The Book Lover

Tuesday, August 21, 2018

Spies in the Congo: America's Atomic Mission in World War II

In the 1940s, the brightest minds of the United States and Nazi Germany raced to West Africa with a single mission: to secure the essential ingredient of the atomic bomb—and to make sure nobody saw them doing it

Albert Einstein told President Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1939 that the world's only supply of uniquely high-quality uranium ore—the key ingredient for bomb— could be found in the Katanga province of the Belgian Congo at the Shinkolobwe Mine. Once the US Manhattan Project was committed to developing atomic weapons for the war against Germany and Japan, the rush to procure this uranium became a top priority—one deemed “vital to the welfare of the United States.”
But covertly exporting it from Africa posed a major risk: the ore had to travel via a spy-infested Angolan port or 1,500 miles by rail through the Congo, and then be shipped by boats or Pan Am Clippers to safety in the United States. It could be poached or smuggled at any point on the orders of Nazi Germany. To combat that threat, the US Office of Strategic Services sent in a team of intrepid spies, led by Wilbur Owings “Dock” Hogue, to be America's eyes and ears and to protect its most precious and destructive cargo.

Packed with newly discovered details from American and British archives, this is the gripping, true story of the unsung heroism of a handful of good men—and one woman—in colonial Africa who risked their lives in the fight against fascism and helped deny Hitler his atomic bomb.

elendara
http://elendara.com/books/spies-in-the-congo-americas-atomic-mission-in-world-war-ii/

Friday, July 6, 2018

Books About The Cambridge Spies | The Cambridge Spy Ring

I have been fascinated with the Cambridge Spies (or Cambridge Spy Ring) ever since I read Kim Philby's My Silent War (read the review HERE). Philby became a communist and Soviet agent in the 1930s. He easily joined MI6 and rose to be head of British Counterintelligence. He seeked asylum in Moscow in 1963, where he lived until his death in 1988. The Cambridge Spies were spies from the United Kingdom, who spied for the Soviet Union during World War II and up to the early 1950s. Not a single one was prosecuted for spying.

The Cambridge Spies were discovered with the sudden disappearance of Donald Maclean and Guy Burgess in 1951. Both of them were working for the Foreign Office at that time. They showed up and appeared in a press conference in the Soviet Union in 1956. With the flight of Burgess and Maclean, suspicion fell on Kim Philby (MI6) and Anthony Blunt (Surveyor of the Queen's Pictures). Both of them were friends of the missing diplomats. Kim Philby fled to the Soviet Union in 1963 when new evidence was discovered about his being a Soviet spy. Anthony Blunt confessed to British Intelligence but was never prosecuted and only publicly exposed in 1979. Another spy, John Cairncross, also confessed to British Intelligence but it remained secret for many years.

The term "Cambridge" refers to the recruitment of the Cambridge Spy Ring during their education at the University of Cambridge in the 1930s. Blunt was several years older than Burgess, Maclean, and Philby; he acted as a talent-spotter and recruiter for most of the group.

The Cambridge Spies were ideologically persuaded that Communism was the best available political system and much better than fascism. They had successful careers in different branches of the British government. The Cambridge Spies passed large amounts of intelligence to the Soviet Union.

As I said at the start, I have been reading a lot about them. I will update this post every time I get to finish a book about them. For the meantime, below is the list:

Books about the Cambridge Spies:

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[mybooktable book="stalins-englishman-guy-burgess-the-cold-war-and-the-cambridge-spy-ring" display="summary" buybutton_shadowbox="false"]

[mybooktable book="my-5-cambridge-friends-burgess-maclean-philby-blunt-and-cairncross-by-their-kgb-controller" display="summary" buybutton_shadowbox="false"]

[mybooktable book="my-silent-war-the-autobiography-of-a-spy" display="summary" buybutton_shadowbox="false"]

[mybooktable book="guy-burgess-the-spy-who-knew-everyone" display="summary" buybutton_shadowbox="false"]

[mybooktable book="deceiving-the-deceivers-kim-philby-donald-maclean-and-guy-burgess" display="summary" buybutton_shadowbox="false"]

Related books about the Cambridge Spies:

[mybooktable book="a-brief-history-of-the-spy" display="summary" buybutton_shadowbox="false"]

[mybooktable book="gchq" display="summary" buybutton_shadowbox="false"]

[mybooktable book="spycatcher-the-candid-autobiography-of-a-senior-intelligence-officer" display="summary" buybutton_shadowbox="false"]

[mybooktable book="the-art-of-betrayal-the-secret-history-of-mi6-life-and-death-in-the-british-secret-service" display="summary" buybutton_shadowbox="false"]

[mybooktable book="defend-the-realm-the-authorized-history-of-mi5" display="summary" buybutton_shadowbox="false"]

elendara
http://elendara.com/cambridge-spies/

Sunday, July 1, 2018

BOOK RECOMMENDATIONS

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elendara
http://elendara.com/book-recommendations/

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