Synopses & Reviews
The world was at war, America precariously poised on the sidelines. But already a second secret war was well underway with the United States very much in the thick of it. While he fought on the home front to consolidate the FBI's intelligence gathering power, J. Edgar Hoover was conducting an all-out campaign to make his agency America's first foreign espionage service--a campaign that would lead to an uneasy alliance with British intelligence in a brilliantly successful operation to undermine Germany throughout the Second World War. While pieces of the story have been told before, only now, in this work by FBI historian and former agent Raymond Batvinis, does this crucial chapter in the history of World War II, and of the FBI, received its full due.
Taking up the tale begun in his acclaimed Origins of FBI Counterintelligence, Batvinis mines a wealth of heretofore untapped resources to expose Hoover's remarkable connivances and accomplishments in concert—and occasionally contention—with the Allies in outsmarting German intelligence. Hoover's Secret War opens up a world of spy rings, secret and double agents, surveillance, codes and ciphers, wire taps, microdots, mail drops, invisible ink, radio transmissions, and deception and disinformation as it tracks the warring nations spreading their intelligence tentacles throughout Europe and North and South America. As it documents the rocky evolution of the FBI's relationship with Britain's vaunted M15 and M16, the book brings to light the feud between Hoover and William Stephenson, director of the British Secret Intelligence Service's U. S. operation, BSC.
Batvinis reveals how the agency gained access to ULTRA intelligence, thanks to the British decryption of the ENIGMA code, along with the strenuous efforts to keep the Germans in the dark about it. He uncovers eye-opening details of the FBI's participation in the famed "Double-Cross System, which effectively "turned" German agents against the Fatherland, among them a flamboyant, larger-than-life playboy, a world famous French flyer, and a lecherous Dutchman. Batvinis tells for the first time how the Bureau manipulated these agents, and how it transmitted deceptive information critical to the Normandy landings, the Allied invasion of the Marshall Islands, and the atomic bomb program, among other matters. Rich with secrets and surprises worthy of the finest spy fiction, this true story of espionage and counterintelligence gives us our first clear look at the secret second world war, and a significant moment in history—for the FBI, for America, and for the world.
Review
"A splendid account of the FBI's contribution to victory in World War II."—Washington Times
Review
"Exposes Hoover's counterintelligence missteps and his repeated refusales to cooperated with and learn from experienced Allied espionage experts. It also provides a long list of unsung FBI heroes who fought the Axis threat from Canada to the tip of Argentina."—America in WWII
Review
"Hoover's Secret War against Axis Spies is a monumental book, breaking new ground in the field of secret intelligence. . . . Chronicles the Bureau's struggle to become America's leading intelligence service from Pearl Harbor to Hiroshima and beyond."—World War II
Synopsis
The story of Hoover's numerous wartime battles against Axis, American, and British adversaries, and how they transformed the FBI's culture and intelligence gathering capabilities, helps us understand why the Bureau occupies its powerful position in the national security apparatus today.
About the Author
Raymond J. Batvinis, former Supervisory Special Agent for the FBI and Executive Director of the J. Edgar Hoover Foundation, is the author The Origins of FBI Counterintelligence, also from Kansas. He teaches at The George Washington University, Mercyhurst University, and the Institute of World Politics.
Table of Contents
Acknowledgments
List of Abbreviations
Introduction
1. A Remarkable Weekend
2. Jones and Stott
3. The Balloon Went Up
4. Rothschild Is Coming
5. Art Goes to London
6. Ostrich
7. A Fool's Errand
8. South of the Border
9. The Man from Buffalo
10. Breach of Faith
11. The Count from New York
12. Japs, Aspirin, and Pep
13. ND98
14. Gaston deChant
15. Koehler
16. Peasant
Conclusion
Appendix A. FBI Radio Relay Station between BSC and MI6
Appendix B. FBI Special Intelligence Service Coverage
Appendix C. Money Given by the German Nazis to Its Agents Operating in the United States
Appendix D. Genuine and Fictional FBI Double Agents
Notes
Selected Bibliography
Index