Synopses & Reviews
Martin Kaiser is a legend within the nation's covert electronic surveillance fraternity. With a hot-wired transmitter the size of a pea, Kaiser built devices that could bring down a government, prevent a terrorist attack, or provide blackmail for a government agency to smear a well-known American Civil Rights leader. Now, in Odyssey of an Eavesdropper, he steps from the shadows of national security to tell his own story-a journey from an abusive childhood in a Pennsylvania coal-mining town to icon status in the black ops world of U.S. spy operations as the premier producer of electronic surveillance gadgets and dirty tricks, and then his battle for professional and emotional survival with the FBI bent on his destruction. Kaiser's clients included the FBI, the CIA, DEA, Secret Service, Army, Navy and Air Force Intelligence, as well as foreign intelligence services. However, as a result of his testimony before the National Wiretap Commission in 1975, the FBI began a vendetta against Kaiser, nearly driving his business into bankruptcy and resulting in his eventual indictment on charge of illegal wiretapping, conspiracy and transporting an illegal eavesdropping device across state lines. Acquitted of all charges and having reinvented himself, Kaiser tells his tale.
About the Author
Martin L. Kaiser III is President of Martin L. Kaiser Inc., an electronics company located in Cockeysville, Maryland, specializing in the manufacture of electronic eavesdropping devices, bomb detection, and improvised explosive device detection equipment. He was a senior research technician at RCA Laboratories in Princeton, New Jersey, in the late l950s and early 1960s where he was instrumental in the development of a new link in the U.S. anti-missile system. He has served as a technical advisor on films including The Conversation,” Enemy of the State,” the TV show, The Matrix” and he was featured in the BBC Emmy Award-Winning documentary, Confessions of a Dangerous Man,” in the l980s about the life of fugitive CIA agent, Frank Terpil.
Robert S. Stokes is the author of the novel Walking Wounded and the play A Place Called Heartbreak. He covered the Vietnam War and the Chicago Seven trial for Newsweek and the Attica Prison Riot for Life magazine. Mr. Stokes lives in Westport, CT.