Double Agent
The First Hero of World War II and How the FBI Outwitted and Destroyed a Nazi Spy Ring
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4.0 • 2 Ratings
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- $16.99
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- $16.99
Publisher Description
The never-before-told tale of the German-American who infiltrated New York’s Nazi underground in the days leading up to World War II: “Thrilling, well-researched, well-told, fascinating” (Minneapolis Star Tribune).
He was the first hero of World War II and yet the American public has never seen his face. William G. Sebold, a naturalized American of German birth, risked his life to become the first double agent in the history of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. He spent sixteen months in the Nazi underground of New York City, consorting with a colorful cast of spies. Sebold was at the center of the most sophisticated investigation yet devised by the FBI, which established a short-wave radio station on Long Island to communicate with Hamburg spymasters and set up a “research office” in Times Square that allowed agents hidden behind a two-way mirror to film meetings conducted between Sebold and the spy suspects.
The result was the arrest and conviction of thirty-three spies, still the largest espionage case in American history. The guilty verdicts were announced in Brooklyn federal court just hours after Adolf Hitler declared war on the United States on December 11, 1941, which meant that the Führer could not call upon a small army of embedded spies and saboteurs during the most trying days of the coming struggle. “As you know,” an FBI official later told J. Edgar Hoover, “Sebold gave us the most outstanding case in Bureau history.”
In Double Agent, Peter Duffy tells this full account. Here is a story “rich with eccentric characters, suspense, and details of spycraft in the war’s early days….The result is a compelling cultural history with all the intricacy and intrigue of a good spy novel” (The Boston Globe).
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Journalist Duffy (The Killing of Major Denis Mahon) recounts the first U.S. counterespionage success of WWII: the breaking of a German spy ring centered in New York. It combined "ideologues, opportunists, dupes, adventurers" and a core of agents who initially had a virtual free hand despite F.D.R.'s commitment to sustaining civil liberties. Under Republican pressure, the FBI was made responsible for internal security, and J. Edgar Hoover's organization demonstrated a high learning curve thanks in good part to double agent William Sebold. In 1939, Sebold, a German-born naturalized American, was approached by German intelligence, which provided him with elementary training in photography and coding. Returning to the U.S., Sebold contacted the FBI, who in turn offered observation and recording facilities. Sebold proved himself "an actor of consummate skill" in high-risk situations, and when the snare was sprung, 33 spies were arrested, 19 convicted, and the spine of Nazi espionage in the U.S. permanently broken. Hoover was lauded for his handling of the case while Sebold worked in defense plants before sinking back into obscurity. While Duffy's digressions are distracting and Sebold's character doesn't quite hold the narrative together, this remains "one of the great spy missions of American history."
