Espionage: The Greatest Spy Operations of the Twentieth Century [Paperback]

Ernest Volkman (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0471161578 | ISBN-13: 978-0471161578 | Publication Date: September 1996

DISCOVER THE SPYING OPERATIONS THAT CHANGED THE COURSE OF HISTORY

Espionage expert Ernest Volkman goes behind the scenes of 20th-century history to uncover twenty-three incredible capers, con games, and subterfuges. Here are just a few:
* Windows shattered in Manhattan, shrapnel struck the Statue of Liberty, and the Brooklyn Bridge swayed when, in July of 1916, German saboteurs blew up the huge Black Tom munitions dump near Bayonne, New Jersey. The spectacular explosion galvanized public opinion against Germany and helped bring the United States into World War I.
* Japan's seizure of the Mandate Islands in the central Pacific triggered U.S. covert activities. Could the secret of Amelia Earhart's tragic final flight be connected to America's pre-war jitters?
* In the early 1920s, to ensure the survival of the fledgling Soviet state, Lenin used his personal intelligence service, CHEKA, to control anti-Bolshevik resistance. Enemies of the revolution were lured to their destruction through the ironically named Trust Operation.
* How were the Allies able to counter Hitler's deadliest weapons? For six years a mole inside Nazi Germany's scientific establishment betrayed the secrets of his country's classified military research to Britain's MI6.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

This collection of espionage and intelligence stories will entertain a wide variety of readers. Each chapter is a good yarn, from the reconstruction of the ULTRA operation, in which the British solved German coded communications, giving the Allies advance warning of Hitler's military intentions, to the misbegotten OSS operation called Cornflakes, which sought to disrupt German morale with altered postage stamps ("a purely lunatic intelligence enterprise that used vast resources to accomplish absolutely nothing"). Other episodes include the Allied deception that convinced the Germans the Normandy landings were a feint, the intelligence disaster at Pearl Harbor, the story of the Walker family spy ring and the "mole wars" between the KGB and the CIA. Volkman (Warriors of the Night) offers a memorable depiction of Swedish diplomat Raoul Wallenberg, rescuer of Hungarian Jews from the Gestapo; the circumstances of his disappearance in 1945 remain a mystery despite the Russian archival material the author quotes regarding Wallenberg's death. Photos.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

From Library Journal

This undemanding book of stories, about ten pages each, touches on some of the important, dramatic, and occasionally obscure spy stories of the century. Well, almost?they generally deal with the United States and World War II and Soviet/Cold War espionage. Sometimes the purple prose finds melodrama where it may not really exist: "It was, she thought, something very much like a high-wire act: one small slip and she would fall to her death." Lacking depth or original analysis, these tales?written in a solid Boy's Life style?make quick, pleasant but forgettable reading. Buy only where demand is great for books on espionage.?H. Steck, SUNY at Cortland
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 264 pages
• Publisher: Wiley (September 1996)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0471161578
• ISBN-13: 978-0471161578
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.1 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (10 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #205,923 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Great book on espionage/ history/ mystery, October 1, 1998

By 

Frank (Stockton CA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Espionage: The Greatest Spy Operations of the Twentieth Century (Hardcover)

I have read a number of books dealing with some of the same cases Volkman describes. Volkman is not only easy to read, but also does a great job presenting the facts of the case, the milieu of each case, and how each case affected history. He describes, somewhat, the mindset of espionage officers who sometimes prefer quantity over quality, and tradecraft and history as incidental to the cases. He includes some photographs and a helpful index. He often throws in details I don't remember seeing in other more detailed and lengthy works.
Some of the cases Volkman writes about are the "Trust" operation (early Soviet sting of anti-Soviets), Cuban doubling of US agents, British doubling of Nazi agents (Double Cross), code-breaking, atomic bomb secrets, the Wallenbergs in WWII, WWI German sabotage in U.S., the Angleton/Philby mole affair, etc.
Volkman is both willing and able to point out each country's successes and failures -- even when success is based on happenstance and failure is based on incredibly poor judgment.
Here's one passage: "[in 1978], Hu Simeng worked for the Chinese, who did not know that she also worked for the East Germans, who did not know that she was a Chinese asset, but who did know that she worked for the CIA, which didn't know she also worked for both the Chinese and the East Germans. The material she provided the Chinese was in fact East German and KGB disinformation, but the Chinese knew that, so they provided disinformation for Hu Simeng to give to the East Germans...."
Criticisms include that he occasionally reaches too facile a conclusion (Wallenberg was killed by Soviets in 1947 instead of the lengthy imprisonment other sources describe), and at least one minor factual error (the bomb "Fat Man" was dropped on Nagasaki, not Hiroshima).

In sum, an excellent book for anyone mildly interested in the topic, or very interested.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars I Spy, October 23, 2002

By 

Anthony M. Frasca (East Setauket, NY USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Espionage: The Greatest Spy Operations of the Twentieth Century (Hardcover)

This book is basically a series of short stories dealing with major spy operations, mostly involving World War II. The stories are interesting and well written but there is a certain similarity and synergism to the stories that does not come out well in this format. Also, the author gives compelling evidence that Amelia Earhart was on an espionage mission when she disappeared but the story leaves you wanting more.
I would use this book as an introduction to this genre and if you are interested there are a number of novels dealing with the individual stories. A number of books have been written about the Walker spy ring as well as other spy operations.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars A Good Book But, May 7, 2002

By 

TheHighlander (Richfield, PA United States) - See all my reviews

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This review is from: Espionage: The Greatest Spy Operations of the Twentieth Century (Paperback)

While I thought this was a good book and covered some very interesting topics I found myself a bit disappointed that the stories did not delve deeper into what they initially touched on. I would have enjoyed this more had the book been, say, three times as long and the stories gone deeper. I finished each chapter, or case, realizing that this was quite interesting and insightful to what had happened, many times in a historical concept. But found myself wondering about the little intricacies that would have been necessary to pull these capers off.

This book is would be a good start to preview some espionage cases and pick the ones you like to research further.