The Nuclear Spies cover art

The Nuclear Spies

America's Atomic Intelligence Operation against Hitler and Stalin

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The Nuclear Spies

Written by: Vince Houghton
Narrated by: John Lescault
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About this listen

Why did the US intelligence services fail so spectacularly to know about the Soviet Union's nuclear capabilities following World War II? As Vince Houghton, historian and curator of the International Spy Museum in Washington, DC, shows us, that disastrous failure came just a few years after the Manhattan Project's intelligence team had penetrated the Third Reich and knew every detail of the Nazi's plan for an atomic bomb. What changed and what went wrong?

Houghton's delightful retelling of this fascinating case of American spy ineffectiveness in the then new field of scientific intelligence provides us with a new look at the early years of the Cold War. During that time, scientific intelligence quickly grew to become a significant portion of the CIA budget as it struggled to contend with the incredible advance in weapons and other scientific discoveries immediately after World War II. As Houghton shows, the abilities of the Soviet Union's scientists, its research facilities and laboratories, and its educational system became a key consideration for the CIA in assessing the threat level of its most potent foe. Sadly, for the CIA, scientific intelligence was extremely difficult to do well. For when the Soviet Union detonated its first atomic bomb in 1949, no one in the American intelligence services saw it coming.

©2019 Vince Houghton (P)2019 Blackstone Audio, Inc.
Freedom & Security Military Political Science Science True Crime Weapons & Warfare Espionage War Imperialism Nuclear Weapon Cold War Nuclear Spies

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Decent audiobook

Overall The Nuclear Spies was decent, not bad but certainly not great. I found it long and a bit dry at times. Very, very detailed about the setup/establishment of the spy operations against the Nazis, i.e. getting certain people into certain positions, on certain committees/boards/groups, etc. I was expecting more about post-war activities against the Russians. I listened to it on my drives to and from work and found myself hitting the rewind button a few times as my mind drifted elsewhere! I found that there was not a lot of detail on "spy activity" covered in the book. In addition to detailing the establishment of setup of the spy regime, the book focused on the overestimation of the Nazi atomic program and, to a lesser extent, on the underestimation of the Russian atomic program. Overall, a decent book, but different and less than what I was expecting.

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