Gather American Espionage And The Soviet Target Prepared By Jeffrey T. Richelson Version

inand likely finalized in, this book serves as a snapshot of how espionage was known publically as the Cold War neared its end.
In fact, many of the author's suggestions and warnings about the limitations of the current system

could be seen as forewarnings of the collapse of the Soviet Union.


This book opened my eyes as to the sheer scope of the intelligence operation in place during the Cold War.
In addition to the human intelligence, planes, and satellites I was expecting, there were the ground stations, the hot air balloons.
The seven annual beach combing expeditions along deserted beaches of Alaska in search of Soviet scraps washed ashore, the huge operation in place after WWII that interviewed all returning German POWs about conditions in the USSR, the more than twenty years that the intelligence community worked with the US Postal Service to intercept mail outgoing and incoming between the United States and the Soviet Union and much of it they steamed open!.
Pretty amazing.

The book opens with a chapter of quick history detailing the fallout after WWII between the US and USSR, then follows with chapters on human intelligence, ground stations, sea rec ships and subs and the seabed sonar system, patrols sea and air, overflights balloons and planes, three chapters on the increasingly complex satellite systems signal interceptions, telemetry, photographing, etc, a chapter on espionage against the USSR in other countries such as Mexico, and where the author believed we stood when the book was published.


It is an interesting collection, but tended to get bogged down in technicalities, and the sheer volume of acronyms, abbreviations and code names made things hard to slog through at times despite the handy list at the end of the book.
"A book that the CIA won't be happy about, . . it is a case of fact being more exciting than spy fiction", Kirkus s. The most complete account ever of America's espionage activities against the Soviet Union,pages of photos. .