Spy: The Story of Modern Espionage

by Clifford Irving, Herbert Burkholz

It's possible, after reading here that some spy books are written as propaganda tools, to look on the rest with suspicion--& it's possible too, on learning that even American agents are everywhere, to start looking over your shoulder between chapters. But these tensions are dispelled with the recognition that this is hardly a pro-government study in the wake of its assault on the CIA, exposing the Bay of Pigs incident, the Guatemala episode, the infiltration of the National Student Association, the tactics of Allen Dulles & the host of other ugly truths that Ronald Seth lip-serves & Burke Wilkinson ignores in their coverage of the subject in Spies & Cry Spy! respectively. The Russian organization is also attacked feverishly but less directly since there's 1st a muddle of alphabetical disorder to wade thru regarding its slow transition from OGPU to KGB. Rudolf Abel, Richard Sorge, Kim Philby, U-2 Powers & the nuclear-secret sharers of the 1940's are among the dramatic personae whose stories are told in this analysis of the major networks (Britain is the 3rd) & their preparations & procedures for espionage. The book suffers from a rather disjointed outline-type structure: there are casual references not followed up to Profumo, Ben Barka & Khrushchev's denunciation of Stalin, & spotty mention of other cases not fully explained until later. But frame of reference is a problem in all of the spy stories; at least in this most forthright one there's something uncovered under cover.--Kirkus

Genres: History

214 pages, Library Binding

First published October 1, 1968

About the author

Clifford Irving was the author of 20 published books & just released 12 of his works as Kindle/Nook eBooks; he was currently writing a memoir called Around the World in 80 Years.

Reviews

[Erik Graff · Rating 3 out of 5]

This history of the espionage activities of the USA, UK and USSR is coauthored by the Clifford Irving famous for his hoaxed autobiography of Howard Hughes. Despite that, this book is an accurate overview of some of the covert operations conducted during WWII and the Cold War.