The Nuclear Spies
America's Atomic Intelligence Operation against Hitler and Stalin
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Narrated by:
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John Lescault
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By:
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Vince Houghton
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.Listeners also enjoyed...
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When Hitler came to power in the 1930s, Germany had led the world in science, mathematics, and technology for nearly four decades. But while the fact that Hitler swiftly pressed Germany's scientific prowess into the service of a brutal, racist, xenophobic ideology is well known, few realize that German scientists had knowingly broken international agreements and basic codes of morality to fashion deadly weapons even before World War I.
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Excellent due to great content and reader
- By Dave on 04-12-04
By: John Cornwell
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Your Government Failed You
- Breaking the Cycle of National Security Disasters
- By: Richard A. Clarke
- Narrated by: Richard A. Clarke
- Length: 10 hrs and 25 mins
- Abridged
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In Your Government Failed You, Clarke looks at why failures have continued and how America and the world can succeed against the terrorists. But Clarke goes beyond terrorism to examine the recurring U.S. government disasters. Despite the lessons of Vietnam, we've gotten involved in Iraq. Drawing on his 30 years in the White House, Pentagon, State Department, and Intelligence Community, Clarke discovers patterns in the failure and suggests ways to stop the cycle.
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Stellar Criticism
- By Tim on 04-01-09
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Dark Sun
- The Making of the Hydrogen Bomb
- By: Richard Rhodes
- Narrated by: Richard Rhodes
- Length: 6 hrs
- Abridged
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Richard Rhodes' landmark history of the atomic bomb won the Pulitzer Prize, the National Book Award and the National Book Award and the National Book Critics Circle Award. Now, in this majestic new masterpiece of history, science, and politics, he tells for the first time the secret story of how and why the hydrogen bomb was made, and traces the path by which this supreme artifact of 20th-century technology became the defining issue of the Cold War.
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Abridged??
- By Delano on 04-17-13
By: Richard Rhodes
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The Doomsday Machine
- By: Daniel Ellsberg
- Narrated by: Steven Cooper
- Length: 14 hrs and 34 mins
- Unabridged
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The Doomsday Machine is Ellsberg's hair-raising insider's account of the most dangerous arms buildup in the history of civilization, whose legacy - and renewal under the Obama administration - threatens the very survival of humanity. It is scarcely possible to estimate the true dangers of our present nuclear policies without penetrating the secret realities of the nuclear strategy of the late Eisenhower and early Kennedy years, when Ellsberg had high-level access to them.
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Fascinating Insider Story
- By Terry Masters on 12-07-17
By: Daniel Ellsberg
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Toxic
- A History of Nerve Agents, from Nazi Germany to Putin's Russia
- By: Dan Kaszeta
- Narrated by: Paul Heitsch
- Length: 11 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
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Nerve agents are the world's deadliest means of chemical warfare. Nazi Germany developed the first military-grade nerve agents and massive industry for their manufacture. At the end of the Second World War, the Allies were stunned to discover this advanced and extensive program. The Soviets and Western powers embarked on a new arms race, amassing huge chemical arsenals. From their Nazi invention to the 2018 Novichok attack in Britain, Dan Kaszeta uncovers nerve agents' gradual spread across the world, despite international arms control efforts.
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Solid primer on nerve agent history and technology
- By Jim Nasium on 01-16-22
By: Dan Kaszeta
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The War Conspiracy
- JFK, 9/11, and the Deep Politics of War
- By: Peter Dale Scott
- Narrated by: Noah Michael Levine
- Length: 16 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
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A remarkable analysis linking the assassination of JFK and 9/11, and how both events were used to influence war policy. Peter Dale Scott examines the many ways in which war policy has been driven by “accidents” and other events in the field, in some cases despite moves toward peace that were directed by presidents. This book explores the “deep politics” that exerts a profound but too-little-understood effect on national policy outside the control of traditional democratic processes.
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data dump on every rabbit hole
- By Shawn R. Veltheim on 12-20-18
By: Peter Dale Scott
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Insiders Reveal Secret Space Programs & Extraterrestrial Alliances
- By: Michael E. Salla
- Narrated by: Jerry Lord
- Length: 13 hrs and 47 mins
- Unabridged
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Classified space programs have been an integral part of a complex jigsaw puzzle concerning UFOs, extraterrestrial life, ancient civilizations and advanced aerospace technologies, which have long defied any coherent understanding. Now finally, we have something to put all the pieces together with the disclosures of secret space program whistleblower, Corey Goode. A detailed investigation of Goode’s and other insider testimonies reveals the big picture of a parallel world of secret space programs and extraterrestrial alliances.
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A waste of time
- By Roland Vellanoweth on 03-09-19
By: Michael E. Salla
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The Imagineers of War
- The Untold Story of DARPA, the Pentagon Agency That Changed the World
- By: Sharon Weinberger
- Narrated by: Hillary Huber
- Length: 16 hrs and 42 mins
- Unabridged
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The definitive history of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, the Pentagon agency that has quietly shaped war and technology for nearly 60 years. Founded in 1958 in response to the launch of Sputnik, the agency's original mission was to create "the unimagined weapons of the future". Over the decades, DARPA has been responsible for countless inventions and technologies that extend well beyond military technology.
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Blandly written story about DARPA politics
- By Syed on 04-18-17
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Surge
- My Journey with General David Petraeus and the Remaking of the Iraq War
- By: Peter R. Mansoor, General David Petraeus - foreword
- Narrated by: Mark Boyett
- Length: 17 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
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Surge is an insider's view of the most decisive phase of the Iraq War. Using newly declassified documents, unpublished manuscripts, interviews, author notes, and published sources, Surge explains how President George W. Bush, Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, Ambassador Crocker, General Petraeus, and other U.S. and Iraqi political and military leaders shaped the surge from the center of the maelstrom in Baghdad and Washington.
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Helpful for the Army War College
- By BBP on 02-24-18
By: Peter R. Mansoor, and others
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Defend the Realm
- The Authorized History of MI5
- By: Christopher Andrew
- Narrated by: Robin Sachs
- Length: 39 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
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An unprecedented publishing event: to mark the centenary of its foundation, the British Security Service, MI5, has for the first time opened its archives to an independent historian. The book reveals the precise role of the Security Service in 20th-century British history, from its foundation by Captain Kell of the British Army in October 1909, through two world wars, up to and including its present roles in counterespionage and counterterrorism.
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A very throrough and impartial history.
- By Matthew on 12-01-09
What listeners say about The Nuclear Spies
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- JT
- 11-22-20
Good account of an underappreciated mission
This is a solid telling of the nuclear espionage program of the US during WWII. It is more akin to a textbook in it's storytelling than some of the similar spy books of the era. If you're interested in this time period, it has some great information.
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1 person found this helpful
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- Celeste
- 09-01-22
Nighty night
So monotonous one keeps falling asleep....reader leaves a lot to be desired.
Story is interesting however.
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- Wade Bryan
- 03-17-22
UNANSWERED QUESTION
Overall the book was great! But it failed to answer a question that is unavoidable; “How WERE the Soviets able to develop the bomb so quickly?”. The author offers no fewer than five possibilities, yet fails to say or even speculate how. Still a very informative read but would have been five stars if the penultimate chapter had parenthetically answered the question.
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- James A. Bretney
- 11-03-22
a palace history that excuses espionage
this Palace history excuses many American intelligence failures. it overestimates Soviet science and dismisses casually the penetration of the Rosenberg ring and the possibility of espionage as to the success of the Soviet nuclear bomb. it does illustrate how the German atomic bomb program was behind the United States but it doesn't depend on German source documents but instead relies specifically on American sources. it is an interesting source story which must be viewed with some skepticism
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- Lisa
- 03-07-21
Just ok
Written with all the passion of a textbook. Mostly facts with a few random opinions thrown in.
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- Amazon Customer
- 09-17-21
eh
This book had a lot of good information however the story is dry and the reader sounds like a robot
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- Subway
- 07-23-22
Wonderfully detailed, showing extensive research.
While the atomic intelligence effort is mentioned in other works, those books only hit the wavetops in this area. The present book fills in extensive details in depth on every area of intelligence associated with the Manhattan Project. While it gets a bit dry when covering post-war governmental organization, the exploits of the Alsos group in Europe are fascinating. Info on the Soviet nuclear program is also very interesting.
Good job by the reader throughout.
A recommended read (listen).
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- jerome m.
- 12-14-20
Excellent Listen
A lot of incredible, and dangerous, science was conducted by so many people during WWII.
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- peter
- 12-20-20
Misleading title
There are no spies in this book that I could find but lots of tedious details such as the name and rank of anyone who appears even tangentially in the narrative. The narrative itself could have and should have been interesting and even fascinating but suffocated beneath poorly evaluated data without any apparent sense of what makes a story a story. Needs editing.
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4 people found this helpful
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- John J. Moore
- 01-14-21
Boring
The story was so full of details that it was a real struggle to get through. Large sections of the books just seemed like someone was reading a list in the most boring way possible. There wasn’t even any interesting stories about what happened. It is the driest book I’ve ever read. This is a subject I am very interested in and I couldn’t make it all the way to the end.
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