Gideon's Spies: The Secret History of the Mossad

In the world of smoke and mirrors that the world intelligence services operate in, Mossad are considered to be the best in terms of the quality and quantity of intelligence that they collect. AS well as that the missions that they undertake are audacious, brave and just a little bit foolhardy.

In this book, Thomas has brought together details of those missions and operations that Mossad has either undertaken, or has played a part in. Through his extensive contacts in a variety of intelligence services he has attempted to fill in the gaps in the public record of events or we were not even aware of in most cases. He covers events such as 9/11, the death of Diana, the horrendous rendition flights that the CIA undertook, the obliteration of show more the Syrian nuclear facility and lots more.

Whilst a lot of this was interesting, the book did drag. It is nearly 700 pages of closely typed text, and the mass os facts and detail does get overwhelming at times. With all of these types of books, you have to take them with a little salt, as I cannot believe every thing in here is true. But it does show Mossad as very proficient and brutal. show less

It's astonishing how much information is revealed in this book. More astonishing is the information we'll never come to know. What's particularly interesting here is that the actual undertaken operations get swiftly overviewed - and many of which could fill entire books by themselves (and they do!) - while the politics and emotions of the players involved get full view. This isn't filler, it's germane to the story. Quality work.

An intriguing book about one of the most shadowy intelligence agencies in the world. Drawing on interviews with former agents from the Mossad, this book reads like a thriller at times, rather than a history. How much of this is due to embellishment is unknown, but nevertheless, it is a good start for a curious reader to learn more about how nations interact with one another in a new age of intelligence.

this is one of the few books to have captured the true nature of the Israeli Government and the thorough process of the Israeli power elite. Ari Ben-Menashe, Former Adviser on Intelligence to the Israeli Government Created in 1951 to ensure an embattled Israel’s future, the Mossad has been responsible for the most audacious and thrilling feats of espionage, counterterrorism and assassination ever ventured. Gideon’s Spies has been created from closed-door interviews with Mossad agents, informants and spymasters, and drawing from classified documentsand top-secret sources, revealing previously untold truths about the Israeli intelligence agency.

I really like the books of Gordon Thomas he knows how to tell the story of the Intelligence agencies in a way that you do not only feel you are learning contemporarily history but at the same times it feels you are reading a novel. If you read several of his books you notice that sometimes he uses the same stories over and over. For someone that had never read a book from Gordon Thomas is ok, but since I had read several o them things become repetitive and it feels as an excuse to include more pages.

Interesting subject material, with a decent blend of policy/government description and action scenes. I enjoyed it despite it dragging a bit in the end.

A couple of these cases are very surprising. I never heard about Robert Maxwell's dealings with Mossad. One gets a sense of the shear volume of state sponsored assassinations overseas. This is a slice of a bigger story that requires reading several other books