The New Spymasters
Inside the Modern World of Espionage from the Cold War to Global Terror
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5.0 • 1 Rating
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- $11.99
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- $11.99
Publisher Description
The old world of spying-dead-letter boxes, microfilm cameras, an enemy reporting to the Moscow Center, and a hint of sexual blackmail-is history. The spymaster's technique has changed and the enemy has, too. He or she now frequently comes from a culture far removed from Western understanding and is part of a less well-organized group. The new enemy is constantly evolving and prepared to kill the innocent. In the face of this new threat, the spymasters of the world shunned human intelligence as the primary way to glean clandestine information and replaced it with an obsession that focuses on the technical methods of spying ranging from the use of high-definition satellite photography to the global interception of communications. However, this obsession with technology has failed, most spectacularly, with the devastation of the 9/11 attacks. In this searing modern history of espionage, Stephen Grey takes us from the CIA's Cold War legends, to the agents who betrayed the IRA, through to the spooks inside Al-Qaeda and ISIS. Techniques and technologies have evolved, but the old motivations for betrayal-patriotism, greed, revenge, compromise-endure. Based on years of research and interviews with hundreds of secret sources, Stephen Grey's The New Spymasters is an up-to-date exposé that shows how spycraft's human factor is once again being used to combat the world's deadliest enemies.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In this highly detailed survey of intelligence gathering, Grey, widely celebrated for Ghost Plane, his expos on the CIA's top secret rendition and torture program, updates the methods and tactics of modern spying. Grey moves the discussion beyond the "human factor" to technically superior spy satellites and computerized communication intercepts. He calls spying "the world's second oldest profession," one that has evolved steadily since the collapse of the Berlin Wall, the end of the Warsaw Pact, 9/11, the Iraqi War, and the rise of drones in the early 21st Century. Grey also examines the historical collapse of the French and British empires in the wake of wars of independence, the bitter aftermath of the late 20th Century mujahedeen struggle, and various contemporary terror cells in Europe and America. Readers of Ian Fleming and John LeCarr will delight in the lively anecdotes about bold British agents, including the infamous Kim Philby, the "Cambridge Five" recruited by the Soviets during the Cold War, and the aggressive operations against the IRA to prolong English rule in Ulster. In this current age of al-Qaeda and ISIS, Grey's engrossing, chilling read reveals to readers the fluidity with which the intelligence world must operate.
