Dirk's Book Reviews Deze pagina in the Nederlands
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Dirk's Book Reviews Deze pagina in the Nederlands
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On this page you'll find some books that I have read. If my free time allows me, I hope to write a small review from time to time. Any interesting suggestions about good non-fiction books are always welcome. Just mail me or drop a note in my guestbook. Did you read one of the books on this page, let me know what you think about it!
Secret Power (now free to download as e-book) is a
fascinating book about New Zealand's role in the international
UKUSA based spy network. Published in 1996 but hardly known to
the public, the book is one of the first well documented papers
to shed a light on the most secret ECHELON system. The story
begins after the Second World War, when the United States and the
United Kingdom sign the UKUSA agreement, to gather and share
Signals Intelligence (SIGINT). Soon after, Canada, Australia and
New Zealand joined this cooperation. This was to become the
largest worldwide SIGINT organisation ever. The boek provides
many details about the origings and history of the New Zealand
Government Communications Security Bureau (GCSB), their
collaboration with the other SIGINT agencies and the how and why
of the most secretive UKUSA agreement. In the 1980's, a system
was introduced to automatically categorise, filter and store the
vast amount of intercepted signals from commercial satellites,
radio communications, telephone, fax, Telex and e-mail traffic.
The system, codenamed ECHELON became an enormous source of
intelligence.
Although apparently a child of the Cold War, ECHELON does much more than protecting the participating countries against the - meanwhile perished - Soviet Union or safeguarding their nations interests. It enables massive eavesdropping on both enemies and friends, and for many years, this was done without consent or knowledge of the New Zealand parliament. ECHELON was so secret that only the GCSB staff knew - more ore less - what they were doing. Moreover, the technology, training and key staff members were provided by the American NSA and the British GCHQ, the UKUSA key members. ECHELON is based on software, called Dictionary, to filter potential interesting information with the help of key words. The five countries can individually compose and adjust different key word tables to filter out the intelligence they need. ECHELON also interconnects all the listening stations, located across the world. All five countries harvest intelligence and - theoretically - profit of the remote spy stations of their fellow eavesdroppers. However, the 'return on investment' for junior members Australia, Canada and New Zealand is nothing compared to their British GCHQ counterpart and especially the NSA, the agency that designed and fully controles the ECHELON system and its Dictionary. At the end, New Zealand embarked on a Big Brother project without being aware of what ECHELON was used for, what information the key players filtered out the GCSB stations, and without having any democratic control over this most secret operation.
The information in the book is based many years
of painstakingly puzzling together the very scarce information,
tracking involved personnel and interviews with staff members of
the GCSB. A quest that started in 1984 and lasted until the 1996
publishing of the book. The result is a detailed report on how
the spy network and ECHELON are working, who is targeted and what
information they harvest. Hager's investigations provide an
insight view, not only in GCSB's kitchen, but also in the GCHQ,
the NSA and the Australian DSD. A truly fascinating book! The
e-book version, a 23 Mb pdf file, is now on-line available and
free to download at Nicky Hager's website (right-click the "full book" link). ISBN
0908802358
Keith Melton is a well known author of several spy books
and an expert on espionage equipment and clandestine devices. He
has an enormous collection of these unique spy tools. This book
is beautifully illustrated with more than 600 detailed images of
ingenious spy accessories and weapons. The book starts with a
brief historical review on the beginnings of espionage, the First
World War and the Russian revolution. Melton takes us back to the
Second World War, with the British SOE - Special Operations
Executive , the American OSS - Office of Strategic Operations and
the German Abwehr, Sicherheitsdienst and Gestapo. The covert
communications equipment, suitcase radios, special weapons, the
cracking of codes and Soviet wartime spy rings.
However, the major part of the book is, not surprisingly, about the Cold War. The Cold War was a period in history that was characterised by mistrust and fear between East and West. These were the heydays of espionage, with Berlin as the capital of spies. Many of the most notorious spy cases were about the battle for intelligence information between the United States and the Soviet Union during the Cold War. This battle was fought in the sky, with U2 spy planes and satellites, but also on the ground by intelligence officers and their agents in enemy territory. Hidden and automatic cameras for observation such as the Robot Star, small mini cameras like the famous Minox or the F21 with its lens in a jacket button for clandestine photography and small camera systems to copy documents. You will discover communications equipment for covert operations, monitoring equipment and dead drops to secretly pass documents and films.
Melton also brings us the story of secret
operations and the special devices that were developed for these
operations. If there are spies, there's counter-intelligence. Bug
detectors, anti-eavesdropping equipment, interception of
documents and all kind of tools to burgle or secretly gain access
to installations or documents of the enemy. Training and
recruitment, spy rings, false covers and legends, it's all there.
But above all, The Ultimate Spy is a book to watch, with
many splendid photos about the art of spy-craft and its
technology. A book that would make James Bond's Mister Q jealous.
ISBN: 0789404435
How was it possible for the Nazis to identify such an
enormous number of Jews and other ethnic groups? How did they
find all their relatives? How did they manage to transport and
eliminate millions of people? The answer to these questions
begins in the early 1930's, when IBM successfully commercialized
and aggressively monopolized the Hollerith punch card technology,
used since 1890 by census bureaus. When Thomas Watson became
president of IBM, his goal was to expand the company on a global
scale, regardless any political, military or ethic obstacle. A
crucial player in the organisation of the Holocaust was Dehomag,
a German sub-company of IBM.
The Hollerith machines, the predecessor of the computer, were able to perform statistical calculations and organise data with an unmatched speed. Already in the early 1930's the Nazis placed large orders at Dehomag to organise industry, finances, railways but also to automate the identification of Jews. All Hollerith machines had to be customised for every specific task and special punch cards were designed to store detailed information. Although the Germany based Demohad company officially processed these orders, it were the IBM engineers who controlled the complete process, and all financial decisions were made by IBM New York and its executives. Even when Jews were openly prosecuted and deported, even when war broke out, even when all trade with Germany became illegal, IBM continued to produce and lease Hollerith machines, developed custom solutions for the Nazis, offered maintenance and gained massive profits of this, of course hidden in a labyrinth of confusing financial and legal tricks.
Given the complex requirements to develop
specific custom solutions, which included detailed data input and
question lists, IBM was well aware of the purpose of the ordered
machines. Moreover, IBM was constantly involved in legal battles
to obtain more and more profit of its successful sub-company
Dehomag. Meanwhile, Hollerith machines produced precise address
lists of Jews in Germany and many occupied countries, organised
their deportation and enslaved labor, enabled smooth railway
timetables to transport millions of people across Europe and
boosted the efficiency of the German war industry. And IBM was
the one who leased the machines and produces the billions of
punch cards Hitler needed to continue his war and the total
annihilation of Jews. This book shows in detail the carefully
constructed covert alliance between IBM and the Third Reich, and
how IBM founder and president Thomas Watson cooperated with the
Nazis. It's not an easy book to read, but an astonishing report
on how a globalised company ignored moral ethics, laws and
borders for the sake of profit. Above all, this book answers the
most important question: how did Hitler get the names of all
these Jews? ISBN: 0609607995
The
story of Kim Philby, head of the Soviet counter-espionage section
of the SIS, Britain's Secret Intelligence Service, at the same
time a successful Russian spy. This brilliant student became a
true communist in Cambridge. In 1933 he finished his university
studies and went to Vienna to help underground socialists in
their battle against the Austrian right-conservatives. After his
return Philby was recruited by the KGB as one of 'the four of
Cambridge', together with Guy Burgess, Donald Maclean and Anthony
Blunt. His main objective was to infiltrate the SIS. He went to
Spain as newspaper reporter and pretended to be a supporter of
the fascist General Franco, to erase his communist past. In 1940
he was recruited by the SIS after recommendation by the already
infiltrated Burgess and one year later he worked at the
counter-espionage branch. By the end of 1944, at the dawn of the
Cold War, he had been promoted to head of counter-espionage and
anti-communist operations. Five years later he was promoted to
the SIS top function in Washington which gave him access to US
operations against the Soviet-Union, the top secret VENONA
project, and other sensitive information.
After the defection of his close friends
Burgess and Maclean to Moscow, he came under suspicion with MI5
and got fired. Due to lack of evidence his name was cleared and
by 1956 he was covertly recruited again by the SIS as agent in
Beirut. After the defection of KGB agent Golitsyn his treason was
exposed and the SIS proposed exemption of prosecution in exchange
of a full confession. However, early in 1963 Philby vanished in
Lebanon to surface a few weeks later in Moscow, where he was
received as a hero. The performance of this master spy is unique
and for almost 30 years caused enormous damage in the hart of the
battle against Soviet Intelligence. This book is based on many
interviews with Philby himself in Moscow, and has been veryfied
by historical research. ISBN: 0233000488
If you are not familiar with the Soviet secret service,
its history and developed, this is a great book to read. The book
is written in chronological order and starts at the roots of the
secret service. Katamidze takes us on a journey through time,
from Dzerzhinsky's ruthless Cheka, the OGPU and NKVD, the
repression by the KGB inside and outside the Soviet Union during
the Cold War, to the the failed 1991 coup by Kryuchkov with the
dissolving of the KGB and transition to the new Federal Security
Service FSB and Foreign Intelligence SVR in the new Russian
Federation. Katamidze doesn't hide his criticism on the secret
services and their violent history. Many of the most notorious
spy cases and KGB intelligence successes are described and you
can find details about nearly all high ranked people in the
secret service, all of this illustrated with many unique images.
Having said this, I also have some serious
questions about this book. Although a very good introduction, it
fails to go into detail on several important episodes in the
history of the Soviet Union and its secret service. The author
presents some new and questionable facts about names and numbers,
criticises some people and is striking mild on others. The book
regretfully lacks the sources for these new facts, giving the
book a sense of subjectivity, although it's hard to tell in which
direction. Slava Katamidze has a background as officer in the
Soviet Army, studied at the institute for foreign languages and
institute for international law in Moscow. Sounds like a perfect
candidate for the GRU (military intelligence, known for its
fierce rivalry with the KGB). Although nowhere mentioned and only
an educated guess of mine, it would explanation the duality of
the book in its criticism on the secret service and at the same
time forgetting some dark Soviet episodes and details.
Nonetheless a fascinating introduction and beautiful illustrated
book. However, I recommend to read books such as The
Mitrokhin Archive after this one, to get another view on the
story. ISBN: 1930983239
Interesting
book about Signal Intelligence, the Echelon network, and the
discussion about privacy vs security. Is it possible to eavesdrop
on your phonecalls or read your mails? What are secret services
doing, and how far are they going? Keefe did lots of research and
found answers, but also many new questions. What is NSA and who's
supervising this top secret service? Can NSA win the war against
terrorism? What changed after 9/11? And what about our privacy?
Do secret services protect us or just violate our privacy? Keefe
talked to many people from the world of intelligence, visited
listening stations and tries to analyse the influence of secret
services on politics and vice versa. ISBN: 1400060346
Vasili
Nikitich Mitrokhin was a chief archivist for the First Chief
Directorate PGU, the foreign-intelligence department of the KGB,
when the huge archive relocated to another KGB building.
Mitrokhin was responsible for transferring over 300,000 files,
many of them among the KGB's most secret documents. Over a period
of 12 years, Mitrokhin smuggled a vast amount of top secret
papers out of the archive and copied them. In 1992, he walked
into a British embassy in a Baltic state and by the end of that
year he was exfiltrated by British Secret Service, together with
several large crates of documents. The consequences were
devastating for the KGB. Details about secret operations and the
names and code names of Soviet spies came into the hands of
intelligence services in the West. As the facts got published,
SVR, the successor to the KGB, replied that it was simply
impossible that hundreds of names could be exposed, 'in worst
case a few'. The reality was that more than one thousand names
were revealed. This enabled secret services to identify or catch
many Soviet spies. This large book contains an enormous amount of
information on the history of the secret services in the Soviet
Union and detailed info on Soviet spies and numerous secret
operations. ISBN: 0465003125
What is
cryptology and where did it came from? Ever since the beginning
of mankind, people have had secrets, and people have wanted to
know other peoples secrets. This book takes the reader on a trip
through the history of cryptology, from ancient texts through to
modern cryptographic algorithms on computers. Singh explains the
evolution of codemakers, and their never ending battle with
codebreakers. Without going into technical details he shows the
importance of cryptology in politics and war over many centuries.
We read how cryptography was developed as an important weapon
against Signal Intelligence, and the role of codebreakers in
Sigint. In this age of technology, internet and communication,
Singh explains the importance of encryption to protect our
privacy. This isn't a detailed book aimed at crypto geeks, but
rather it's a good introduction to cryptography with some basics
on classical encryption methods and a bit of theory on modern
algorithms like RSA. This book is a must for those who think that
encryption isn't important. ISBN: 0385495323
A
detailed book about the Abwehr, the German Foreign Intelligence
organization before and during the Second World War. Farago, a
former SIS officer, reconstructed the history of this notorious
service thanks to recovered archives, captured in the final days
of war. They contained tens of thousands of documents on
microfilm. The book explains how the Abwehr was formed, how
Admiral Canaris developed it into an effective secret service,
and his struggle with the other German security services. We can
read about the preparations for war and the invasion of Poland,
as well as the spy networks in England, the success of the
British counter-intelligence and the Double-Cross system that
turned virtually all German agents in England into double agents.
There's a large chapter on pre-war industrial and military
espionage and sabotage by German spy networks in the US. You can
read how the Abwehr tried to influence US elections and prevent a
third term for F. D. Roosevelt, who was in favor of military
support for Europe. The archives reveal the misplaced confidence
in the Abwehr agents operating in the US, and how the FBI
eliminated most of the spy networks once the US entered the war.
The archives show the infiltration of foreign embassies, the spy
network in neutral Sweden and the support for General Franco in
Spain.
In 1944 the Abwehr finally lost all credit with
the Nazi top brass, in favor of Schellenbergs Sicherheidsdienst
Ausland, and Admiral Canaris was forced to leave the service. The
Allied success of operation Fortitude, to mislead German
intelligence about the invasion on D-Day, was the last major
battle between the secret services and finally lead to the fall
of the Nazi empire. The question remains in how far Canaris, who
became anti-Nazi, was responsible for the failure of his
intelligence service and the outcome of war. The Abwehr, by then
under command of the RSHA, soon collapsed without the expertise
of Canaris who was executed later by the SS in Kamp Flossenburg
for conspiracy again Hitler. This detailed story of the recovered
Abwehr archive is a unique piece of WW2 intelligence history.
ISBN: 0553123424
The history of the Mossad, Israel's secret service. This
book explains how the Mossad was formed in the newly created
state of Israel and how it developed. It describes in detail
several of their secret missions. Thomas interviewed many former
agents of the Mossad to compile a complete image of the
'institute', known to the public for its counterterrorist actions
and assassinations. He gives us not only operational details, but
puts all of this into its historical context. ISBN: 0312339135
Markus
Wolf was the legendary chief of the HVA (Haupt Verwaltung
Aufklaerung), East Germany's foreign intelligence service. Wolf,
the son of writer and physician Friedrich Wolf and brother of
film director Konrad Wolf, fled as child in 1933 from the Nazi's
and exiled himself to Moscow. After the war, he was sent to
Berlin as journalist for the radio station in the Soviet Zone of
occupation. As a journalist, he followed the Nuremberg Trials
against the Nazi leaders.
In 1953, he was one of the founding members of the foreign intelligence service, a department of the ministry of state security, also called Stasi. As head of the HVA, Wolf developed the most effective secret service of the Cold War. After retiring in 1986, he wrote a book which was originally a film project of his late brother Konrad, about Konrad and two friends, growing up in Moscow in the 1930's. Konrad joined the Soviet Army, one friend joined the German Luftwaffe, and the third one joined the US forces. After the war, the three friends meet again and keep in contact. The book, Die Troika, a statement for friendship which also exposed the failure of communism, was published in East and West Germany. For the people in the East, Wolf, who supported Glasnost and Perestroika, became a symbol of the ongoing changes in a country that rejected the changes in Eastern Europe.
Although Wolf headed only the foreign intelligence, one of many departments of Erich Mielke's Stasi, he became targeted as Stasi spy chief by the media during the period of the fall of the Berlin Wall. After the collapse of the German Democratic Republic, Wolf was charged and sentenced in the reunified Germany with espionage, bribery and treason, but that conviction was later overturned and he received a suspended sentence on lesser charges.
In the book The Man Without a Face
(ISBN: 1891620126), you can read about his childhood years in
Moscow, the development of the most successful spy agency of the
Cold War, and lots of inside information on famous spy cases. In Die
Trojka (Dutch ISBN: 9053300465, German ISBN: 3746680611,
English ISBN: ???) you get a taste of the life in the pre-war
Soviet Union, and how friends got separated by Stalins abuse of
communism. The last book I got to read was In eigenem
Auftrag: Bekenntnisse und Einsichten (Dutch ISBN:
9056171127, German ISBN: 3795112168 , English ISBN: ???), Wolf's
diary of 1989-1990, describing in detail the political collapse
of East Germany and how the GDR government of Erich Honnecker led
the country, the SED party and socialism into the abyss, by
rejecting any changes in policy.
Station
X is the story of the incredible achievements of codebreakers in
the Second World War. In 1939, the Government Code and Cipher
School, GC&CS, started a top secret station to decipher
intercept enemy codes. Some of the most brilliant people were
brought together in Bletchley Park, England. One of their
objectives was breaking the Enigma codes. The Enigma cipher
machine was used in all parts of the German Army, Luftwaffe and
Kriegsmarine. Breaking this code could turn the tide of the war.
This book is the story of the people who broke the code, how the
codebreaking was organised, and gives us a pretty good idea of
how people lived in Bletchley Park. Breaking Enigma played a
decisive role in many parts of the war such as the Atlantic,
Africa and D-day, and shortened the war by several years. ISBN:
1575000946
The story of Leopold Trepper, a Polish Jew who ran a
network of Soviet radio spies in occupied Europe during WW2. The
Red Orchestra is the name of the secret operation, ordered by
Hitler personally, to eliminate these Soviet cells. One by one,
all secret broadcasting stations are traced and the members of
the organization arrested and tortured by the Gestapo. Trepper
seems to be a ghost, getting away each time, while the ring
around his organization is closing slowly. It's a detailed
document on how Soviet spies operated in Europe, and the battle
between Wehrmacht and Gestapo Sigint units and the different
Soviet cells, broadcasting German secrets to Russia. ISBN:
0805209522
Under
cover as TASS reporter, KGB officer Yuri Shvets was stationed at
the Soviet embassy in Washington D.C. for over two years. In this
book he writes about his training and career in the KGB, how the
institute worked and his operations in the US. Shvets describes
the live of Soviet officers in the embassy, their missions, the
recruiting of local agents and the cat-and-mouse game with the
FBI. He also gives us a dark view on the KGB, paralysed by
bureaucracy, where paranoia obstructs the real intelligence work.
A sobering story on how secret services operate. ISBN: 0671883976
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