Overview

For the period between World War II and the full onset of the Cold War, histories of American intelligence seem to go dark. Yet in those years a little known clandestine organization, the Strategic Services Unit (SSU), emerged from the remnants of wartime American intelligence to lay the groundwork for what would become the CIA and, in ways revealed here for the first time, conduct its own secret warof espionage and political intrigue in postwar Europe. Telling the full story of this early and surprisingly effective espionage arm ofthe United States, Spying through a Glass Darkly brings a critical chapter in the history of Cold War intelligence out of the shadows. Constrained by inadequate staff and limited resources, distracted by the conflicting demands of agencies of the US government,and victimized by disinformation and double agents, the Strategic Services Unit struggled to maintain an effective Americanclandestine capability after the defeat of the Axis Powers. Never viscerally anti-communist, the Strategic Services Unit was slow torecognize the Soviet Union as a potential threat, but gradually it began to mount operations, often in collaboration with the intelligence services of Britain, France, Italy, Denmark, and Sweden, to throw light into the darker corners of the Soviet regime. Bringing to bear a wealth of archival documents, operational records, interviews, and correspondence, David Alvarez and Eduard Mark chronicle SSU’s successes and failures in procuring intelligence on the capabilities and intentions of the Soviet Union, a chronicle that delves deeply into the details of secret operations against Soviet targets throughout Europe: not only in the backstreets of the divided cities of Berlin and Vienna, but also the cafes, hotels, offices, and salons of such cosmopolitan capitals as Paris, Rome, Budapest, Prague, and Warsaw.

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9780700621927

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Makes a valuable contribution by presenting a complex picture of divers U.S. intelligence agents, including some whose avid anticommunism led them to fall for Soviet deceptions and other whose caution led them to be skeptical of fantastic right-wing or emigre reports of imminent communist revolutions. <i><b>Journal of Military History</i></b>

A fascinating story for anyone interested in espionage and its role in the beginning of the Cold War. Loch K. Johnson, author of A Season of Inquiry Revisited: The Church Committee Confronts America's Spy Agencies

A fascinating story for anyone interested in espionage and its role in the beginning of the Cold War. Loch K. Johnson, author of A Season of Inquiry Revisited: The Church Committee Confronts America's Spy Agencies

Author Information

David Alvarez is professor emeritus ofpolitics at Saint Mary’s College of Californiaand a former scholar-in-residence at theNational Security Agency. He has publishedmany books, including three with Kansas:Secret Messages: Codebreaking and AmericanDiplomacy, 1930–1945; Spies in the Vatican:Espionage and Intrigue from Napoleon to theHolocaust; and The Pope’s Soldiers: A MilitaryHistory of the Modern Vatican. At the time of his death in 2009 EduardMark was senior historian in the Office ofAir Force History. He is the author of AerialInterdiction: Air Power and the Land Battle inThree American Wars and Defending the West:The United States Air Force and EuropeanSecurity, 1946–1998.

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