Dispelling myths along the way, an ex-covert special operations lead with Canada's Security Intelligence Service reveals what life as a spy is really like, sharing his on-the-ground experience of becoming a CSIS member and how he rose up the ranks to leading missions.

In the mid-nineteenth century a group of Irish revolutionaries, known as the Fenians, set out to destroy Britain’s North American empire. Between 1866 and 1871 they launched a series of armed raids into Canadian territory. In Canadian Spy Story David Wilson takes readers into a dark and dangerous world of betrayal and deception, spies and informers, invasion and assassination, spanning Canada, the United States, Ireland, and Britain. In Canada there were Fenian secret societies in urban areas, including Quebec City, Montreal, Ottawa, and Toronto, and in some rural townships, all part of a wider North American network. Wilson tells the tale of Irishmen who attempted to liberate their country from British rule, and the Canadian secret police who infiltrated their revolutionary cells and worked their way to the top of the organization. With surprises at every turn, the story includes a sex scandal that nearly brought Canadian spy operations crashing down, as well as reports from Toronto about a plot to assassinate Queen Victoria. Featuring a cast of idealists, patriots, cynics, manipulators, and liars, Canadian Spy Story raises fundamental questions about state security and civil liberty, with important lessons for our own time.

The astonishing story of the British spies who set out to draw America into World War II As World War II raged into its second year, Britain sought a powerful ally to join its cause-but the American public was sharply divided on the subject. Canadian-born MI6 officer William Stephenson, with his knowledge and influence in North America, was chosen to change their minds by any means necessary. In this extraordinary tale of foreign influence on American shores, Henry Hemming shows how Stephenson came to New York--hiring Canadian staffers to keep his operations secret--and flooded the American market with propaganda supporting Franklin Roosevelt and decrying Nazism. His chief opponent was Charles Lindbergh, an insurgent populist who campaigned under the slogan "America First" and had no interest in the war. This set up a shadow duel between Lindbergh and Stephenson, each trying to turn public opinion his way, with the lives of millions potentially on the line.

"For twenty years Canada has been spying on other nations. Outside public scrutiny or Parliamentary review and frequently acting at the behest of U.S. and U.K. intelligence agencies. Canada has been spying electronically from its embassies in capitals as far-flung as Moscow, New Delhi, Bucharest, Rabat and Caracas. It has then shared the results with its allies. There is every reason to believe Canada is still doing "embassy collection" today. Techniques developed during the "Cold War" have been honed for political and economic espionage in the nineties." "The agency responsible is the top-secret Communications Security Establishment (CSE) of whose existence most Canadians are unaware. CSE has also used sophisticated equipment, much of it provided by the U.S., to listen in on Canadian and on American citizens, raising vital questions about civil liberties and the invasion of privacy. It has intercepted communications from the Soviet embassy in Ottawa; from British cabinet ministers; from the governments of France and Quebec; from suspected Sikh terrorists in India; and from the Kremlin. Its record is impressive: if it wants to, it can intercept almost any phone, fax or radiowave transmission." "How do we know all this? Because one man, Mike Frost, a communications officer at CSE for nineteen years, has decided that in the post-"Cold War" era it is time for the Canadian public to be told what its government has been doing and for a public debate to ensue." "As he tells the story of his career, he paints a remarkable picture of the Security Establishments of Canada, the U.S. and the U.K. The Americans in particular are revealed as possessing high-tech wizardry that they use for political and economic spying - including, according to Frost, highly controversial spying on the Canadian government. Much of Canada's spying from 1972 to 1990 was undertaken for the Americans. Frost and his immediate boss were at the centre of the "embassy-collection" scheme, which was code-named "Project Pilgrim". The story of how "Pilgrim" grew by trial and error into a highly successful operation is full of drama, comedy, triumphs and frustrations." "Frost is proud of the achievements, but the questionable aspects of CSE's activities have led him to go public on both CSE's successes and its excesses. While scrupulously careful about not jeopardizing national security or endangering the lives of agents in the field, he nonetheless reveals an institution whose powers are potentially so great that they need to be subject to Parliamentary control and public scrutiny. Spyworld will undoubtedly spur debate and controversy."--BOOK JACKET.Title Summary field provided by Blackwell North America, Inc. All Rights Reserved

Canadian Spy Story takes readers into a dark and dangerous world of betrayal and deception, spies and informers, invasion and assassination. David A. Wilson tells the tale of the Fenians - Irishmen who wished to liberate their country from British rule - and the Canadian secret police who infiltrated their revolutionary cells.

The true story, drawn from official documents and hours of personal interviews, of how Newfoundland and Labrador joined Confederation and became Canada's tenth province in 1949. A rich cast of characters--hailing from Britain, America, Canada and Newfoundland--battle it out for the prize of the resource-rich, financially solvent, militarily strategic island. The twists and turns are as dramatic as any spy novel and extremely surprising, since the "official" version of Newfoundland history has held for over fifty years almost without question. Don't Tell the Newfoundlanders will change all that.

On a chilly autumn night in 1942, a German spy was rowed ashore from a U-boat off the Gaspé coast to begin a deadly espionage mission against the Allies. Thanks to an alert hotel-keeper's son, Abwehr agent `Bobbi' was captured and forced by the RCMP to become Canada's first double-agent. For nearly fifty years the full story of the spy case, code-named Watchdog, was suppressed. Now, author Dean Beeby has uncovered nearly five thousand pages of formerly classified government documents, obtained through the Access to Information Act from the RCMP, the Canadian Security Intelligence Service, the Department of Justice, the National Archives of Canada, and Naval Intelligence. He has supplemented this treasure trove with research among still heavily censored FBI files, and interviews with surviving participants in the Watchdog story. Although British records of the case remain closed, Beeby also interviewed the MI5 case officer for Watchdog, the late Cyril Mills. The operation was Canada's first major foray into international espionage, predating the Gouzenko defection by three years. Watchdog, as Beeby reveals, was not the Allied success the RCMP has long claimed. Agent `Bobbi' gradually ensnared his captors with a finely spun web of lies, transforming himself into a triple-agent who fed useful information back to Hamburg. Beeby argues that Canadian authorities were woefully unprepared for the subtleties of wartime counter-espionage, and that their mishandling of the case had long-term consequences that affected relations with their intelligence partners throughout the Cold War.