North American Spies

In North American Spies, a new generation of scholars and journalists used the latest verifiable evidence to look at key episodes in the history of espionage in the United States and Canada from the role of the US Secret Service in the Spanish-American war of 1898 to the emergence of American spy fiction.

The ten essays include an account of whether Soviet secret agents may have been behind the theft of secret Churchill-Roosevelt correspondence in 1940, suggest that President Truman’s shadowy advisor, Admiral Souers, was the real architect of the CIA, and that Britain generated a home-bred McCarthyism similar to that of the USA.

The book also provides a history of the Defense Intelligence Agency, looks at the role of the OSS in Operation Torch, and examines recruitment into the CIA. Casting new light and interpretation on some controversial recent historical events, it opens up a subject which is often shrouded in mystery and deliberate misinformation.

“Impressive… Should attract a wide readership.”
Loch Johnson - author of The Oxford Handbook of National Security Intelligence

“A serious and valuable contribution to a rising academic concern with the doings of the secret world.”
Bradley F. Smith - author of The Origins of the CIA

“A strong collection edited by two well-known and respected authors”
Robin Winks - Yale University