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Bridge of spies: a true story of the Cold War

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Pub. Date:
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Language:
English
Description
The dramatic events behind the Oscar-winning film, Bridge of Spies, tracing the paths leading to the first and most legendary prisoner exchange between East and West at Berlin's Glienicke Bridge and Checkpoint Charlie on February 10, 1962. Bridge of Spies is the true story of three extraordinary characters whose fate helped to define the conflicts and lethal undercurrents of the most dangerous years of the Cold War: William Fisher, alias Rudolf Abel, a British born KGB agent arrested by the FBI in New York City and jailed as a Soviet superspy for trying to steal America’s most precious nuclear secrets; Gary Powers, the American U-2 pilot who was captured when his plane was shot down while flying a reconnaissance mission over the closed cities of central Russia; and Frederic Pryor, a young American graduate student in Berlin mistakenly identified as a spy, arrested and held without charge by the Stasi, East Germany’s secret police. The three men were rescued against daunting odds, and then all but forgotten. Yet they laid bare the pathological mistrust that fueled the arms race for the next 30 years. Weaving the three strands of this story together for the first time, Giles Whittell masterfully portrays the intense political tensions and nuclear brinkmanship that brought the United States and Soviet Union so close to a hot war in the early 1960s. He reveals the dramatic lives of men drawn into the nadir of the Cold War by duty and curiosity, and the tragicomedy of errors that eventually induced Nikita Khrushchev to send missiles to Fidel Castro. Drawing on new interviews conducted in the United States, Europe and Russia with key players in the exchange and the events leading to it, among them Frederic Pryor himself and the man who shot down Gary Powers, Bridge of Spies captures a time when the fate of the world really did depend on coded messages on microdots and brave young men in pressure suits. The exchange that frigid day at two of the most sensitive points along the Iron Curtain represented the first step back from where the superpowers had stood since the building of the Berlin Wall the previous summer--on the brink of World War III.
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ISBN:
9780767931076
9780307719980
9781101922682
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Grouping Information

Grouped Work IDab3e504b-bd8b-2e08-b5e5-d2715e6eec00
Grouping Titlebridge of spies a true story of the cold war
Grouping Authorgiles whittell
Grouping Categorybook
Grouping LanguageEnglish (eng)
Last Grouping Update2023-03-24 04:07:46AM
Last Indexed2023-03-24 04:44:04AM

Solr Fields

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Whittell, Giles
author2-role
cloudLibrary
author_display
Whittell, Giles
available_at_aacpl
Odenton Library
collection_aacpl
ADULT
CLOUD LIBRARY
detailed_location_aacpl
Odenton Library - Nonfiction
Online
Online OverDrive Collection
display_description
The dramatic events behind the Oscar-winning film, Bridge of Spies, tracing the paths leading to the first and most legendary prisoner exchange between East and West at Berlin's Glienicke Bridge and Checkpoint Charlie on February 10, 1962. Bridge of Spies is the true story of three extraordinary characters whose fate helped to define the conflicts and lethal undercurrents of the most dangerous years of the Cold War: William Fisher, alias Rudolf Abel, a British born KGB agent arrested by the FBI in New York City and jailed as a Soviet superspy for trying to steal America’s most precious nuclear secrets; Gary Powers, the American U-2 pilot who was captured when his plane was shot down while flying a reconnaissance mission over the closed cities of central Russia; and Frederic Pryor, a young American graduate student in Berlin mistakenly identified as a spy, arrested and held without charge by the Stasi, East Germany’s secret police. The three men were rescued against daunting odds, and then all but forgotten. Yet they laid bare the pathological mistrust that fueled the arms race for the next 30 years. Weaving the three strands of this story together for the first time, Giles Whittell masterfully portrays the intense political tensions and nuclear brinkmanship that brought the United States and Soviet Union so close to a hot war in the early 1960s. He reveals the dramatic lives of men drawn into the nadir of the Cold War by duty and curiosity, and the tragicomedy of errors that eventually induced Nikita Khrushchev to send missiles to Fidel Castro. Drawing on new interviews conducted in the United States, Europe and Russia with key players in the exchange and the events leading to it, among them Frederic Pryor himself and the man who shot down Gary Powers, Bridge of Spies captures a time when the fate of the world really did depend on coded messages on microdots and brave young men in pressure suits. The exchange that frigid day at two of the most sensitive points along the Iron Curtain represented the first step back from where the superpowers had stood since the building of the Berlin Wall the previous summer--on the brink of World War III.
format_aacpl
Book
eAudiobook
eBook
format_category_aacpl
Audio Books
Books
eBook
id
ab3e504b-bd8b-2e08-b5e5-d2715e6eec00
isbn
9780307719980
9780767931076
9781101922682
itype_aacpl
Adult Nonfiction
Electronic Book
last_indexed
2023-03-24T08:44:04.593Z
lexile_score
-1
literary_form
Non Fiction
literary_form_full
Non Fiction
local_callnumber_aacpl
327.12 W
CLOUD LIBRARY
Online OverDrive
owning_library_aacpl
Anne Arundel County Public Library
Anne Arundel County Public Library Online
owning_location_aacpl
Odenton Library
Online OverDrive Collection
primary_isbn
9780767931076
publishDate
2010
2015
publisher
Books on Tape
Broadway Books
Crown
Crown/Archetype
recordtype
grouped_work
subject_facet
Abel, Rudolf, -- 1903-1971
Electronic books
Espionage -- TRUE CRIME
Espionage, American -- History -- 20th century
Espionage, Soviet -- History
Intelligence service -- Soviet Union -- History
Intelligence service -- United States -- History -- 20th century
Nuclear Warfare -- Military
Powers, Francis Gary, -- 1929-1977
Pryor, Frederic L
Russian & Former Soviet Union -- World
title_display
Bridge of spies : a true story of the Cold War
title_full
Bridge of Spies A True Story of the Cold War
Bridge of Spies [eBook] Whittell, Giles,
Bridge of spies : a true story of the Cold War / Giles Whittell
title_short
Bridge of spies
title_sub
a true story of the Cold War
topic_facet
Abel, Rudolf
Espionage
Espionage, American
Espionage, Soviet
History
Intelligence service
Military
Nonfiction
Nuclear Warfare
Politics
Powers, Francis Gary
Pryor, Frederic L
Russian & Former Soviet Union

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