A Covert Action Reagan The Cia And The Cold War Struggle In Poland

Author : Seth G. Jones
Publisher : W. W. Norton & Company
Page : 320 pages
File Size : 51,7 Mb
Release : 2018-09-11
Category : History
ISBN : 9780393247015

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A Covert Action: Reagan, the CIA, and the Cold War Struggle in Poland by Seth G. Jones Pdf

The dramatic, untold story of one of the CIA’s most successful Cold War intelligence operations. December, 1981—the CIA receives word that the Polish government has cut telephone communications with the West and closed the Polish border. The agency’s leaders quickly inform President Ronald Reagan, who is enjoying a serene weekend at Camp David. Within hours, Prime Minister Wojciech Jaruzelski has appeared on Polish national television to announce the establishment of martial law. A new era in Cold War politics has begun: Washington and Moscow are on a collision course. In this gripping narrative history, Seth G. Jones reveals the little-known story of the CIA’s subsequent operations in Poland, which produced a landmark victory for democracy during the Cold War. While the Soviet-backed Polish government worked to crush a budding liberal opposition movement, the CIA began a sophisticated intelligence campaign, code-named QRHELPFUL, that supported dissident groups. The most powerful of these groups was Solidarity, a trade union that swelled to a membership of ten million and became one of the first legitimate anti-Communist opposition movements in Eastern Europe. With President Reagan’s support, the CIA provided money that helped Solidarity print newspapers, broadcast radio programs, and conduct a wide-ranging information warfare campaign against the Soviet-backed government. QRHELPFUL proved vital in establishing a free and democratic Poland. Long overlooked by CIA historians and Reagan biographers, the story of QRHELPFUL features an extraordinary cast of characters—including spymaster Bill Casey, CIA officer Richard Malzahn, Polish-speaking CIA case officer Celia Larkin, Solidarity leader Lech Walesa, and Pope John Paul II. Based on in-depth interviews and recently declassified evidence, A Covert Action celebrates a decisive victory over tyranny for U.S. intelligence behind the Iron Curtain, one that prefigured the Soviet collapse.

Author : Lindsey A. O'Rourke
Publisher : Cornell University Press
Page : 329 pages
File Size : 54,7 Mb
Release : 2018-12-15
Category : Political Science
ISBN : 9781501730689

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Covert Regime Change by Lindsey A. O'Rourke Pdf

States seldom resort to war to overthrow their adversaries. They are more likely to attempt to covertly change the opposing regime, by assassinating a foreign leader, sponsoring a coup d’état, meddling in a democratic election, or secretly aiding foreign dissident groups. In Covert Regime Change, Lindsey A. O’Rourke shows us how states really act when trying to overthrow another state. She argues that conventional focus on overt cases misses the basic causes of regime change. O’Rourke provides substantive evidence of types of security interests that drive states to intervene. Offensive operations aim to overthrow a current military rival or break up a rival alliance. Preventive operations seek to stop a state from taking certain actions, such as joining a rival alliance, that may make them a future security threat. Hegemonic operations try to maintain a hierarchical relationship between the intervening state and the target government. Despite the prevalence of covert attempts at regime change, most operations fail to remain covert and spark blowback in unanticipated ways. Covert Regime Change assembles an original dataset of all American regime change operations during the Cold War. This fund of information shows the United States was ten times more likely to try covert rather than overt regime change during the Cold War. Her dataset allows O’Rourke to address three foundational questions: What motivates states to attempt foreign regime change? Why do states prefer to conduct these operations covertly rather than overtly? How successful are such missions in achieving their foreign policy goals?

Author : Gregory F. Domber
Publisher : UNC Press Books
Page : 413 pages
File Size : 54,8 Mb
Release : 2014-10-06
Category : History
ISBN : 9781469618524

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Empowering Revolution by Gregory F. Domber Pdf

As the most populous country in Eastern Europe as well as the birthplace of the largest anticommunist dissident movement, Poland is crucial in understanding the end of the Cold War. During the 1980s, both the United States and the Soviet Union vied for influence over Poland's politically tumultuous steps toward democratic revolution. In this groundbreaking history, Gregory F. Domber examines American policy toward Poland and its promotion of moderate voices within the opposition, while simultaneously addressing the Soviet and European influences on Poland's revolution in 1989. With a cast including Reagan, Gorbachev, and Pope John Paul II, Domber charts American support of anticommunist opposition groups--particularly Solidarity, the underground movement led by future president Lech Wa&322;&281;sa--and highlights the transnational network of Polish emigres and trade unionists that kept the opposition alive. Utilizing archival research and interviews with Polish and American government officials and opposition leaders, Domber argues that the United States empowered a specific segment of the Polish opposition and illustrates how Soviet leaders unwittingly fostered radical, pro-democratic change through their policies. The result is fresh insight into the global impact of the Polish pro-democracy movement.

Author : James Callanan
Publisher : Bloomsbury Publishing
Page : 287 pages
File Size : 51,6 Mb
Release : 2009-11-24
Category : History
ISBN : 9780857711663

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Covert Action in the Cold War by James Callanan Pdf

Born out of the ashes of World War II, the covert action arm of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) was created to counter the challenge posed by the Soviet Union and its allies and bolster American interests worldwide. It evolved rapidly into an eclectic, well-resourced organization whose activities provided a substitute for overt military action and afforded essential backup when the Cold War turned hot in Korea and Vietnam. This comprehensive examination of a still controversial subject sheds valuable new light on the undercover operations mounted by the CIA during the Cold War. Using a wide range of unpublished government records and documents, James Callanan traces the growth of the agency chronologically as it forged a covert action mission that sought to advance US foreign and defense policy in all corners of the globe. Offering a powerful perspective on a pivotal period in American history, "Covert Action in the Cold War" makes a crucial contribution to our understanding of global politics during the Cold War.

Author : John Pomfret
Publisher : Henry Holt and Company
Page : 270 pages
File Size : 47,9 Mb
Release : 2021-10-26
Category : History
ISBN : 9781250296061

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From Warsaw with Love by John Pomfret Pdf

From Warsaw with Love is the epic story of how Polish intelligence officers forged an alliance with the CIA in the twilight of the Cold War, told by the award-winning author John Pomfret. Spanning decades and continents, from the battlefields of the Balkans to secret nuclear research labs in Iran and embassy grounds in North Korea, this saga begins in 1990. As the United States cobbles together a coalition to undo Saddam Hussein’s invasion of Kuwait, six US officers are trapped in Iraq with intelligence that could ruin Operation Desert Storm if it is obtained by the brutal Iraqi dictator. Desperate, the CIA asks Poland, a longtime Cold War foe famed for its excellent spies, for help. Just months after the Polish people voted in their first democratic election since the 1930s, the young Solidarity government in Warsaw sends a veteran ex-Communist spy who’d battled the West for decades to rescue the six Americans. John Pomfret’s gripping account of the 1990 cliffhanger in Iraq is just the beginning of the tale about intelligence cooperation between Poland and the United States, cooperation that one CIA director would later describe as “one of the two foremost intelligence relationships that the United States has ever had.” Pomfret uncovers new details about the CIA’s black site program that held suspected terrorists in Poland after 9/11 as well as the role of Polish spies in the hunt for Osama bin Laden. In the tradition of the most memorable works on espionage, Pomfret’s book tells a distressing and disquieting tale of moral ambiguity in which right and wrong, black and white, are not conveniently distinguishable. As the United States teeters on the edge of a new cold war with Russia and China, Pomfret explores how these little-known events serve as a reminder of the importance of alliances in a dangerous world.

Author : Peter Schweizer
Publisher : Unknown
Page : 308 pages
File Size : 40,6 Mb
Release : 1994
Category : History
ISBN : 0871136333

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Victory by Peter Schweizer Pdf

Describes the Reagan administration's covert campaign against the Soviet Union that increased stress on the Soviet economy.

Author : Frances Stonor Saunders
Publisher : The New Press
Page : 458 pages
File Size : 44,5 Mb
Release : 2013-11-05
Category : History
ISBN : 9781595589422

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The Cultural Cold War by Frances Stonor Saunders Pdf

During the Cold War, freedom of expression was vaunted as liberal democracy's most cherished possession—but such freedom was put in service of a hidden agenda. In The Cultural Cold War, Frances Stonor Saunders reveals the extraordinary efforts of a secret campaign in which some of the most vocal exponents of intellectual freedom in the West were working for or subsidized by the CIA—whether they knew it or not. Called "the most comprehensive account yet of the [CIA's] activities between 1947 and 1967" by the New York Times, the book presents shocking evidence of the CIA's undercover program of cultural interventions in Western Europe and at home, drawing together declassified documents and exclusive interviews to expose the CIA's astonishing campaign to deploy the likes of Hannah Arendt, Isaiah Berlin, Leonard Bernstein, Robert Lowell, George Orwell, and Jackson Pollock as weapons in the Cold War. Translated into ten languages, this classic work—now with a new preface by the author—is "a real contribution to popular understanding of the postwar period" (The Wall Street Journal), and its story of covert cultural efforts to win hearts and minds continues to be relevant today.

Author : Steve Coll
Publisher : Penguin UK
Page : 736 pages
File Size : 51,9 Mb
Release : 2005-03-03
Category : History
ISBN : 9780141935799

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Ghost Wars by Steve Coll Pdf

The news-breaking book that has sent schockwaves through the White House, Ghost Wars is the most accurate and revealing account yet of the CIA's secret involvement in al-Qaeada's evolution. Prize-winning journalist Steve Coll has spent years reporting from the Middle East, accessed previously classified government files and interviewed senior US officials and foreign spymasters. Here he gives the full inside story of the CIA's covert funding of an Islamic jihad against Soviet forces in Afghanistan, explores how this sowed the seeds of bn Laden's rise, traces how he built his global network and brings to life the dramatic battles within the US government over national security. Above all, he lays bare American intelligence's continual failure to grasp the rising threat of terrrorism in the years leading to 9/11 - and its devastating consequences.

Author : Ion Mihai Pacepa
Publisher : Regnery Publishing
Page : 486 pages
File Size : 51,9 Mb
Release : 1990-04-15
Category : True Crime
ISBN : 0895267462

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Red Horizons by Ion Mihai Pacepa Pdf

A former chief of Romania's foreign intelligence service reveals the extraordinary corruption of the Nicolae Ceausescu government of Romania, its brutal machinery of oppression, and its Machiavellian relationship with the West. An in side story of how Communist Party leaders really live.

Author : Robert J. McMahon
Publisher : Oxford University Press, USA
Page : 201 pages
File Size : 47,7 Mb
Release : 2021-02-25
Category : History
ISBN : 9780198859543

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The Cold War: a Very Short Introduction by Robert J. McMahon Pdf

Vividly written and based on up-to-date scholarship, this title provides an interpretive overview of the international history of the Cold War.

Author : Richard E. Schroeder
Publisher : University of Missouri Press
Page : 175 pages
File Size : 43,8 Mb
Release : 2017-11-21
Category : Political Science
ISBN : 9780826273932

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The Foundation of the CIA by Richard E. Schroeder Pdf

This highly accessible book provides new material and a fresh perspective on American National Intelligence practice, focusing on the first fifty years of the twentieth century, when the United States took on the responsibilities of a global superpower during the first years of the Cold War. Late to the art of intelligence, the United States during World War II created a new model of combining intelligence collection and analytic functions into a single organization—the OSS. At the end of the war, President Harry Truman and a small group of advisors developed a new, centralized agency directly subordinate to and responsible to the President, despite entrenched institutional resistance. Instrumental to the creation of the CIA was a group known colloquially as the “Missouri Gang,” which included not only President Truman but equally determined fellow Missourians Clark Clifford, Sidney Souers, and Roscoe Hillenkoetter.

Author : Seth G. Jones
Publisher : W. W. Norton & Company
Page : 361 pages
File Size : 42,9 Mb
Release : 2021-09-07
Category : Political Science
ISBN : 9781324006213

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Three Dangerous Men: Russia, China, Iran and the Rise of Irregular Warfare by Seth G. Jones Pdf

How three key figures in Moscow, Beijing, and Tehran built ruthless irregular warfare campaigns that are eroding American power. In Three Dangerous Men, defense expert Seth Jones argues that the US is woefully unprepared for the future of global competition. While America has focused on building fighter jets, missiles, and conventional warfighting capabilities, its three principal rivals—Russia, Iran, and China—have increasingly adopted irregular warfare: cyber attacks, the use of proxy forces, propaganda, espionage, and disinformation to undermine American power. Jones profiles three pioneers of irregular warfare in Moscow, Beijing, and Tehran who adapted American techniques and made huge gains without waging traditional warfare: Russian Chief of Staff Valery Gerasimov; the deceased Iranian Major General Qassem Soleimani; and vice chairman of China’s Central Military Commission Zhang Youxia. Each has spent his career studying American power and devised techniques to avoid a conventional or nuclear war with the US. Gerasimov helped oversee a resurgence of Russian irregular warfare, which included attempts to undermine the 2016 and 2020 US presidential elections and the SolarWinds cyber attack. Soleimani was so effective in expanding Iranian power in the Middle East that Washington targeted him for assassination. Zhang Youxia presents the most alarming challenge because China has more power and potential at its disposal. Drawing on interviews with dozens of US military, diplomatic, and intelligence officials, as well as hundreds of documents translated from Russian, Farsi, and Mandarin, Jones shows how America’s rivals have bloodied its reputation and seized territory worldwide. Instead of standing up to autocratic regimes, Jones demonstrates that the United States has largely abandoned the kind of information, special operations, intelligence, and economic and diplomatic action that helped win the Cold War. In a powerful conclusion, Jones details the key steps the United States must take to alter how it thinks about—and engages in—competition before it is too late.

Author : Steve Hach
Publisher : Unknown
Page : 122 pages
File Size : 46,9 Mb
Release : 2004
Category : Cold War
ISBN : UCSD:31822034303594

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Cold War in South Florida by Steve Hach Pdf

Author : William Blum
Publisher : Unknown
Page : 0 pages
File Size : 45,9 Mb
Release : 2022-07-14
Category : Political Science
ISBN : 9781350348196

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Killing Hope by William Blum Pdf

In Killing Hope, William Blum, author of the bestselling Rogue State: A Guide to the World's Only Superpower, provides a devastating and comprehensive account of America's covert and overt military actions in the world, all the way from China in the 1940s to the invasion of Iraq in 2003 and - in this updated edition - beyond. Is the United States, as it likes to claim, a global force for democracy? Killing Hope shows the answer to this question to be a resounding 'no'.

Author : Michael E. Haas
Publisher : DIANE Publishing
Page : 388 pages
File Size : 51,5 Mb
Release : 1998-05
Category : Electronic
ISBN : 0788149830

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Apollo's Warriors by Michael E. Haas Pdf

Presenting a fascinating insider's view of U.S.A.F. special operations, this volume brings to life the critical contributions these forces have made to the exercise of air & space power. Focusing in particular on the period between the Korean War & the Indochina wars of 1950-1979, the accounts of numerous missions are profusely illustrated with photos & maps. Includes a discussion of AF operations in Europe during WWII, as well as profiles of Air Commandos who performed above & beyond the call of duty. Reflects on the need for financial & political support for restoration of the forces. Bibliography. Extensive photos & maps. Charts & tables.