Spies And Commandos

During the Vietnam War, the U.S. sought to undermine Hanoi's subversion of the Saigon regime by sending Vietnamese operatives behind enemy lines. All the commandos were killed or captured, with many reporting false information. This book traces the rise and demise of this secret operation.

During the Vietnam war, the United States sought to undermine Hanoi's subversion of the Saigon regime by sending Vietnamese operatives behind enemy lines. A secret to most Americans, this covert operation was far from secret in Hanoi: all of the commandos were killed or captured, and many were turned by the Communists to report false information. Spies and Commandos traces the rise and demise of this secret operation-started by the CIA in 1960 and expanded by the Pentagon beginning in1964-in the first book to examine the program from both sides of the war. Kenneth Conboy and Dale Andrade interviewed CIA and military personnel and traveled in Vietnam to locate former commandos who had been captured by Hanoi, enabling them to tell the complete story of these covert activities from high-level decision making to the actual experiences of the agents. The book vividly describes scores of dangerous missions-including raids against North Vietnamese coastal installations and the air-dropping of dozens of agents into enemy territory-as well as psychological warfare designed to make Hanoi believe the "resistance movement" was larger than it actually was. It offers a more complete operational account of the program than has ever been made available-particularly its early years-and ties known events in the war to covert operations, such as details of the "34-A Operations" that led to the Tonkin Gulf incidents in 1964. It also explains in no uncertain terms why the whole plan was doomed to failure from the start. One of the remarkable features of the operation, claim the authors, is that its failures were so glaring. They argue that the CIA, and later the Pentagon, was unaware for years that Hanoi had compromised the commandos, even though some agents missed radio deadlines or filed suspicious reports. Operational errors were not attributable to conspiracy or counterintelligence, they contend, but simply to poor planning and lack of imagination. Although it flourished for ten years under cover of the wider war, covert activity in Vietnam is now recognized as a disaster. Conboy and Andrade's account of that episode is a sobering tale that lends a new perspective on the war as it reclaims the lost lives of these unsung spies and commandos.

Rare look into the secret military operations of Hitler's Germany Page-turning narrative detailing the unit's exploits Very few books have been written about this clandestine operations unit, which was run by the German Army's intelligence service. Trained to be quick, mobile, and self-reliant and steeped in local customs and languages, the Brandenburgers operated behind enemy lines around the world. From Western Europe to Romania, Russia, Egypt, Afghanistan, and World War II's other fronts, they seized bridges and other strategic targets and engaged in sabotage, espionage, and other daring missions-often bending the rules of war in the process. Although the unit was dissolved in 1944, its tactics influenced special forces around the world both during the war and after.

Defiance against Chinese oppression has been a defining characteristic of Tibetan life for more than four decades, symbolized most visibly by the much revered Dalai Lama. But the story of Tibetan resistance weaves a far richer tapestry than anyone might have imagined. Kenneth Conboy and James Morrison reveal how America's Central Intelligence Agency encouraged Tibet's revolt against China-and eventually came to control its fledgling resistance movement. While the CIA's presence in Tibet has been alluded to in other works, the authors provide the first comprehensive, as well as most compelling account of this little known agency enterprise. The CIA's Secret War in Tibet takes readers from training camps in the Colorado Rockies to the scene of clandestine operations in the Himalayas, chronicling the agency's help in securing the Dalai Lama's safe passage to India and subsequent initiation of one of the most remote covert campaigns of the Cold War. Establishing a rebel army in the northern Nepali kingdom of Mustang and a para-commando force in India designed to operate behind Chinese lines, Conboy and Morrison provide previously unreported details about secret missions undertaken in extraordinarily harsh conditions. Their book greatly expands on previous memoirs by CIA officials by putting virtually every major agency participant on record with details of clandestine operations. It also calls as witnesses the people who managed and fought in the program-including Tibetan and Nepalese agents, Indian intelligence officers, and even mission aircrews. Conboy and Morrison take pains to tell the story from all perspectives, particularly that of the former Tibetan guerrillas, many of whom have gone on record here for the first time. The authors also tell how Tibet led America and India to become secret partners over the course of several presidential administrations and cite dozens of Indian and Tibetan intelligence documents directly related to these covert operations. Ultimately, they are persuasive that the Himalayan operations were far more successful as a proving ground for CIA agents who were later reassigned to southeast Asia than as a staging ground for armed rebellion. As the movement for Tibetan liberation continues to attract international support, Tibet's status remains a contentious issue in both Washington and Beijing. This book takes readers inside a covert war fought with Tibetan blood and U.S. sponsorship and allows us to better understand the true nature of that controversy.

Former Army intelligence officer and Defense Intelligence Agency analyst "Wick" Tourison unravels the tragically flawed and costly operation that according to many analysts helped trigger, the Vietnam War. Some b & w photos. Annotation copyright Book News, Inc. Portland, Or.

British leaders use spies and Special Forces to interfere in the affairs of others discreetly and deniably. Since 1945, MI6 has spread misinformation designed to divide and discredit targets from the Middle East to Eastern Europe and Northern Ireland. It has instigated whispering campaigns and planted false evidence on officials working behind the Iron Curtain, tried to ferment revolution in Albania, blown up ships to prevent the passage of refugees to Israel, and secretly funnelled aid to insurgents in Afghanistan and dissidents in Poland. MI6 has launched cultural and economic warfare against Iceland and Czechoslovakia. It has tried to instigate coups in Congo, Egypt, Syria, Saudi Arabia, Iran, and elsewhere. Through bribery and blackmail, Britain has rigged elections as colonies moved to independence. Britain has fought secret wars in Yemen, Indonesia, and Oman — and discreetly used Special Forces to eliminate enemies from colonial Malaya to Libya during the Arab Spring. This is covert action: a vital, though controversial, tool of statecraft and perhaps the most sensitive of all government activity. If used wisely, it can play an important role in pursuing national interests in a dangerous world. If used poorly, it can cause political scandal — or worse. In Disrupt and Deny, Rory Cormac tells the remarkable true story of Britain's secret scheming against its enemies, as well as its friends; of intrigue and manoeuvring within the darkest corridors of Whitehall, where officials fought to maintain control of this most sensitive and seductive work; and, above all, of Britain's attempt to use smoke and mirrors to mask decline. He reveals hitherto secret operations, the slush funds that paid for them, and the battles in Whitehall that shaped them.

Provides an in-depth look at espionage in its many forms through factual tales based on historical events, such as the guerilla fighters in the Civil War and Ancient Roman invasions. Original.

In 1963, a frustrated President Kennedy turned to the Pentagon for help in carrying out subversive operations against North Vietnam- a job the CIA had not managed to handle effectively. Thus was born the Pentagon's Special Operations Group(SOG). Under the cover name"Studies and Observation Group," SOG would, over the next eight years, dispatch numerous spies to North Vietnam, create a triple-cross deception program, wage psychological warfare by manipulating North Vietnamese POW's and kidnapped citizens, and stage deadly assaults on enemy soldiers traveling the Ho Chi Minh Trail. Written by the country's leading expert on SOG, here is the story of that covert war-one that would have both spectacular and disastrous results.