Operation Underworld

For the first time ever the full story of how Charles “Lucky” Luciano—the U.S. Mafia boss who put the “organized” into organized crime—was recruited by U.S. Naval Intelligence in 1944 to aid the Allied war effort in the U.S. invasion of Sicily that was a turning point in WWII. In 1942, fears were growing that New York Harbor was vulnerable to sabotage. If the waterfront was infested with German and Italian agents, the U.S. Navy needed a secret plan just as insidious to secure it. Naval intelligence officer, Commander Charles Radcliffe Haffenden had the solution: recruit as his own spies, members of La Cosa Nostra. Pier to pier, no one terrified the longshoremen, stevedores, shopkeepers, and boat captains along the harbor better than the Mafia gangs of New York, who controlled the docks in Manhattan and Brooklyn. Haffenden was prepared to make a deal with the devil—the man who put “organized” into organized crime. Even from his cell in Dannemora State Prison, former Public Enemy #1, Charles “Lucky” Luciano still had tremendous power. Luciano was willing to wield it for Uncle Sam in exchange for a fullpardon. Haffenden, though, wanted something in return—Luciano’s contacts in Italy to track the Nazis’ movements. The victorious U.S. invasion of Sicily in July 1943 might have turned out differently without Luciano’s help. Operation Underworld is a tale of espionage and crime like no other, the unbelievable, first-ever account of the Allied war effort’s clandestine—and improbably—coalition between the Mafia and the U.S. Government to help the Allies win World War II.

This is a novel revealing the astonishing underground partnership that changed the course of history. As the Hindenberg dramatically burned, the US government realised its ports were under grave threat from German attack as the Second World War approached its zenith. If the Pentagon and Navy couldn't get the information required, they would risk an unthinkable loss. Facing such danger, the authorities made a decision that would never have been sanctioned at any other time - it sought to solicit the help of the country's most high profile and criminal mafia bosses. Could this historic and secret move, fraught with difficulties and dangers, help turn the tide. This title is based on a true story.

Joining the secret organization of Operation Underworld means danger… and possibly death. When Connor and Sami unite in Operation Underworld to fight an intrinsic network of vampires murdering humans, they travel the country following the clues in hopes of discovering the leaders of the deadly society. Trust issues between the two surface as the past haunts the future. Their lives are in peril at every turn, and in the end, it must be decided… is love thicker than blood? Urban Fantasy Romance, Urban Fantasy Vampires, Urban Fantasy Complete series, urban fantasy action and adventure

Conspiracy theories are not new to our modern time. They date back to biblical times when Moses sent his spies out to check out what the Egyptians were doing. Espionage is also linked to various conspiracies and is all mixed up in the same bag of tricks and form any decent conspiracy or theory. In this new, fact providing book by author Peter Kross called The American Conspiracy Files: The Stories We Were Never Told, the reader is given a tour de force through the world of conspiracies and conspiracy theories dating back to the time when this nation was first founded, right up until the modern day. Author Kross provides the reader with these fascinating and unbelievable stories in short, thought-provoking chapters that will both inform and educate the public to these little known tales from our past. Among the stories that are revealed are the circumstances surrounding the Lost Colony of Roanoke whose settlers simply left their homes and were never seen again. The tales of the deaths of Davy Crockett, Jesse James and Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid leave the reader wondering just what really happened to these iconic heroes, conspiracies in the Revolutionary War including Benedict Arnold and Ben Franklin’s son, William. We delve into the large conspiracy to kill President Lincoln and see that John Wilkes Booth did not act alone. Our tale then goes into our modern day with chapters on the deaths of John F. Kennedy, Robert Kennedy, Martin Luther King, spies in the Roosevelt administration, the reasons behind the Oklahoma City bombing, the sordid plots of President Lyndon Johnson and the deaths of people associated with him, the revelation of “Deep Throat,” a plot by the Joint Chiefs of Staff to invade Cuba and blame it on Castro, among other interesting tales. As author Kross did in his previous books, Tales From Langley: The CIA from Truman to Obama and The Secret History of the United States, these stories are a fascinating account of our hidden history, most of which the public has never heard of.

This up-to-date introduction to the complex world of conspiracies and conspiracy theories provides insight into why millions of people are so ready to believe the worst about our political, legal, religious, and financial institutions. Unsupported theories provide simple explanations for catastrophes that are otherwise difficult to understand, from the U.S. Civil War to the Stock Market Crash of 1929 to the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center in New York. Ideas about shadowy networks that operate behind a cloak of secrecy, including real organizations like the CIA and the Mafia and imagined ones like the Illuminati, additionally provide a way for people to criticize prevailing political and economic arrangements, while for society's disadvantaged and forgotten groups, conspiracy theories make their suffering and alienation comprehensible and provide a focal point for their economic or political frustrations. These volumes detail the highly controversial and influential phenomena of conspiracies and conspiracy theories in American society. Through interpretive essays and factual accounts of various people, organizations, and ideas, the reader will gain a much greater appreciation for a set of beliefs about political scheming, covert intelligence gathering, and criminal rings that has held its grip on the minds of millions of American citizens and encouraged them to believe that the conspiracies may run deeper, and with a global reach.

This disturbing exposé describes a secret alliance forged at the close of World War II by the CIA, the Sicilian and US mafias, and the Vatican to thwart the possibility of a Communist invasion of Europe. Journalist Paul L. Williams presents evidence suggesting the existence of “stay-behind” units in many European countries consisting of five thousand to fifteen thousand military operatives. According to the author’s research, the initial funding for these guerilla armies came from the sale of large stocks of SS morphine that had been smuggled out of Germany and Italy and of bogus British bank notes that had been produced in concentration camps by skilled counterfeiters. As the Cold War intensified, the units were used not only to ward off possible invaders, but also to thwart the rise of left-wing movements in South America and NATO-based countries by terror attacks. Williams argues that Operation Gladio soon gave rise to the toppling of governments, wholesale genocide, the formation of death squads, financial scandals on a grand scale, the creation of the mujahideen, an international narcotics network, and, most recently, the ascendancy of Jorge Mario Bergoglio, a Jesuit cleric with strong ties to Operation Condor (an outgrowth of Gladio in Argentina) as Pope Francis I. Sure to be controversial, Operation Gladio connects the dots in ways the mainstream media often overlooks.

The New Yorker, Best Books of 2022 Vanity Fair, Best Books of 2022 Booklist, Best Books of 2022 Singer. Actress. Beauty. Spy. During WWII, Josephine Baker, the world's richest and most glamorous entertainer, was an Allied spy in Occupied France. Prior to World War II, Josephine Baker was a music-hall diva renowned for her singing and dancing, her beauty and sexuality; she was the highest-paid female performer in Europe. When the Nazis seized her adopted city, Paris, she was banned from the stage, along with all “negroes and Jews.” Yet instead of returning to America, she vowed to stay and to fight the Nazi evil. Overnight, she went from performer to Resistance spy. In Agent Josephine, bestselling author Damien Lewis uncovers this little-known history of the famous singer’s life. During the war years, as a member of the French Nurse paratroopers—a cover for her spying work—Baker participated in numerous clandestine activities and emerged as a formidable spy. In turn, she was a hero of the three countries in whose name she served—the US, France, and Britain. Drawing on a plethora of new historical material and rigorous research, including previously undisclosed letters and journals, Lewis upends the conventional story of Josephine Baker, explaining why she fully deserves her unique place in the French Panthéon.