Spying: The Secret History of History Book

Friday, 31st October, 2014

The book is amazing. It talks about how one can become a spy, which people or who were spies. There are some intersting facts about spies starting from mesopotamia to present day. George Washington also used spies to win some battles. Also in world war II they also had spies. About thirty were arrested in America for spying for the German Army.

The book also shows you how to be a better spy. It gives you tips and advice. It also has a quiz that if you were in an airport and they had a check or something like that, what would you do? This is a very intersting book that i would reccommend to anyone who likes to read about crime and mystery. The book also talks about a spy school and how spy students get trained etc.

Thursday, 6th November, 2014

So far the book talked about some spy missions and some very famous spies(women and men). Most spies worked for the USSR in the cold war and about thirty were arrested in America for spying for the USSR. It also talks about codes and cyphers. It showed the different use of codes throughout history starting with Julius Ceaser till today. There was a cypher alphabet named after Julius Ceaser which was to write the letter that came before the one being used.

There were some interesting facts about some women spies. The least successful female spy was Mata Hari and one spy named Amy Elizabeth Thorpe had maybe the best spy history but not very school appropriate. Harriet Tubman was maybe one of the bravest women spies since she was black in a time where blacks weren't appreciated. She helped people escape to the north who lived in the south and never lost one man but maybe the reason why was because she had a gun and anyone who stopped was threatned to be shot. Some spies were caught on secret missions from the CIA and the FBI but some got away last minute.

Friday, 14th November, 2014

The book talks about some spy missions and some failed spy missions. Some spy missions are "The Italian Job,", "The Zimmermann Telegram", "D-Day" and "Enigma". "The Italian Job" is the CIA's first covert action and they had to fix the Italian election. In 1948 Italy's Communist and Socialist parties joined forces and it seemed certain they were going to win control of the government. With ten million dollars in payoffs and some dirty tricks the CIA turned the election upside down. "The Zimmermann Telegram" was during the bleakest period of world war I. The british intercepted a German telegram with the potential to change the course of the war. In 1917 the British, French and German armies were at a stalemate, neither side was able to pass beyond a lone of trenches stretching from Belgium to Italy. Germany was going to launch 200 submarines but Great Britain could not continue to fight without control of the sea. Germany's Secretary of State Arthur Zimmermann, promised Mexico all its lost territories, including Texas, for its military help. As explosive as the telegram was British naval intelligence, held it for a full month. He feared the Germans would know their "top-secret" cipher code had been broken. The Germans never knew their code was broken and the director of British naval intelligence, William "Blinker" Hall declared war.

Some great spy failures were "Dutch Disaster", "Czech Reprisal", "Bay of Pigs" and "Cuban Missile Crisis". The "Dutch Disaster" happened in World War II. After Germany invaded The Netherlands, Dutch resistance memebers set up transmitting stations to send military intelligence to England. In 1941 Germany located one of these stations. When the Germans forced the radio operator to send a false message to Great Britain, they intentionally omitted a phrase that every message was supposed to contain. The omission immediately should have signaled that the operator had been comrpomised. Also they send another message saying caught which the British operator should have gotten but didn't. The German's sent continous requests for amunition, weapons, money and personnel. As each new agent arrived from England, the Germans were waiting to snatch both the agent and his radio, which was used by the Germans to lure more agents and weaponry. By the war's end, a dozen agents had been executed as a result of the lapse by that first radio operator.