Ash, Timothy Garton. The File: A Personal History. New York:
Random House, 1997.
The author lived in East Germany for a good part of the 1980s, working as a writer and journalist for serious Western periodicals. After the fall of East Germany, he was given the opportunity to view his Stasi file. The leads he followed from that file are the stuff of this book about life in the security state. See the review by Mapother, History 26.3.
McPherson, Wilson Quarterly 22, no. 1 (Winter 1998), notes that as files go, "Ash's is not remarkable; it is his evacuation of it that fascinates."
[Germany/East]
Ash, Lawrence N. "Wilderness Guide: Intelligence for the Commander
in Bosnia." Naval War College Review (Summer 1996): 30-41.
[MI/Ops]
Ashcroft, Bruce. "Air Force Foreign Materiel Exploitation."
American Intelligence Journal 15, no. 2 (Autumn/Winter 1994): 79-82.
This article gives a brief history of foreign equipment collection and foreign language document translation, beginning in 1917. Today, this work is done by the National Air Intelligence Center (NAIC) at Wright-Patterson AFB, Ohio, which is the successor organization to the Foreign Technology Division and its predecessors.
[MI/AF][c]
Asher, Michael. The Real "Bravo Two Zero": The Truth Behind "Bravo Two Zero." London: Weidenfeld & Nicholson, 2002. [pb] London: Orion, 2003.
From advertisement: "BRAVO TWO ZERO by patrol commander 'Andy McNab' became an international best-seller, as did the book by 'Chris Ryan' (THE ONE THAT GOT AWAY).... Three members of the [eight-man] patrol were killed. One, veteran sergeant Vince Phillips, was blamed in both books for a succession of mistakes. As Michael Asher reveals, the stories in BRAVO TWO ZERO and THE ONE THAT GOT AWAY grew considerably in the telling."
[UK/Postwar/SAS/Iraq]
Ashley, Clarence. CIA SpyMaster. Gretna, LA: Pelican, 2004.
Clark comment: This is the biography of CIA case officer George Kisevalter. Born in St. Petersburg, Russia, Kisevalter's language skills and personality placed him at the center of some of the CIA's most significant spy cases. His resume including working with Pyotr Popov, Oleg Penkovsky, and Yuri Nosenko. Ashley's presentation is both more and less than a biography. Because of the author's use of taped conversations with Kisevalter, the book has some of the flavor of an autobiography. This comes complete with possible hyberbole on the part of the speaker, who enjoyed telling his stories. On the other hand, Ashley has clearly sought to fill some of the gaps and to validate the details by additional research and interviews with some of the people who had worked with or near Kisevalter. However, this is not the standard academic biography, with substantial accompanying documentation (nor does the author claim it to be such). Some level of fact checking and/or comparison with other accounts is needed. Nevertheless, since he was so close to the Popov and Penkovsky cases, just hearing Kisevalter's take on two of this country's most significant spies is worth the price of admission.
According to Peake, Studies 49.1 (2005), this "is a sympathetic biography of a unique CIA intelligence officer who served his adopted country with honor and dedication."
Goulden, Intelligencer 14.2 (Winter/Spring 2005), comments that "the book provides keen insight into what a CIA case officer actually does in the field." Although the author's "prose takes the reader down some rabbit trails that would have best been left unexplored[,]... 'hearing' Kisevalter's story in his own voice is a remarkable memento of a remarkable man."
For Bath, NIPQ 21.2 (Jun. 2005), this work "is more than the record of a skilled intelligence officer, it also offers a rare picture of the case officer's day-to-day activities and challenges."
Schecter, I&NS 20.4 (Dec. 2005), notes that Ashley based this work "on a month long series of interviews" with Kisevalter, "his business friend." Kisevalter's "insights in Popov's character, why he defected and stayed on as an agent in place until exposed and executed go far beyond any previous public accounts of the case." His memories of the Penkovsky case add "important details on the tradecraft used and his own role."
[CIA/Biogs/Kisevalter; CIA/50s/Popov; CIA/60s/Penkovsky]
Ashman, Charles. The CIA-Mafia Link: The Inside Secrets of Assassination.
New York: Manor Books, 1975.
Wilcox: "Hostile account of the CIA alleging Mafia, organized crime ties to some CIA projects."
[CIA/Accusations]
Asprey, Robert. The Panther's Feast. New York: Putnam, 1959.
London: Jonathan Cape, 1959.
This work concerns the Colonel Redl affair in Austria-Hungary in 1913. "From 1905 Russia's most productive spy in the Austro-Hungarian military establishment was Colonel Alfred Redl, who also sold information to the French and Italian secret services. From 1900 until his exposure in May 1913 Redl served first as deputy chief of the Evidenzbüro, the military and counterespionage organization in Vienna, and then as intelligence chief of the Army's VIII Corps, headquartered in Prague." Richelson, Century of Spies, 14-15:
Armour, I&NS 2.4 (1987), notes that this work is a semi-fictional novel. Nevertheless, it is based on research in Redl's dossier in the Vienna Kriegsarchiv, and represents "a sober and conscientious reconstruction of Redl's career." Schindler, IJI&C 18.3 (Fall 2005), calls this work "more fiction than fact."
An unsigned review in Studies 4.2 (Spring 1960) says that The Panther's Feast "makes little contribution to a professional understanding of this famous espionage case." This "is neither sound biography nor good fiction."
See also Armour, "Colonel Redl," I&NS 2.1 (1987); and Deutsch, "Sidelights on the Redl Affair," I&NS 4.4 (1989).
[Russia/Historical/Redl]
Asprey, Robert B. War in the Shadows: The Guerrilla in History.
2 vols. Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1975. Revised and updated. 1 vol. Fairfield,
NJ: William Morrow, 1994.
Petersen sees War in the Shadows as a "masterful account of irregular warfare from ancient times to Vietnam."
Commenting on the 1994 edition, Surveillant 3.6 says this is a "must have, benchmark work, now updated and expanded to include guerrilla activity since the original publication." The book includes a "comprehensive and hard-hitting strategic evaluation of the Vietnam War."
[MI/SpecOps][c]
Assinder, Nick. "Driberg Always under Suspicion: The Kremlin Had Two
MPs on Their Books." BBC. 13 Sep. 1999. [http://news1.thls.bbc.co.uk]
"It will come as no surprise to contemporaries of flamboyant former MP Tom Driberg that he was a KGB spy, codenamed Lepage. The notoriously homosexual MP ... was a close friend of Guy Burgess and visited Moscow with him....
"More surprising is the revelation that little-known ex-MP Raymond Fletcher was also a KGB agent. Mr Fletcher ... was codenamed Peter.... He was always thought to be a moderate in the Labour Party, but had a maverick streak."
[UK/SpyCases/99/Fever]
Associated Press - A - C
Associated Press - D - F
Associated Press - G - M
Associated Press - N - Z
Association of the Bar of the City of New York.
Aston, Clive C. A Contemporary Crisis: Political Hostage-Taking and the Experience of Western Europe. Westport, CT: Greenwood, 1982. [Wilcox]
[Terrorism/80s]
Aston, George G. [Sir] Secret Service. London: Faber & Faber, 1930. New York: Cosmopolitan, 1930.
According to Constantinides, this is "a collection of stories of secret service, partly derived from personal experience.... Credit must be given ... for [Aston's] recognition of the importance of security and counterintelligence and for his provision of many examples of their vital role in the success or failure of military operations."
[WWI/UK & U.S.]
Astrup, Helen, and B.L. Jacot. Oslo Intrigue. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1954.
[WWII/Eur/Res/Norway]
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