Synopses & Reviews
Synopsis
This edge-of-your-seat memoir from former FBI agent Joe Navarro reveals the shocking, inside details of how he spearheaded a 1980s investigation into a colossal espionage breach that would have left the US defenseless in a Soviet attack.
In 1988 FBI Agent Joe Navarro divides his time among SWAT assignments, flying air reconnaissance and working counterintelligence. He is a body-language expert with an uncanny ability to read the suspects he interrogates skills that headquarters has failed to appreciate. That is, until Joe interviews Rod Ramsay.
Ramsay is a former American soldier who is linked to a soldier-turned-traitor, Clyde Conrad. When Navarro notices Ramsay s hand twitch at the mention of Conrad s name, Joe thinks he smells a liar. He insists to his bosses that they launch an investigation. What follows is unique in the annals of espionage detection a cat-and-mouse game played at the highest level. Navarro is the FBI agent who can t overtly tip to his target that he suspects him of wrongdoing lest he clam up, and Rod Ramsey is the suspected traitor an evil genius with the second highest IQ ever recorded by the US Army who enjoys sparring with his inquisitor. Navarro must pre-choreograph every interview, becoming a chess master plotting twenty moves in advance.
And the backdrop to this battle of wits is the crumbling of the Soviet Union and the very real possibility that Russian leaders may launch all-out war. If they do, they will have Ramsay to thank, because as Navarro learns over the course of nearly fifty mind-bending interviews, Ramsay has handed the Soviets the ability to utterly destroy the US. Three Minutes to Doomsday puts it all into exciting focus, from the shocking revelations of what Ramsay and other American soldiers leaked to the human factors that even today expose our most critical secrets to thievery."
Synopsis
An intense cat-and-mouse game played between two brilliant men in the last days of the Cold War, this shocking insider's story shows how a massive giveaway of secret war plans and nuclear secrets threatened America with annihilation.
In 1988 Joe Navarro, one of the youngest agents ever hired by the FBI, was dividing his time between SWAT assignments, flying air reconnaissance, and working counter-intelligence. But his real expertise was "reading" body language. He possessed an uncanny ability to glean the thoughts of those he interrogated.
So it was that, on a routine assignment to interview a "person of interest"--a former American soldier named Rod Ramsay--Navarro noticed his interviewee's hand trembling slightly when he was asked about another soldier who had recently been arrested in Germany on suspicion of espionage. That thin lead was enough for the FBI agent to insist to his bosses that an investigation be opened.
What followed is unique in the annals of espionage detection--a two-year-long battle of wits. The dueling antagonists: an FBI agent who couldn't overtly tip to his target that he suspected him of wrongdoing lest he clam up, and a traitor whose weakness was the enjoyment he derived from sparring with his inquisitor. Navarro's job was made even more difficult by his adversary's brilliance: not only did Ramsay possess an authentic photographic memory as well as the second highest IQ ever recorded by the US Army, he was bored by people who couldn't match his erudition. To ensure that the information flow would continue, Navarro had to pre-choreograph every interview, becoming a chess master plotting twenty moves in advance.
And the backdrop to this mental tug of war was the dissolution of the Soviet Union and the very real possibility that its leaders, in a last bid to alter the course of history, might launch a devastating attack. If they did, they would have Ramsay to thank, because as Navarro would learn over the course of forty-two mind-bending interviews, Ramsay had, by his stunning intelligence giveaways, handed the Soviets the ability to utterly destroy the US.
The story of a determined hero who pushed himself to jaw-dropping levels of exhaustion and who rallied his team to expose undreamed of vulnerabilities in America's defense, Three Minutes to Doomsday will leave the reader with disturbing thoughts of the risks the country takes even today with its most protected national secrets.