Portrait Of A Cold Warrior

A retired high-echelon officer of the CIA presents an account of the agency's cold-war operations, operators, successes, and blunders, describing clandestine agency activities and goals

"Second thoughts of a top CIA agent"--Jacket subtitle.

In recent years the importance of Signals Intelligence (Sigint) has become more prominent, especially the capabilities of reading and deciphering diplomatic, military and commercial communications of other nations. This work reveals the role of intercepting messages during the Cold War.

During the Second World War British intelligence provided politicians and soldiers with invaluable knowledge. Britain was determined to maintain this advantage following victory, but the wartime machinery was uneconomical, unwieldy, and unsuitable for peace. Drawing on oral testimony, international archives, and private papers, Defence Intelligence and the Cold War provides the first history of the hitherto little-known organisation designed to preserve and advance British capability in military and military-related intelligence for the Cold War: the Joint Intelligence Bureau (JIB). Headed by General Eisenhower's wartime intelligence man, Major General Kenneth Strong, the JIB was central to the mission to spy on and understand the Soviet Union, and the broader Communist world. It did so from its creation in 1946 to its end in 1964, when it formed a central component of the new Defence Intelligence Staff. This volume reveals hitherto hidden aspects of Britain's mission to map the Soviet Union for nuclear war, the struggle to understand and contain the economies of the USSR, China, and North Korea in peace and during the Korean War, and the urgent challenge to understand the nature and scale of the Soviet bomber and missile threat in the 1950s and 1960s. The JIB's dedicated work in these fields won it the support of some politicians and military men, but the enmity of others who saw the centralised organisation as a threat to traditional military intelligence. The intelligence officers of the JIB waged Cold War not only with Communist adversaries but also in Whitehall.

The only comprehensive and up-to-date book of its kind with the latest information.

After 1949, the British Empire in Hong Kong was more vulnerable than the lack of Chinese demand for return and the success of Hong Kong's economic transformations might have suggested. Its vulnerability stemmed as much from Britain's imperial decline and America's Cold War requirements as from a Chinese threat. It culminated in the little known '1957 Question', a year when the British position in Hong Kong appeared more uncertain than any time since 1949.This is the first scholarly study that places Hong Kong at the heart of the Anglo-American relationship in the wider context of the Cold War in Asia. Unlike existing works, which tend to treat British and US policies in isolation, this book explores their dynamic interactions - how the two allies perceived, responded to, and attempted to influence each other's policies and actions. It also provides a major reinterpretation of Hong Kong's involvement in the containment of China. Dr Mark arguesthat, concerned about possible Chinese retaliation, the British insisted and the Americans accepted that Hong Kong's role should be as discreet and non-confrontational in nature as possible. Above all, top decision-makers in Washington evaluated Hong Kong's significance not in its own right, but inthe context of the Anglo-American relationship: Hong Kong was seen primarily as a bargaining chip to obtain British support for US policy elsewhere in Asia.By using a variety of British and US archival material as well as Chinese sources, Dr Mark examines how the British and US government discussed, debated, and disagreed over Hong Kong's role in the Cold War, and reveals the dynamics of the Anglo-American alliance and the dilemmas of small allies in a global conflict.

Riveting accounts of the Cold War power struggles from the New York Times–bestselling author and “nation’s leading presidential historian” (Newsweek). The Crisis Years: A national bestseller on the complex relationship between President John F. Kennedy and Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev, this “definitive” history covers the tumultuous period from 1960 through 1963 when the Berlin Wall was built, and the Bay of Pigs invasion and the Cuban Missile Crisis brought the United States and Soviet Union to the brink of nuclear war (David Remnick, The New Yorker). “Impressively researched and engrossingly narrated.” —Los Angeles Times Mayday: On May Day 1960, Soviet forces downed a CIA U-2 spy plane flown by Francis Gary Powers, two weeks before a crucial summit. This forced President Dwight Eisenhower to decide whether to admit to Nikita Khrushchev—and the world—that he had secretly ordered the flight. Drawing on previously unavailable CIA documents, diaries, and letters, as well as the recollections of Eisenhower’s aides, Beschloss reveals the full high-stakes drama. “One of the best stories yet written about just how those grand men of diplomacy and intrigue conducted our business.” —Time At the Highest Levels: Cowritten with Strobe Talbott, At the Highest Levels exposes the complex negotiations between President George Bush and Soviet Premier Mikhail Gorbachev. In December 1989, the Berlin Wall had fallen, millions across the Eastern Bloc were enjoying new freedoms, and the USSR was crumbling. But a peaceful end to the Cold War was far from assured, requiring an unlikely partnership, as the leaders of rival superpowers had to look beyond the animosities of the past and embrace an uncertain future. “Intimate and utterly absorbing.” —The New York Times

This volume concerns the origins, organisation and method of British, American and Soviet propaganda during the 1950s. Drawing upon a range of archival material which has only been accessible to researchers in the last few years, the authors discuss propaganda's international and domestic dimensions, and chart the development of a shared Cold War culture. They demonstrate how the structures of propaganda which were organised at this time endured, giving shape and meaning to the remaining years of the Cold War.