Blackford Oakes

President Truman is nearing the end of his term in office, and Great Britain has a new queen. It is 1952; the Cold War is beginning to heat up, and vital Western military secrets are falling into Soviet hands. The CIA is faced with a delicate dilemma, for the source of the leaks to the KGB has been traced directly to the Queen's chambers.

A matter of some delicacy: finding the perfect blue to restore the windows of a 13th century German chapel at the Palace of St. Anselm. Blackford Oakes, fresh from his daring exploits at Windsor Castle, is in charge. But Alex Wintergrin, owner of the chapel, is far more than a charming aristocrat and congenial companion. A charismatic hero, he is rising to power, rousing his countrymen to reunite Germany.

It's 1956, and the cold war is hot. Hungary has just fallen, and Blackford Oakes is back from Budapest, puzzling over a betrayal and mourning a tragedy he couldn't prevent. But in Washington, all attention is focused on the race to put the first satellite in space. Ironically, Russia and America each have the secrets the other needs to succeed. The solution: kidnap a pair of extraordinary Russian scientists who can put the U.S. in the lead.

When a shadowy Russian mole threatens to undermine the free world's defenses by infiltrating President Eisenhower's National Security Counsel, CIA super-secret agent Blackford Oakes is called in to unmask the imposter. Oakes turns the tables on the Communists by piloting a U-2 spy plane on a Gary Powers-style one-way mission behind the Iron Curtain. Sentenced to death and trapped in the depths of the Lubyanka prison, Oakes may have turned his last trick. Or has he?

It is 1961 in Berlin, and the Cold War is at its most chilling. Suave CIA agent Blackford Oakes has come to investigate.

President Kennedy has selected Blackford Oakes to meet with Che Guevara inside Castro's Cuba as part of his Operation Alligator, a daring plan to bring about an era of détente in East-West relations. The communists, however, have another agenda in mind: a double-cross with terrifying consequences. Soon, Oakes is trapped in Cuba, and the heat is on. Warming the climate greatly is the sultry beauty Catalina. The weather forecast: betrayal, power politics, and sudden death.

Bill Buckley has created a handsome American hero, Blackford Oakes, who, by coincidence or not, happens to be an irreverent Yale- and CIA-trained superspy. The year is 1954. Stalin has died in Moscow, and a deadly earnest power play nears its conclusion. Meanwhile British and American commandos, their mission to liberate a Soviet satellite country, have met a disastrous end. Jinxed. The communications system between English and American intelligence has been penetrated. Jinxed. There is a spook in their midst. High Jinx.

Ever since the botched invasion at the Bay of Pigs, Fidel Castro has run amok. He has executed thousands of his enemies, driven his countrymen to emigrate, and done everything possible to run Cuba into the ground - all in a deliberate attempt to humiliate the White House. At least, that's how the situation looks from 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, where hatred of Castro has grown into an obsession. Under orders from John and Bobby Kennedy, the CIA will do anything necessary to kill Castro

The year is 1964. Faced with a hard-hitting presidential campaign and a deteriorating situation in Vietnam, Lyndon Johnson dispatches Oakes and a swashbuckling soldier of fortune named Tucker on secret missions to Southeast Asia. Tucker is to figure out how to interdict military traffic along the Ho Chi Minh Trail.

The year is 1995, and an energetic senator wants to disarm, perhaps even eliminate, the CIA. To accumulate the evidence necessary to persuade the Senate, he needs the cooperation of Blackford Oakes, now retired. He wants from Oakes an account of his covert activity 10 years earlier, when Oakes served as chief of covert activities for the CIA. But, what will the frustrated senator do to compel cooperation from Blackford Oakes?

Over 20 years ago, William F. Buckley, Jr. launched the dashing character of Blackford Oakes like a missile over the literary landscape. This newly minted CIA agent - brainy, bold, and complex - began his career by saving the queen of England and quickly took his place in the pantheon of master spies drawn up by Somerset Maugham, Graham Greene, and John le Carré. Against the backdrop of Cold War intrigue, in this, his 11th outing, Oakes crosses swords with Kim Philby, perhaps the highest ranking in the parade of defectors to the Soviet Union.