Spying through a Glass Darkly

Scholars must treat archival material about or from the intelligence community carefully. It may reveal, obscure, or muddle—or all three. This collaborative work by David Alvarez and the late Eduard Mark mines new material, reinterprets early Cold War intelligence history, and provides new fodder for debates over the Cold War's origins. In a precise and detailed account, Alvarez and Mark examine U.S. intelligence operations against the Soviet Union from the final months of World War II through 1947. While they note that much is known about the early Cold War, the intelligence aspects to this period are neither well understood by Cold War scholars nor well covered by intelligence historians. This work aims to be the first substantive review of U.S. efforts against the Soviets based on a careful examination of recently declassified materials. The book consists of six substantive chapters and a conclusion. The authors first detail the history of U.S. intelligence during World War II and at its end. Then they explain the limited knowledge the U.S. possessed about the Soviet Union and the hesitant steps taken to acquire new information; the Soviets did not become a priority collection target until spring 1946. The bulk of Spying through a Glass Darkly is a systematic examination of efforts by U.S. officials, deliberate or inadvertent, successful or spectacularly not, to learn about Soviet capabilities and intentions toward Eastern and Central Europe. Alvarez and Mark provide the first full explanation of the Strategic Services Unit (SSU), which succeeded the wartime Office of Strategic Services until absorbed into the new Central Intelligence Group in 1946. They built upon extensive use of raw operational materials from the Office of Strategic Services files, among other intelligence materials at the National Archives

Cold war · Economic history · Espionage · Political science · Politics · Soviet union · World War II · German History and Society · Historical Geopolitical and Social Dynamics · History · Intelligence, Security, War Strategy · Law