3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
There's always someone willing to sell out your secrets..., June 28, 2008
This review is from: Declassified: 50 Top-Secret Documents That Changed History (Hardcover)
Secrets are the currency by which countries maintain control of their borders and war with other nations. In the book Declassified: 50 Top-Secret Documents That Changed History, Thomas B. Allen lists 50 documents, once secret but now declassified, that had large impacts on people, countries, and the world. Throughout, I kept wondering how many more documents are hidden that would have the same effect these days. My guess is plenty...
Contents:
Part 1 - Secrets of War: Spying on the Armada; Washington Finds a Spy; Benedict Arnold Becomes a Spy; The Lady Is a Spy; A Golden Export to Canada; T.R. Remembers the Maine; A Telegram's Special Delivery; The Man Who Started a War; Eavesdropping on Roosevelt and Churchill; Planning the "Final Solution"; Seeking Justice for Saboteurs; Stalin Approves a War; The Pentagon Papers' Legacy; 16 Troublesome Words
Part 2 - Double Agents, Turncoats, and Traitors: Captain Henry's $50,000 Letters; Lincoln's Double Agent; Whose Ace of Spies?; The Double Agent's Dog; The Spy in the Tunnel; The Pumpkin Papers
Part 3 - Counterintelligence - Spy vs. Spy; The Knight Was a Spy; The Million-Document Spy; The Soviets' Key Man; The Spy Drove a Jaguar; The FBI Mole
Part 4 - A Bodyguard of Lies: George Washington's Lies; The Trick That Won Midway; The Star of Double-Cross; "A Diversionary Maneuver"; "Mincemeat Swallowed Whole"; Broadcasting Believable Lies; The Game Against England
Part 5 - Espionage Incidents: Lee's Lost Order; Papers from a Corpse; The Hollow Nickel
Part 6 - In Defense of the Realm: The Beer Barrel Letters; A Map for the Mideast; An Ambassador's Doubts; Secret Notes at Yalta; A Package in the Snow
Part 7 - The Secret State: A Secret Request to Congress; An Enduring Lie; The Dreyfus Affair; The FBI and Trotsky; Tap, Tap, Tap; Bombs of a New Type; The Magic Messages; The Golden Age of Soviet Espionage; The Family Jewels; For the President's Eyes Only
Acknowledgments; Bibliography; Selected Internet Sites; Illustrations Credits; Index
Rather than try and restrict himself to a particular country or timeframe, Allen selects documents from a wide number of sources and time periods. Two of the selections (Spying on the Armada and The Beer Barrel Letters) date from 1586 and center around the rule of Queen Elizabeth I. On the other end of the spectrum, we have entries for 2000 and 2001 related to the forged Niger-Iraq uranium sale document (which started the Iraq war) and the 2001 briefing about Osama Bin Laden operatives planning a plane attack (fulfilled on 09/11/2001). Reading through the chapters, you realize that information is a valuable commodity, and that it normally costs quite a bit to get it. Perhaps it's monetary in nature to pay off the informant, or it could even be the life of the spy if they are caught in the act. Whether driven by ideology or greed, there's always someone out there who is willing to trade information to "the other side".
Each chapter tens to be around 3 to 5 pages long, starting off with a picture of the document/information being passed, a brief date/subject line to place it in context, and then a concise discussion of what transpired to produce the material as well as what impact it had on future events. You could make a whole book out of most of these incidents, but this format is great for giving you an overview of why certain events in history may have transpired as they did. I think my favorites were related to World War II and the efforts to break codes of the other side. England had broken Germany's Enigma codes, and could in many cases anticipate the next action Germany would take. The problem there is that if Germany thinks the codes are broken, they'll switch keys and England would be without their advantage any longer. This dichotomy caused anguish, as England had to let some losses take place so as to keep Germany thinking that their communication encryption was still secure. That's a hard decision to have to make time after time...
If you're at all interested in espionage, you'll likely enjoy this read...
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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
50 Ways to Lose a Secret?, June 17, 2008
This review is from: Declassified: 50 Top-Secret Documents That Changed History (Hardcover)
The universe of books presenting lists of 50 or 100 people, battles, wars, weapons, aircraft, events, incidents, etc. appears populated by an infinite quantity, suggesting that perhaps some one should prepare a book of the 50 or 100 best such list titles? Nevertheless, Thomas Allen and National Geographic have broken new ground with this interesting and useful work that brings together 50 formerly secret documents and their associated stories, each presented as a single chapter and including an assessment of the surrounding episodes' impact on history. As a collection of free-standing individual stories - one per chapter - the book can be read straight through or the reader can choose to just dip into it at different points to read a chapter here or another chapter there and not lose anything by ignoring the collection's chronological structure. The book also provides a bibliography and a list of Internet sites that offer the interested reader additional information on each of the stories presented therein.
The 50 selected "secret documents" presented here cover a span of history from the reign of England's Queen Elizabeth up through the American Revolution, the American Civil War, both world wars, the Korean conflict, the Vietnam war, and finally the events of September 11, 2001 and first administration of President George W. Bush. The individuals revealed in these accounts include soldiers, politicians, spies, double agents, triple agents, spymasters, valets, crowned heads of state, elected presidents, dictators, and even ordinary citizens. A number of the presented tales also show the often-unhappy end awaiting the practioners of the black arts of espionage, as a number are imprisoned, lost at sea, or otherwise disappear from history into obscurity and to unknown ends. The techniques and technologies discussed include secret handwriting, codes, encryption, hollow coins, eavesdropping, deception, kidnapping, blackmail, counterfeiting, shredded documents, and even outright theft, among others. A number of chapters present stories that either directly relate to or resonate with our modern world of the global war on terror and post-cold war hi-tech and old-fashioned human espionage.
One complaint that can be made is that the limitations of this format compel authors to sometimes omit interesting details not central to the story of the document or object. For example, reference is made in several chapters to the use by merchants in past centuries of codes, ciphers, and encryption in their business correspondence and even telegrams by merchants. During the 19th Century, it was possible to find such codes available for sale through your book dealer, with instructions on how to personalize the purchased code to prevent anyone else who bought that same code from reading your messages. Similarly, the authors only hint at the possible link between Confederate Secret Service operations in Canada, the plan by a detachment of Union cavalry to assassinate Confederate President Jefferson Davis under cover of a raid to free prisoners of war held in Richmond, and finally the John Wilkes Booth plot to assassinate President Abraham Lincoln after the end of the war.
A definite plus for the reader is the inclusion of illustrations showing the various documents or objects discussed in each chapter, only one of which shows a reconstruction; all other images show original documents or objects. The images add extra interest by giving the reader the chance to visually examine "what all the fuss was about." Unfortunately, in one instance the wrong document is illustrated. The document on pages 72-73 is identified as the "Enciphered message sent from Red Army Gen. Terenty Shtykov to Soviet Foreign Secretary Andrey Vyshinsky telling of a meeting Shtykov had had with Sung" both in its caption and in the text on page 74. The document pictured is the letter from Stalin using the code name "Filippov" to Mao and Zhou regarding Chinese military support for North Korea referred to later in the same chapter. The Shtykov document is, as a result, not actually shown.
A related error was made in the selection of portraits showing the individual or individuals associated with each document. On page 101, the portrait identified as that of "Richard Montgomery, double agent for Abraham Lincoln and the Union Army" is actually that of Revolutionary War General Richard Montgomery who was killed in the assault on Quebec (ironically a command he shared with Benedict Arnold who is the subject of another chapter in this book). The State of Arkansas uses the same Library of Congress collection portrait on its state website in connection with its Montgomery County which was named for this earlier General Montgomery:
[...]
On the good news side, you can visit a physical representative of the story of Benedict Arnold since the British frigate HMS Rose was the subject of a modern reconstruction project. That ship appeared in the recent film "Master and Commander" as HMS Surprise and was since rechristened under that name. The now-HMS Surprise can be found at the San Diego Maritime Museum:
[...]
You can also learn more about the Zimmermann telegram of First World War infamy, including a decrypted and translated text of this German telegram intercepted as it was sent to Mexico during the First World War at the National Archives website: [...]
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3.0 out of 5 stars
Not bad., July 29, 2008
This review is from: Declassified: 50 Top-Secret Documents That Changed History (Hardcover)
Mr. Allen has written an interesting book. He briefly discusses 50 of the most important/prominent espionage stories in history. The only issue I have with the book is the discussion of each story often seemed too brief. Most sections only contained three or four pages, giving only the briefest glimpse of the incident. In spite of this, the book works well as an introduction to espionage.
The title is somewhat misleading, while the book attaches some type of document to each of the 50 incidents, in many of the cases the document is only of minor importance. Additionally several of the incidents involve documents that are not what the average person would consider "declassified".
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