Or the real-life spies whose daring exploits inspired the iconic James Bond 007 franchise?

In Spy Watching, Loch K. Johnson explores the United States' travails in its efforts to maintain effective accountability over its spy services.

Eine Chinesin, die es wagt, ihren brasilianischen Freund nicht mehr länger nur in einer virussicheren, virtuellen Realität zu treffen. Ein junger Mann in Sri Lanka, der mittels autonomer Fahrzeuge Leben rettet. Ein Münchner Quantencomputerprofi, der die Welt mit KI-gesteuerten Waffen ins Chaos stürzen will... In KI 2041 haben sich der international bekannteste KI-Experte und ein führender Science-Fiction-Autor zusammengetan, um eine zwingende Frage zu beantworten: Wie wird künstliche Intelligenz unser Leben in zwanzig Jahren verändert haben?

Breaking the German Enigma codes was not only about brilliant mathematicians and professors at Bletchley Park. There is another aspect of the story which it is only now possible to tell. It takes in the exploits of spies, naval officers and ordinary British seamen who risked, and in some cases lost, their lives snatching the vital Enigma codebooks from under the noses of Nazi officials and from sinking German ships and submarines. This book tells the whole Enigma story.

Edward Ashford Lee explores the ways that engineers use models and abstraction to build inventive artificial worlds and to give us things that we never dreamed of - for example, the ability to carry in our pockets everything humans have ever published. But he also attempts to counter the runaway enthusiasm of some technology boosters who claim everything in the physical world is a computation - that even such complex phenomena as human cognition are software operating on digital data.

A tense and enthralling historical thriller in which British Naval Intelligence officer Ian Fleming attempts to foil a Nazi plot to assassinate FDR, Churchill, and Stalin. November, 1943. Weary of his deskbound status in the Royal Navy, intelligence officer Ian Fleming spends his spare time...

From the creator of the SocialAI app comes an inspiring and deeply personal coming of age memoir from one of Silicon Valley’s youngest entrepreneurs. Michael Sayman is a second-generation Latino immigrant who taught himself how to code as a thirteen-year-old and went on to claim his share of...

In a wide-ranging narrative that takes us from a downsized marketing executive in Massachusetts, to a father of three in Appalachia finding purpose and meaning working in a convenience-store chain, to an unemployed autoworker retraining in "advanced manufacturing", Shell reveals how work is essential to our flourishing and pyschological well-being - and how so many of the avenues to well-paid and meaningful work will be challenged in the years ahead.