Soldiers, Spies and the Rat Line - America's Undeclared War Against the Soviets.

James V Milano

ISBN 10: 1574880500 / ISBN 13: 9781574880502

Published by Brasseys, Washington DC, 1995

About this Item

256 pages (xii, 244), appendic, index: publisher's orange paper-covered boards backed in black cloth with gilt titles on the spine: white and black dust-jacket. Fine, no writing or other defacements; unclipped jacket. Pictures show this actual book. UK orders are post-free.

Seller Inventory # 152489

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Soldiers, Spies and the Rat Line - America's Undeclared War Against the Soviets.
• Publisher: Brasseys, Washington DC
• Publication Date: 1995
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1574880500
• ISBN 13: 9781574880502
• Binding: Hardcover/Hardback
• Edition: First Edition.
• Printing: First printing
• Condition: Fine
• Dust Jacket Condition: Fine
• Seller catalogs:
  • History & Biography
  • Military Affairs
  • Politics, Economics and related topics

About this title

Synopsis

After Germany’s surrender in World War II, Jim Milano, a young U.S. army intelligence officer, led a small, independent group of soldiers charged with carrying out some of the first intelligence efforts of the postwar era. Inventing the techniques of Cold War espionage for themselves and improvising unorthodox methods, the major and his creative cohorts confounded Soviet forces and created escape routes for defectors. In the pages of Milano’s fascinating memoir you'll find the shadowy world populated by spies, prostitutes, refugees, scoundrels, and heroes comes alive.

Synopsis

The Cold War began in Central Europe within weeks of the surrender of Germany. It had no name, it was not declared, but the soldiers on the front line recognized it. This is the story of the American soldiers who witnessed the beginning of the conflict that dominated world politics for the next 45 years, and did their best to fight it. Jim Milano was chief of intelligence operations for the US forces in Austria from May 1945 until 1950. He led this small group of young Army intelligence officers - the first troops - on a new, clandestine front line. Inventing the techniques of Cold War espionage for themselves, using methods that Milano admits were questionable, he and his men spied on the Soviet forces and arranged for defectors from the East to escape down a "rat line" to South America. This was the same network that later, after Milano and his colleagues had left, was used to smuggle out Nazi war criminals such as Klaus Barbie. This book is an exploration of a unique time in history, and an account of the adventures of young men charged with carrying out the first US espionage efforts of the postwar era.