Enemies: How America's Foes Steal Our Vital Secrets--and How We Let It Happen (Hardcover)

by Bill Gertz (Author)

Editorial Reviews

Review
Praise for Bill Gertz and his explosive New York Times bestsellers

“A blockbuster book . . . Just astounding.” —Rush Limbaugh

“Gertz is legendary among national security reporters for the quality of his sources. . . . He is the envy of his competitors.” —Washington Monthly

“The hottest reporter in town . . . [Gertz] breaks dozens of stories every year, and he’s read carefully by people who follow national security issues, not to mention the military attachés around town.” —Washington Post

“If you’re a fan of horror stories, read this. It will scare the hell out of you.” —G. Gordon Liddy

“Bill Gertz remains a national asset.” —Weekly Standard

“Explosive . . . A methodical, well-thought-out, easy-to-read book . . . that will shock the average American.” —Sean Hannity


From the Hardcover edition. --This text refers to the Kindle Edition edition.

Review
Praise for Bill Gertz and his explosive New York Times bestsellers

“A blockbuster book . . . Just astounding.” —Rush Limbaugh

“Gertz is legendary among national security reporters for the quality of his sources. . . . He is the envy of his competitors.” —Washington Monthly

“The hottest reporter in town . . . [Gertz] breaks dozens of stories every year, and he’s read carefully by people who follow national security issues, not to mention the military attachés around town.” —Washington Post

“If you’re a fan of horror stories, read this. It will scare the hell out of you.” —G. Gordon Liddy

“Bill Gertz remains a national asset.” —Weekly Standard

“Explosive . . . A methodical, well-thought-out, easy-to-read book . . . that will shock the average American.” —Sean Hannity

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 304 pages
• Publisher: Crown Forum (September 19, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0307338053
• ISBN-13: 978-0307338051
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.5 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #526,451 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

26 of 27 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Political correctness has put us into this situation, October 13, 2006

By	DRoberts (Al) - See all my reviews

Bill Gertz explains clearly the rationale for improving America's counterintelligence. He throws out all political correctness that has put us in this current situation. Gertz is a better man for exposing these problems in our intelligence community. Now they may get fixed properly. Gertz can not believe that the Intelligence community has not changed many of its tactics since 9/11. Gertz points out the lack of intelligence in Iraq before the war began. He describes the problem with bureaucracy and its blocking of new changes. Gertz in each chapter describes a spy case that has happened in the past decades. Some points that jumped out at me in the book.

1.) Chinese spies put out disinformation campaigns to the U.S government.
2.) The U.S has not changed its approach to China since the end of the Cold War.
3.) A 2005 report on China is blasted by Gertz as "fundamentally wrong".
4.) How can the U.S do business with such an oppressive regime like China?
5.) A spy that stole American valuable weapons technology such as the Rail gun and Quiet Electric Drive.
6.) The spy's plan was to execute "Assassin's Mace": "select technology and weaponry that allows a smaller, weaker military power to defeat a larger, stronger one."
7.) This spy also stole plans on a next generation destroyer known as DDX
8.) Gertz states that China is so interested in our Navy because war with China would mean the Navy would be a primary factor.
9.) Gertz also discusses Russian spies like Aldrich Ames and Hanssen.
10.) Ames as a spy revealed more than one hundred covert American operations and betrayed more than thirty sources.
11.) Asan Akbar: Muslim U.S soldier attacked U.S soldiers at Camp Pennsylvania.
12.) Ali Mohamed: SF Sergeant pleaded guilty in 2000 to helping Osama in the 1998 embassy bombing.
13.) Stakeknife: Aggressive counter-intelligence used by Great Britain against the IRA.

I thought Stakeknife was the highlight of the book. The way that England embedded in the IRA to accomplish their missions. Enemies was a good book that was hard to put down at time and slow in other parts. The book should be read for the simple fact of showing that other countries have better spying programs than the U.S. The U.S needs to move away from the bureaucratic mess that caused 9/11. I can see now why problems still exist in our intelligence community. Gertz is a mastermind on intelligence and his words need to be read to understand our current situations.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Eye Opening Book, January 3, 2007

By	James R. Hunt (Warrenton, VA USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This book brings to light the extent our enemies will go to get information they want. It also tells how often international agreements on arms and nuclear material are violated for money. While the United States has to try to work with many nations to broker some form of peace, the book shows there is no Nation we can fully trust. A good read for anyone interested in espionage and counterintelligence.

10 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Bill Gertz deserves a truckload of Pulitzers, March 8, 2007

By	Jerry Saperstein (Evanston, IL USA) - See all my reviews (TOP 100 REVIEWER)

It will never happen, of course. Real investigative reporters who don't disguise their love and concern for the United States, folks like Bill Gertz and Bill Sammon will never gain the respect and votes of the Pulitzer Prize committee. They preserve their votes for people like Walter Duranty, who denied there was famine in the Ukraine and won a Lenin Prize in addition to his Pulitzer.

Gertz is concerned for America's safety. As he puts it "[u]ntil we fix the gaping holes in our defenses, America will remain highly vulnerable to our enemies." And after reading this book, if you weren't already worried, you will be.

Anyone who has visited a government office, whether to renew their driver's license, pay their property taxes, mail a package or whatever, knows that governments do not hire the cream of the crop. What happens when second, third and fourth rate people are hired by the CIA, the FBI and other security agencies?

Uh, you get second, third or fourth rate performance in situations where the stakes are very, very high: like the preservation of the nation's secrets.

Gertz details scandals resulting from the incompetence of the CIA and FBI. A Chinese woman has two lovers, both FBI agents. She's one of their prized informants - and a spy for the Chinese government. The investigation of her is muddled and she walks.

The FBI spends years persecuting a CIA agent suspected of being a spy. They have no real evidence, but the harassment is non-stop. Their big clue is the CIA employee's proximity to a partiular park. After three years, after a KGB defector is paid $7 million for information, the FBI learns that the spy indeed lives near the park in question: his name is Robert Hanssen, an FBI agent who has spied for the Soviets for years.

Gertz points out that literally every nation is spying on the United States - and that our agencies are horribly grossly incompetent to detect the spies and catch them.

This is a frightening book, but one that every concerned American should read.

Jerry