Editorial Content for Double Agent: The First Hero of World War II and How the FBI Outwitted and Destroyed a Nazi Spy Ring
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Reviewer (text)
A few days after the bombing of Pearl Harbor, members of a group of American men and women known as the Duquesne Spy Ring were all found guilty of treason against the United States. Behind this large, well-played game of spycraft ending in multiple lengthy imprisonments was one man who, until relatively recently, was unknown, his real name not revealed, his life story kept a secret due to his activities as a double agent.
"The intrigues of Sebold and his minders, vividly depicted by journalist/author Peter Duffy...read at times like a John le Carré novel. There is a gray, dank sense of boredom in a spy's daily existence, along with a frisson of reckless endangerment, both of which Duffy conveys through a plethora of historical detail."
William Sebold was a German-born naturalized American citizen who took his oath of loyalty to his new country seriously. In the early days of Hitler's rise to power, he returned to Germany to visit his mother and was recruited as a spy for the Nazis. Reckoning that he might not get back to the US if he refused, he allowed himself to be trained in espionage. But he also let his recruitment be known to the Americans and asked to work for the FBI as a counter-espionage agent. For two years, he lived a shadowy, spy-vs-spy existence, befriending the German underground operating in New York City, and its roguish leader, South African Fritz Duquesne, who proudly boasted of having killed Britain's Lord Kitchener. The man charged with supervising the operation to bring down Duquesne, unapologetic master-spy Hermann Lang and their cohort of German sympathizers was J. Edgar Hoover, in his new position as head of the FBI.
The intrigues of Sebold and his minders, vividly depicted by journalist/author Peter Duffy (THE BIELSKI BROTHERS), read at times like a John le Carré novel. There is a gray, dank sense of boredom in a spy's daily existence, along with a frisson of reckless endangerment, both of which Duffy conveys through a plethora of historical detail. An example is the code used by Sebold and his principal American contacts, "based upon the letter arrangements of a particular page (which would change each day) in the British edition of Rachel Field's bestselling historical romance, ALL THIS, AND HEAVEN TOO.
Ironically, the first cause for which the Duquesne Spy Ring was being trailed was the Norden bombsight, a piece of equipment that, it was believed, could make bombing almost completely accurate and efficient; Lang had worked in the Norden plant, and it was believed he leaked its design to the Nazis. But in the heat of the European air war, it turned out that the bombsight was not a major factor, as it was quickly determined that "the best way to defeat Germany was to pummel its cities under the cover of darkness."
Nonetheless, the Ring's members were bent on a perfidious quest to foster Germany's domination of the world and the elimination of Jews and other inferiors, as well as anyone inimical to the German cause. Sebold, a quiet man of accurate mind and unusual patriotism, unhesitatingly did his part to see that they did not succeed.
Teaser
Before the United States joined World War II, the FBI uncovered a ring of Nazi spies in New York City, and President Franklin Roosevelt declared J. Edgar Hoover as America’s spymaster. As war began, a naturalized German-American was recruited by Nazis to convey messages to Germany. This man, William G. Sebold, approached the FBI and became the first double agent in the Bureau’s history, and the investigation led to the arrest of 33 enemy agents.
Promo
Before the United States joined World War II, the FBI uncovered a ring of Nazi spies in New York City, and President Franklin Roosevelt declared J. Edgar Hoover as America’s spymaster. As war began, a naturalized German-American was recruited by Nazis to convey messages to Germany. This man, William G. Sebold, approached the FBI and became the first double agent in the Bureau’s history, and the investigation led to the arrest of 33 enemy agents.
About the Book
The never-before-told tale of the German-American who spearheaded a covert mission to infiltrate New York’s Nazi underground in the days leading up to World War IIthe most successful counterespionage operation in US history.
From the time Adolf Hitler came into power in 1933, German spies were active in New York. In 1937, a German national living in Queens stole the blueprints for the country’s most precious secret, the Norden Bombsight, delivering them to the German military two years before World War II started in Europe and four years before the US joined the fight. When the FBI uncovered a ring of Nazi spies in the city, President Franklin Roosevelt formally declared J. Edgar Hoover as America’s spymaster with responsibility for overseeing all investigations. As war began in Europe in 1939, a naturalized German-American was recruited by the Nazis to set up a radio transmitter and collect messages from spies active in the city to send back to Nazi spymasters in Hamburg. This German-American, William G. Sebold, approached the FBI and became the first double agent in the Bureau’s history, the center of a 16-month investigation that led to the arrest of a colorful cast of 33 enemy agents, among them a South African adventurer with an exotic accent and a monocle and a Jewish femme fatale, Lilly Stein, who escaped Nazi Vienna by offering to seduce US military men into whispering secrets into her ear.
A riveting, meticulously researched and fast-moving story, DOUBLE AGENT details the largest and most important espionage bust in American history.
