Merchants of Treason: America's Secrets for Sale [Hardcover]

Norman Polmar (Author), Thomas B. Allen (Author)

Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal

This is a disquieting book, by the authors of Rickover , about one U.S. intelligence breach after another. Not only have members of key intelligence agencies, the CIA, NSA, and military services sold secrets to the Soviet Union, but counterintelligence efforts are compromised to the point of near ineffectiveness. The picture is one of porous security and slipshod investigating. The authors move from the Pueblo capture, to the John Walker and James Salter cases, to the marines who let KGB agents wander through our Moscow embassy at night. The cases and response of the government are startling. The authors have done a service for journalists, Congress, and concerned citizens. Richard B. Finnegan, Stonehill Coll., North Easton, Mass.
Copyright 1988 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 388 pages
• Publisher: Delacorte Press; 1st edition (February 1, 1988)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 038529591X
• ISBN-13: 978-0385295918
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 6.4 x 1.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.7 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,217,693 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

I have been writing since my teen years, when I covered high school sports for my hometown newspaper, The Herald, in Bridgeport, Conn.
I continued working at the paper while I was in college. In the mid-1950s I began working for The New York Daily News, writing feature stories. In 1963, I left The News, going to Chilton Books in Philadelphia, and then to the National Geographic Book Division. I began freelancing in 1981, but I continued contributing to Geographic publications.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Anything For A Buck, February 24, 2005

By 

John G. Hilliard (Toronto Canada) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Merchants of Treason: America's Secrets for Sale (Hardcover)

I was surprised by two things with the book. The first was the large number of spy's, or more accurately greedy unscrupulous people with high security jobs, that the book details. The second is just how dumb many of them were. The authors detail out the large number of spy's that have worked against the U.S., primarily during the 1970's and 1980's. The authors also give the reader a nice, but brief history of espionage against the U.S. and details of how many of the organizations that these people were part of. The reader also gets a nice look at the actual techniques that were used to both spy and catch the traitors. Again here I was surprised at just how lax the security procedures were that allowed so much damage. How people could walk out of the CIA and FBI daily with brief cases full of top secret documents is beyond me. Is there not a security guard that could be posted at the door?

I have read about many of the more notable spy's over the past 50 years, but I had not heard of maybe half of the people detailed in the book. You will be surprised at just how many people grab a few secret documents and head off to the local Russian embassy for the dirty version of lets make a deal. The fact that so many of these guys, yes most of them are men, get caught after only receiving a few thousand dollars speaks to the overall intelligence of these James Bond emulators. I mean these guys could have walked around with a blue wind breaker with yellow lettering that said SPY and they would have been less obvious then what many of them did. What concerned me was just how stupid many of the guys were, almost to the point of wondering how they even got their jobs in the first place. The reason this concerned me was if these are the guys getting caught maybe there are multitudes of competent spy's out there that we will never find out about. Also just how bad is our security that these intellectual duds were able to game the system and walk out of the building with the family treasures.

Overall I found the book well written and interesting. The authors were able to keep the pace of the book lively and limit the amount of dull overly detailed descriptions of legal proceedings. I found the book a rather large eye opener and would recommend it to anyone interested in national security or espionage. It also gave me more then one or two laughs at just how hapless these guys were. In some cases it was the key stone cops meet Tom Clancy.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The only real "catalog" of American traitors during Cold War, April 8, 2000

By 

Robert D. Steele (Oakton, VA United States) - See all my reviews
(TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)   

This review is from: Merchants of Treason: America's Secrets for Sale (Hardcover)

Roughly 100 American traitors, most of them within the U.S. defense establishment, are itemized in this book, the only such over-all review I have encountered. As I have said on several occasions that I believe we have at least 500-750 additional cases of espionage to discover, at least half of them controlled by our "allies", this book is for me a helpful reminder of the true pervasiveness of betrayal in a Nation where opportunism and financial gain often outweigh loyalty and principle.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Want to know who killed Americans ?, August 18, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Merchants of Treason: America's Secrets for Sale (Hardcover)

The Walker family is the cause of nine Americans and five Montagnards to die in Laos. Any one in SOG will find out why the NVA had top secret limdis Information that was used to ambush Recon Teams and Helicopter Air Studies people, here is the answer !