Roosevelt's Secret War: FDR and World War II EspionageDespite all that has already been written on Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Joseph Persico has uncovered a hitherto overlooked dimension of FDR's wartime leadership: his involvement in intelligence and espionage operations. Roosevelt's Secret War is crowded with remarkable revelations: -FDR wanted to bomb Tokyo before Pearl Harbor -A defector from Hitler's inner circle reported directly to the Oval Office -Roosevelt knew before any other world leader of Hitler's plan to invade Russia -Roosevelt and Churchill concealed a disaster costing hundreds of British soldiers' lives in order to protect Ultra, the British codebreaking secret -An unwitting Japanese diplomat provided the President with a direct pipeline into Hitler's councils Roosevelt's Secret War also describes how much FDR had been told--before the Holocaust--about the coming fate of Europe's Jews. And Persico also provides a definitive answer to the perennial question Did FDR know in advance about the attack on Pearl Harbor? By temperament and character, no American president was better suited for secret warfare than FDR. He manipulated, compartmentalized, dissembled, and misled, demonstrating a spymaster's talent for intrigue. He once remarked, "I never let my right hand know what my left hand does." Not only did Roosevelt create America's first central intelligence agency, the OSS, under "Wild Bill" Donovan, but he ran spy rings directly from the Oval Office, enlisting well-placed socialite friends. FDR was also spied against. Roosevelt's Secret War presents evidence that the Soviet Union had a source inside the Roosevelt White House; that British agents fed FDR total fabrications to draw the United States into war; and that Roosevelt, by yielding to Churchill's demand that British scientists be allowed to work on the Manhattan Project, enabled the secrets of the bomb to be stolen. And these are only a few of the scores of revelations in this constantly surprising story of Roosevelt's hidden role in World War II. |
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LibraryThing Review
User Review - rocketjk - LibraryThingA very interesting, if sometimes slow, account of a fascinating aspect of World War II, the clandestine operations orchestrated from the FDR White House. There's quite a bit of good information here ... Read full review
ROOSEVELT'S SECRET WAR: FDR and World War II Espionage
User Review - KirkusA historian argues that FDR's fascination and talent with intelligence helped make him an effective commander-in-chief during WWII.Persico (Nuremberg: Infamy on Trial, 1994, etc.) is a Roosevelt ... Read full review
Contents
Spies Saboteurs and Traitors | |
Strange Bedfellows | |
Spymaster in the Oval Office | |
The Defeatist and the Defiant | |
There Is No U S Secret Intelligence Service | |
Spies Versus Ciphers | |
Leakage from the | |
Distrusting Allies | |
Deceivers and the Deceived | |
The White House Is Penetrated | |
If Overlord Fails | |
Cracks in the Reich | |
A Secret Unshared | |
Take a Look at the OSS | |
Donovan Enters the Game | |
Our Objective Is to Get America into the War | |
Catastrophe or Conspiracy | |
Secrets of the Map Room | |
Intramural Spy Wars | |
Premier Secret of the | |
Enter the | |
We Are Striking Back | |
An Invasion for a Bomb | |
Sympathizers and Spies | |
A Leaky Vessel | |
Who Knewand When? | |
Stalin Has Been Deceiving Me All Along | |
The Following Are the Latest Casualties | |
Notes | |
Bibliography | |
About the Author | |
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Bibliographic information
| Title | Roosevelt's Secret War: FDR and World War II Espionage |
| Author | Joseph E. Persico |
| Publisher | Random House Publishing Group, 2001 |
| ISBN | 1588361241, 9781588361240 |
| Length | 592 pages |
| Subjects | › › Biography & Autobiography / Presidents & Heads of State History / Military / World War II True Crime / Espionage |
| Export Citation | BiBTeX EndNote RefMan |