Time. Events. People – Great Intelligence Operations

26 hrs. 16 min.

Popular Science

Language Russian

Narrators Alexander Kotov, Alexander Bordukov

Narrator Alexander Kotov

Narrator Alexander Bordukov

Description

Many major battles, coups, revolutions, and all kinds of socio-political and economic upheavals in human history were often possible only thanks to successfully carried out special operations. Some of the intelligence services’ operations were bloodless—“intellectual”—while others were bloody.

In some, dozens, even hundreds of people took part; others were carried out by a single person. Many became famous around the world, and some are known to almost no one. In any case, every masterful special operation was a complex system of precisely calculated actions, and therefore later always attracted particular interest from readers.

This book presents the most interesting operations—from antiquity and the early Middle Ages to our days.

Contents

Marathon Battle
Elephant of Harun al-Rashid
Intelligence operations of the Incas
Struggle for the Spanish Succession
England against Bonaparte
Spanish-American War in jungles and at sea
The failed kidnapping of Sun Yat-sen
The escape of Captain Lux
The birth of industrial intelligence and counterintelligence
The war minister as a spy?
In August 1914
The first victory of radio in the war
“Captured ships”
War in the Arabian Desert
“The White Lady”
“Room No. 40” and the Zimmermann telegram
Hard waves of the Baltic
Newspapers stronger than cannons
“The Alsace trick”
Eiffel Tower in the service of intelligence
Fly, pigeons
The dramas of Scapa Flow
The Cheka against foreign plotters
Elimination of the “Taiga headquarters”
The greatest operation
Operation “Syndicate-2”
Operation “Trust”
The Crema network, “Рабкоры,” and “Phantom Stas”
Kidnappings of generals
Candies from Lausanne
The Spanish debut of the Abwehr
“Anarchists” against the Francoists
Soviet intelligence in Spain
The murder of Yevgeny Konovalets
“The removal” of Trotsky
The Baltic post of German intelligence
The incident at Venlo
The Abwehr against Poland
Hitler’s cleverest disinformation
Intelligence conquers the island
An unrealized operation
Fateful telegrams
Intelligence and the “Barbarossa Plan”
The thrust of “Black Berta”
Operation “Zeppelin”
Abwehr agents against the USSR
Underwater sabotage
The second persona of Baker Street
The Abwehr against U-So in France
Talking dolls
Pearl Harbor
Japan’s defeat at Midway
The Tehran operation
The Führer’s terrorist plans
Operation “Monastery”
“Berezino” against “Poacher”
Major Martin, who didn’t exist
Liberation of Mussolini
How Kuba was killed
In the guise of Americans
Overthrow of power in Budapest
“Enigma”—the mystery of the century
Ominous secrets of Lake Topleczee
Hunt for “heavy water”
The “Alsos” mission
“Enormoz”
“Venona”
“Gladio”—child of the “Cold War”
The collapse of Operation “Minos”
“Mosquito” against “Bear”
“The Liote”—a dream that came true
Overthrow of Mossaddegh
A scandal at the “Gartenbau” café
Berlin tunnel
One hundred years later
Disaster in the Bay of Pigs
Attempts on Fidel Castro
In the dark night in Montevideo
Documents from NATO safes
The case of the kidnapped safes
“Juliettas” and “Romeo”
Liberation of Rudolf Abel
“Stefania” and “Sphinx”
The secret of PL-574
“Tournament” against the “Golden Vein”
Storming of the palace of Tadj-Bek
“The Cocoon” on the cable