Book Review on WWII US Espionage

[BigBoy99]

Our local library was having a book sale and in the 50 cent pile I found a 2001 copyrighted book by Joseph E. Persico entitled "Roosevelt's Secret War - FDR and WWII Espionage". I figured for 50 cents I couldn't go wrong. I started reading it and couldn't put it down. Excellent book. A lot of things I never knew about the OSS and people around FDR during WWII. I never realized what a detrimental influence J. Edgar Hoover had been on the US war effort -- making up lies to prevent the formation of the OSS, ignoring critical intelligence, more worried about his own personal status than doing his job, taking credit for other people's work, etc. A lot of information on spies and spying which was going on during WWII on the Manhattan Project.

If your interested in WWII history, I'd recommend this book.

 

[rockquarry]

Our local library was having a book sale and in the 50 cent pile I found a 2001 copyrighted book by Joseph E. Persico entitled "Roosevelt's Secret War - FDR and WWII Espionage". I figured for 50 cents I couldn't go wrong. I started reading it and couldn't put it down. Excellent book. A lot of things I never knew about the OSS and people around FDR during WWII. I never realized what a detrimental influence J. Edgar Hoover had been on the US war effort -- making up lies to prevent the formation of the OSS, ignoring critical intelligence, more worried about his own personal status than doing his job, taking credit for other people's work, etc. A lot of information on spies and spying which was going on during WWII on the Manhattan Project.

If your interested in WWII history, I'd recommend this book.

I don't have a great interest in WWII history, but will occasionally read something that deals with it peripherally. I have read one good book detailing a lot of Hoover's involvement with FDR and WWII among many other things. "Official and Confidential, The Secret Life of J. Edgar Hoover" by Anthony Summers. Heavily researched and documented, and bizarre.

 

[bushmaster1313]

Col. John Lansdale was in charge of security for the Manhattan Project. Someone who worked at John Lansdale's law firm in the 1980's told me the following.

Word got to Col. Lansdale that a certain newspaper was going to print a story about the Manhattan Project. Col. Lansdale made the proverbial visit to the editor's home and told the editor he was not going to run the story. The editor said to Col. Lansdale, "What are you going to do, shoot me?" Col. Lansdale responded, "That is one of my options." The story did not get printed.

 

[Telecaster]

Sounds interesting. You might also enjoy Diana West's American Betrayal, about how FDR's top advisor was in Stalin's pocket. And for more insight into FDR's economic policies, Wayne Jett's The Fruits of Graft.

 

[Onomea]

As I recall, the OSS used silenced High Standard .22 pistols. (This being a gun forum and all.)

 

[Absalom]

I have not read the book by Persico, but am familiar with the story how J. Edgar Hoover used the bungled 1942 German sabotage mission to make himself an American hero.

Shortly after U-boats had delivered groups of German agents to the East Coast, to attack economic targets, one of the saboteurs turned himself in to the FBI and served them the whole plan on a silver platter. Hoover kept that under wraps and used the information to make himself out to be the man who saved America.

Among others things, this helped distract attention from the fact that prior to December 1941 Hoover and the FBI were so obsessed with largely imaginary Communist conspiracies that they had pretty much ignored the blatantly open activities of German-American Nazis in the US, including planning terrorist attacks and assassinations of prominent Jewish Americans.

 

[jimmyj]

I have not read the book by Persico, but am familiar with the story how J. Edgar Hoover used the bungled 1942 German sabotage mission to make himself an American hero.

Shortly after U-boats had delivered groups of German agents to the East Coast, to attack economic targets, one of the saboteurs turned himself in to the FBI and served them the whole plan on a silver platter. Hoover kept that under wraps and used the information to make himself out to be the man who saved America.

Among others things, this helped distract attention from the fact that prior to December 1941 Hoover and the FBI were so obsessed with largely imaginary Communist conspiracies that they had pretty much ignored the blatantly open activities of German-American Nazis in the US, including planning terrorist attacks and assassinations of prominent Jewish Americans.

IIRC (?) a USCG Beach Patrolman discovered the Saboteurs and gave the alarm.

 

[Absalom]

IIRC (?) a USCG Beach Patrolman discovered the Saboteurs and gave the alarm.

The Germans actually tried to bribe the Coast Guard guy. He took the money and then reported them anyways, but this happened on Long Island and by the time anyone responded, the Germans had disappeared into New York City. Members of a team that landed in Florida actually made it all the way to Chicago before the turncoat's info caught up with them.

 

[Onomea]

The Germans actually tried to bribe the Coast Guard guy. He took the money and then reported them anyways, ...

Sounds like a true New Yorker!

 

[Old Arkansawyer]

After all Hoover was busy dress shopping to be bothered by a few spies.

 

[THE PILGRIM]

Used to know Tom Smith (RIP) Texas Good Ole Boy who floated up to a medium high FBI position.
The only thing Tom refused to discuss was J Edgar's personal life.

 

[Onomea]

Got zero problems with J. Edgars personal life. I'm a big believer in your personal life is your own.

But, his attempted, and to whatever extent successful, collection of info on the personal lives of others, to use to keep himself in power, or bend them to his will, or to use for political or social reasons, was, in my view, reprehensible.

 

[Greyman50]

Excellent thread. Most of my books are still packed up in storage, here's 2 on equipment used by OSS and SOE. Find and read Stephenson's" A Man Called Intrepid", basis of the Jame Bond character.

 

[HardToHandle]

Persico's book is excellent. I own a copy and read it more than once.

Another very side story to the WWII espionage is VERONA decrypts, Soviet cables that US worked to decode over a series of decades. They prove Alger Hiss was a Communist spy and the Roosevelt Administration was riddled with other travelers. If the topic is of interest, the title "The World was Going Our Way" by Andrew is a great read.

Funny enough, a friend of mine is married into the family of Roosevelt's Vice President Henry Wallace. The VERONA decrypts demonstrated that the Soviets got a fair amount of sensitive intel from Wallace and considered recruiting him as an agent. Today, I don't think most folks understand the arc of history.

 

[BigBoy99]

While working at the Agency, I was lucky enough to get an original copy of the CIA publication of the VERONA files. It is an autographed copy.

 

[fordson]

Our local library was having a book sale and in the 50 cent pile I found a 2001 copyrighted book by Joseph E. Persico entitled "Roosevelt's Secret War - FDR and WWII Espionage". I figured for 50 cents I couldn't go wrong. I started reading it and couldn't put it down. Excellent book. A lot of things I never knew about the OSS and people around FDR during WWII. I never realized what a detrimental influence J. Edgar Hoover had been on the US war effort -- making up lies to prevent the formation of the OSS, ignoring critical intelligence, more worried about his own personal status than doing his job, taking credit for other people's work, etc. A lot of information on spies and spying which was going on during WWII on the Manhattan Project.

If your interested in WWII history, I'd recommend this book.

Good book. A couple of others that might interest you all are:
* Piercing The Reich also by J.E. Persico. OSS operations within Germany
* OSS, The Secret History by R. Harris Smith.
An lot went on behind closed doors………

 

[Greyman50]

Yes on " Piercing the Reich", its among my packed up books. Wish could remember the others….

 

[LVSteve]

Among others things, this helped distract attention from the fact that prior to December 1941 Hoover and the FBI were so obsessed with largely imaginary Communist conspiracies that they had pretty much ignored the blatantly open activities of German-American Nazis in the US, including planning terrorist attacks and assassinations of prominent Jewish Americans.

Group Captain Kent, in his memoir One of the Few, recounts an anecdote that suggests that not all in the FBI were ignoring the Nazi threat. He received a phone call in his New York hotel room from the FBI informing him that the girl his buddy had been carousing with the night before was a Nazi sympathizer. Kent says he hung up the first time he was called by a voice saying "This is the FBI".