Spies Beneath Berlin by David Stafford is the recently declassified story of Operation Gold, the joint CIA-SIS mission to spy on the USSR. For sixty years, no one knew the true story of Operation Gold, also known as Operation Stopwatch, which was the mission to build a tunnel from West Berlin to East Berlin to spy on the Soviets. The tunnel, nicknamed “Smokey Joe” was built in 1954 and spanned 500 meters, leading to a major Soviet telecommunications system. Operation Gold is considered both one of the greatest engineering and intelligence feats of all time, but it was not without its problems.
Before the construction of the tunnel, the US, Britain, and their allies had no way of spying on the Soviet Union. It was extremely difficult, if not impossible to send spies over the Iron Curtain. The United States’ Central Intelligence Agency and the British Secret Intelligence Service teamed up to build a tunnel that would travel from East to West Berlin so that they could tap on Soviet intelligence telecommunication cables and listen in on their conversations, thereby gathering intelligence.
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It involved smuggling building materials past soviet guards and moving thousands of tons of soil without depositing any above ground. To cover, they built a warehouse with a basement specifically made to hold all the soil. From there, they could begin work on the tunnel itself. Unfortunately, initial attempts were disasters because they accidentally tapped into a sewer instead of a building and miscalculated the water table, each of which led to the funnel flooding. In order to avoid further flooding, they would have to build the tunnel only six feet under ground, and risk
Darryl’s life is worth fighting for. “You can’t buy what I’ve got.” ‘The Castle’ directed by Rob Sitch, about one man, his family and neighbours on the verge of being homeless. Darryl Kerrigan, the “backbone of the family” won’t stand for that. Of course no one can buy what he has. He’s spent almost his entire lifetime building what he has, why should he give it up? Darryl’s way of life is simple yet filled with family values. 3 Highview Crescent is the home to Darryl, his wife Sal and their 3 children: Wayne, Steve, Tracy and Dale. (Wayne currently being in jail.) The house is made up of love, and simple family values. Darryl’s also added bits and pieces to it. He’s added on so much to the house, his own personal touch. His neighbours, also in the same bout are almost family to the Kerrigans. Jack and Farouk are another reason why Darryl’s ready to take matters into his own hands.
. The Venona project was a military investigation decoding Soviet cables going in and out the United States. These cables revealed hundreds of citizens and immigrants all on American soil that passed very confidential information to Soviet intelligence. (Citation here) This alarming discovery of spies and the success of them gathering information showed the Soviet Union and communisms ability to influence and control. It was espionage that led to the trails of Julius and Ethal Rosenburg. The Rosenburg were American citizens indited, convicted, and executed for passing confidential information to Soviet officials, which aided them in the duplication of nuclear weapons specifically the atomic bomb. Had the Soviet Union not gained access to such a vital piece of information, the pivoting point of psychological fear to actual physical fear spiraling a world wind of cause and effects around the world, then perhaps the fear its self would not have grown to such status. The Soviet Union’s espionage was a war on American soil, fought secretly to dismantle the super power of the United States.
“The Great Escape” came out on July 4th, 1963. It is based on a true story of a group of Allied prisoners who managed to escape from an allegedly impenetrable Nazi prisoner of war camp, Stalag Luft III, on March 24, 1944. Directed by John Sturges, it follows the true account of the escape very accurately. With a perfect balance between comedy and adventure, “The Great Escape” keeps you on the edge of your seat.
David W. Blight's book Beyond the Battlefield: Race, Memory and the American Civil War, is an intriguing look back into the Civil War era which is very heavily studied but misunderstood according to Blight. Blight focuses on how memory shapes history Blight feels, while the Civil War accomplished it goal of abolishing slavery, it fell short of its ultimate potential to pave the way for equality. Blight attempts to prove that the Civil War does little to bring equality to blacks. This book is a composite of twelve essays which are spilt into three parts. The Preludes describe blacks during the era before the Civil War and their struggle to over come slavery and describes the causes, course and consequences of the war. Problems in Civil War memory describes black history and deals with how during and after the war Americans seemed to forget the true meaning of the war which was race. And the postludes describes some for the leaders of black society and how they are attempting to keep the memory and the real meaning of the Civil War alive and explains the purpose of studying historical memory.
The chaos and destruction that the Nazi’s are causing are not changing the lives of only Jews, but also the lives of citizens in other countries. Between Night by Elie Wiesel and The Hiding Place by Corrie ten Boom, comradeship, faith, strength, and people of visions are crucial to the survival of principle characters. Ironically, in both stories there is a foreseen future, that both seemed to be ignored.
A true war story blurs the line between fact and fiction, where it is neither true nor false at the same time. What is true and what is not depends on how much you believe it to be. In the chapter “How to Tell a True War Story” from the novel “The Things They Carried” by Tim O’Brien, the author provides various definitions to how the validity of a war story can be judged. The entire chapter is a collection of definitions that describe the various truths to what a true war story is. Unlike O’Brien, who is a novelist and storyteller, David Finkel, the author of “The Good Soldiers”, is a journalist whose job is to report the facts. Yet in the selection that we read, chapter nine, Finkel uses the convention of storytelling, which relies heavily on the stories the combat troops tell each other or him personally. Finkel attempts to give an unbiased view of the Iraq war through the stories of the soldiers but in doing so, Finkel forfeits the use of his own experiences and his own opinions. From O’Brien’s views on what a true war story is combined with my own definitions, I believe that Finkel provides a certain truth to his war stories but not the entire truth.
The non-fiction book Hiroshima by John Hersey is an engaging text with a powerful message in it. The book is a biographical text about lives of six people Miss Sasaki, Dr. Fujii, Mrs. Nakamura, Father Kleinsorge, Dr. Sasaki and Rev. Tanimoto in Hiroshima, Japan and how their lives completely changed at 8:15 on the 6th of August 1945 by the dropping of the first atomic bomb. The author, John Hersey, through his use of descriptive language the in book Hiroshima exposes the many horrors of a nuclear attack.
Elie Wiesel’s book “Night” shows the life of a father and son going through the concentration camp of World War II. Their life long journey begins from when they are taken from their home in Sighet, they experience harsh and inhuman conditions in the camps. These conditions cause Elie and his father’s relationship to change. During their time there, Elie and his father experience a reversal in roles.
Night is an non fiction, dramatic book that tells the horrors of the nazi death camps all around Europe. The book is an autobiographical account of what happened, so the main character is the author. The author is Elie Wiesel who was only 14 year old when Nazi Germany came through his town of Sighet, Transylvania. This is story is set between the years of 1944 and 1945. Elie and his family of 4 are optimistic when Germany begins to take power. Germany invades Hungary, then arrives in Elie’s town. The Nazi’s begin to take over the Jews by limiting their freedom. Jews are eventually deported. The Jewish people are crowded into wagons where they are shipped to Auschwitz. He is separated from his mother and sister. Over the course of the book, Elie and his father are sent to two different concentration camps. Their final concentration camp is Buchenwald. His father ends up dieing before the allied troops liberated Budapest in 1945. Elie is left with the memories of death and violence.
“All Quiet on the Western Front” is a novel written by Erich Maria Remarque. It is a war novel that tells the story of a young man and his experiences in combat during World War I. The title of the novel roots from a phrase used to describe the silence between shellings and infantry attacks during the battles fought on the western front ( Text, 895 ). Although World War I was a very real event, the testaments of the main character in “All Quiet on the Western Front” is purely fictional, but they are based on the accounts of veterans of the war.
knowledge of the CIA and who would later would be involved in the clash between the
With the ideals of the government on the war growing in the nation, Congress passed the Espionage Act of 1917. After a joint session of Congress, where President Wilson reported on relations with Germany, the first of three bills that would create the Espionage Act of 1917, was introduced. The Congr...
“Without Conscience" by Robert D. Hare is one aimed towards making the general public aware of the many psychopaths that inhabit the world we live in. Throughout the book Hare exposes the reader to a number of short stories; all with an emphasis on a characteristic of psychopaths. Hare makes the claim that close monitoring of psychopathy are vital if we ever hope to gain a hold over Psychopathy- A disorder that affects not only the individual but also society itself. He also indicates one of the reasons for this book is order to correctly treat these individuals we have to be able to correctly identify who meets the criteria. His ultimate goal with the text is to alleviate some of the confusion in the increase in criminal activity by determining how my of this is a result of Psychopathy.
Tim O'Brien is confused about the Vietnam War. He is getting drafted into it, but is also protesting it. He gets to boot camp and finds it very difficult to know that he is going off to a country far away from home and fighting a war that he didn't believe was morally right. Before O'Brien gets to Vietnam he visits a military Chaplin about his problem with the war. "O'Brien I am really surprised to hear this. You're a good kid but you are betraying you country when you say these things"(60). This says a lot about O'Brien's views on the Vietnam War. In the reading of the book, If I Die in a Combat Zone, Tim O'Brien explains his struggles in boot camp and when he is a foot soldier in Vietnam.
During the Holocaust, around six million Jews were murdered due to Hitler’s plan to rid Germany of “heterogeneous people” in Germany, as stated in the novel, Life and Death in the Third Reich by Peter Fritzsche. Shortly following a period of suffering, Hitler began leading Germany in 1930 to start the period of his rule, the Third Reich. Over time, his power and support from the country increased until he had full control over his people. Starting from saying “Heil Hitler!” the people of the German empire were cleverly forced into following Hitler through terror and threat. He had a group of leaders, the SS, who were Nazis that willingly took any task given, including the mass murder of millions of Jews due to his belief that they were enemies to Germany. German citizens were talked into participating or believing in the most extreme of things, like violent pogroms, deportations, attacks, and executions. Through the novel’s perspicacity of the Third Reich, readers can see how Hitler’s reign was a controversial time period summed up by courage, extremity, and most important of all, loyalty.