| 50-5805 | UB271 | 2011-52068 CIP | | Social & Behavioral Sciences History, Geography & Area Studies North America | | Sulick, Michael J. Spying in America: espionage from the Revolutionary War to the dawn of the Cold War. Georgetown University, 2012. 320p bibl index afp; ISBN 9781589019263, $26.95; ISBN 9781589019270 e-book, $26.95. Reviewed in 2013jun CHOICE. | | Recently, the media has exposed a wave of cyber espionage directed against the Pentagon and other government institutions. Yet scholars often overlook conventional espionage, though it has played a significant role in US history. Sulick, the former chief of the CIA’s counterintelligence branch, has written a remarkable account of those who betrayed their country and those who sought to apprehend them. The study is a primer focusing solely on spies and how they were uncovered, from Benjamin Church through the Rosenbergs, including some, like George Koval, a Soviet illegal, who managed to avoid detection by the FBI until the Russians publicly acknowledged his efforts in 2007. The 1930s and 1940s were the heyday of Soviet intelligence operations in the US. While the FBI was concentrating on Axis agents, Soviet intelligence was reaping the rewards of long-term assets placed in the State and Treasury Departments, the FBI, and even the White House. Only by breaking the Soviet NKVD code and obtaining the testimony of defectors did the FBI realize the threat posed by the Soviets to US security. A vital addition to academic libraries as well as for readers interested in the early Cold War. Summing Up: Highly recommended. All levels/libraries. — C. C. Lovett, Emporia State University |
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