• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to footer

FBI Studies

  • Home
  • Ray Batvinis
    • Speaking
    • Research
  • Blog
    • Videos
  • Hoover’s Secret War against Axis Spies
    • Praise
    • Chapter 1
    • Book Reviews
    • Book Lecture Video
  • Origins of FBI Counterintelligence
    • Praise
    • Book Review
    • Introduction
    • Chapter One
    • CSPAN Video
  • Resources
    • Videos
    • History News
    • Store
  • Contact

Main Content

  • The Origins of FBI Counterintelligence By Raymond J. Batvinis, PhD Hardcover published in 2007 - Cloth ISBN 978-0-7006-1495-0 Paperback published … [Continue Reading]

    Origins of FBI CI
  • Chapter One from "The Origins of FBI Counterintelligence" by Raymond J. Batvinis Rumrich He was a US Army deserter when he was arrested on … [Continue Reading]

    Chapter One
  • About Author Raymond J. Batvinis, PhD Ph.D., American History, The Catholic University of America, 2002 M.A., History, The Catholic University … [Continue Reading]

    Author
  •   Hoover’s Secret War Against Axis Spies FBI Counterespionage During World War II By Raymond J. Batvinis April 2014 312 pages, 24 … [Continue Reading]

    Hoover’s Secret War against Axis Spies
  • Chapter One from Hoover's Secret War against Axis Spies: FBI Counterespionage during World War II by Raymond J. Batvinis A Remarkable … [Continue Reading]

    Chapter 1

Read Chapter One – 1st Book

Chapter 1 - Rumrich

Read the first chapter of The Origins of FBI Counterintelligence, which tells the story of Nazis spies operating in America, focusing on the case of Guenther Rumrich, his arrest by the FBI, and how the case changed the FBI. Read More

Read Chapter One – 2nd Book

chap1270

Read the first chapter of Hoover's Secret War Against Axis Spies: FBI Counterespionage During World War II, which tells the story of FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover's moment-by-moment weekend when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941. Read More

Buy Ray Batvinis Books

Origins of FBI Counterintelligence  Hoovers Secret War Against Axis Spies book cover

FBI in Moscow

Strange Wartime Odyssey of Louis Beck, FBI

Read about FBI Agent Louis Beck who was sent undercover to the US Embassy in Moscow during WW2 to assess the security situation in the embassy. What he found was shockingly lax security attitudes that allowed the Soviet NKVD control of the place -- and of secret US codes. Read More

FBI in Honolulu

FBI-in-Honolulu-270

Relive the hour-to-hour experiences of the FBI field office in Honolulu as they respond to the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in December 1941. Read More

Future of FBI CI

FBI Future

Read The Future of FBI Counterintelligence Through the Lens of the Past Hundred Years, an essay by Ray Batvinis which was published in The Oxford Handbook of National Security Intelligence.

Feedback about Ray’s Books:

“Mr. Batvinis’ book is a splendid account of the FBI’s contribution to victory in World War II. Five cloaks, five daggers.”

Joseph C. Goulden

Author of 18 nonfiction booksWashington Times

“Raymond Batvinis recounts this FBI history with the insight of someone who has himself been in the game. An important contribution to the literature.”

Mark E. Stout

Former HistorianInternational Spy Museum, now Director of Global Security Studies, Johns Hopkins University

“Hoover’s Secret War offers fascinating details about FBI espionage and counter-espionage operations during a deadly period in modern history.”

David Aikman

AuthorWeekly Standard

“A welcome addition to the literature on both the FBI and the World War II era, Batvinis’s book provides new information about how FBI counterintelligence and counterespionage operations against Nazi Germany during World War II transformed the FBI’s culture and capabilities.”

Athan Theoharis

AuthorThe FBI and American Democracy: A Brief Critical History

“This is a monumental book, breaking new ground in the field of secret intelligence. I strongly suspect Batvinis will write a third book, covering the early years of the Cold War. When complete, that body of work should stand alongside Rick Atkinson’s Liberation trilogy as an essential source for anyone interested in America’s soldiers and spies.”

Tim Weiner

Author, National Book Award and Pulitzer Prize recipient

“A strong and compelling book on the FBI’s pre-World War II transformation.”

Katherine Sibley

AuthorRed Spies in America: Stolen Secrets and the Dawn of the Cold War

“A richly detailed account of the FBI’s response to the world crisis of the 1930s and 1940s that overturns much accepted ‘wisdom’ about FBI intelligence failures and turf battles. Batvinis stays close to his sources while telling an engrossing story that should become the new standard account of FBI counterintelligence. A stimulating and fascinating work.”

Richard Gid Powers

Author, Secrecy and Power: The Life of J. Edgar Hoover

“Hoover’s Secret War goes beyond solid scholarship and provides an eminently readable, richly detailed narrative, which allows the reader to see the war through the eyes of counterespionage in the Allies’ camp. This book a must-read for both fledgling or old-hand intelligence professionals.”

Edward J. Appel, Sr.

Retired senior FBI Supervisory Special Agent and Director of Counterintelligence and Security Programs at the National Security Council

“Raymond Batvinis recounts equally thrilling stories of international intrigue as the FBI, working alongside other US government elements and allies, sought to overcome Germany’s efforts to disrupt and defeat its war effort in the US before and during the war.  They will transfix the reader to the book’s pages much as the writings of the great spy novelists.  However, unlike the novelists’ works, Batvinis’ accounts are not amusements, but discussions of real cases of a struggle between adversaries filled with lessons on counterintelligence (spycatching) as well as counterespionage (turning enemy agents against their spymasters).”

GreatCharlie.com

FBI Studies Blog Posts

Radio Cloak and Dagger

I was interviewed on the podcast, A New York Minute of History, about the FBI’s World War 2 Wading River Radio Station, now know as the Benson House. Listen: Radio Cloak and Dagger | A New York Minute in History On this episode, Devin and Lauren tell the recently declassified story of a covert radio […]

A Response To The Fourth Man by Robert Baer – By Richard Rita

Guest Post by Dr Richard A. Rita Retired CIA Senior Counterintelligence Officer Former Chief, Special Investigations Unit/CEG/CIC who wrote the official history of SIU This article first appeared in CIA”s Studies in Intelligence, March 2023: RITA-Response-to-The-Fourth-Man (pdf) The Fourth Man purports to tell the story of the CIA’s hunt in the mid-late 1990s for another highly […]

The Ghost of Angleton – By Paul Redmond

Guest Post by Paul J. Redmond Paul J. Redmond served 34 years in the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA)’s Clandestine Service, operating primarily against the Warsaw Pact/Eastern European countries and the Soviet Union. He served as Deputy Chief of the CIA’s Counterintelligence Center from 1991 to 1995, where he led the CIA’s investigation that identified Aldrich […]

Sometimes the story is about the spies who aren’t there

Kudos to David Ignatius for writing this column in the Washington Post. Baer should be rightly mortified being called out by such a journalistic heavy weight. Goes a long way to restoring Paul’s honor. By David Ignatius Columnist, Washington Post, Feb. 16, 2023 Every good spy thriller needs a “mole hunt” — a search for the […]

Former CIA Counterintelligence Chiefs Weigh in on The Fourth Man

By Michael Sulick, Cindy Webb and Mark Kelton (bios at the end) Robert Baer’s book The Fourth Man leads readers to conclude—falsely—that highly accomplished, retired CIA officer Paul Redmond was himself a long-time spy for the KGB. As former leaders of CIA Counterintelligence who were directly involved over decades in the Russian operations and investigations discussed […]

_

The Charles McGonigal Case

I was interviewed for this lengthy article concerning two former FBI officials in trouble with the law: Albanian Firm Ties Indicted Former FBI Official To Yet Another Disgraced Former Agent (TPM, January 27, 2023) Indicted former top FBI official Charles McGonigal is a partner in an Albanian firm along with another disgraced former FBI agent, […]

The Ghost of Angleton — Review of The Fourth Man

I wrote a book review in the summer of 2022 for the Fall 2022 issue of the Association of Former Intelligence Officer’s (AFIO) official publication, The Intelligencer: Journal of US Intelligence Studies. It was a review about The Fourth Man by Robert Baer: The Ghost of Angleton — Review of The Fourth Man (pdf) This […]

Spycraft 101 Podcast Interview

On the Spycraft 101 podcast, Justin Black interviewed me about my FBI career, the espionage cases I worked on, as well as my first book, The Origins FBI Counterintelligence. We had a good conversation and I hope you enjoy it. It’s available on your favorite podcast platform or you can listen here: – TRANSCRIPT Justin […]

Message from Director Wray Regarding Search at Mar-a-Lago, Florida

Public Statement from FBI Director Christopher A. Wray “Unfounded attacks on the integrity of the FBI erode respect for the rule of law and are a grave disservice to the men and women who sacrifice so much to protect others. Violence and threats against law enforcement, including the FBI, are dangerous and should be deeply […]

World War II House of Secrets

I was interviewed for an article in Newsday about the Long Island house where the FBI ran a spy operation: The world was in a desperate battle with the Nazis when a German spy climbed to the third floor of a red-shingled home in Wading River to reveal the most closely guarded secret of World […]

_

Walking a Tightrope: FBI’s John Cimperman and the ULTRA Secret

The following article I wrote was published in the Winter-Spring 2022 issue of The Intelligencer: Journal of U.S. Intelligence Studies. __ The morning gloom was no match for the gnawing anxiety that gripped him, as he stepped the door of the American embassy at 1 Grosve­nor Square. Once a leafy park nestled in the heart […]

Watergate: Competing Fond Memories

My reviews of these two books: Melissa Graves: Nixon’s FBI: Hoover, Watergate, and a Bureau in Crisis. Lynne Rienner, Boulder, CO, 2020, 247 p. Shane O’Sullivan: Dirty Tricks: Nixon, Watergate, and the CIA. Hot Books, New York, 2018, 576 p., $12.76. “Oh, what a tangled web we weave/When first we practice to deceive.” This now […]

Guy Liddell Diaries

CODENAME: WALLFLOWER — The Guy Liddell Diaries

The codename was “WALLFLOWER” and according to noted British military historian Nigel West, it was the “most treasured possession” of the British Security Service. When finally released to the world in 2007 after decades under lock and key in the MI-5 director – general’s office safe, World War II and Cold War historians around the […]

Message from FBI Director Wray re Bob Levinson

This was sent to the Society of Former Special Agents of the FBI: Many of you may have seen yesterday’s news about Bob Levinson. I wanted to take a moment of your time to talk about Bob and this reporting. Along with some of our inter-agency partners, I recently had the opportunity to meet again […]

COVID 19 Message from the FBI

This message was given to members of the Society of Former Special Agents of the FBI, Inc.: “The FBI is in regular contact with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the Office of Personnel Management, and other federal agencies tracking the spread of COVID-19 and is taking a comprehensive approach to prepare for […]

More Posts

Did the FBI spy on the Trump campaign?

CIA Communications Catastrophe

The quiet death of America’s worst spy

Report on WWII Conference in UK

When the FBI Spent Decades Hunting for a Soviet Spy on Its Staff

EVENT: “Double Agent” book talk – Oct 7

VIDEO: Batvinis lecture on new book about FBI Counterespionage during WWII

–

The Patty Hearst/SLA Case

“Don’t Blame Me”

Sherlock Holmes Joke

Espionage Threatened the Manhattan Project, Declassified Report Says

The spies among us: More Chinese agents digging up secrets in Florida

Your FBI

North American Society for Intelligence History 2019 Conference

–

Watergate: Competing Fond Memories

“But I’m a Great Man”

Tramp Revisited

FIREBALL – TWA Flight 800 Investigation

VENONA: The Opening Moments

Review by Retired FBI Executive Edward Appel, Sr

Interview about bomber

Footer

About

Historical FBI Studies by Raymond J. Batvinis, PhD, author of "The Origins of FBI Counterintelligence" and "Hoover's Secret War Against Axis Spies: FBI Counterintelligence During World War II." About Ray Batvinis

Contact Ray

Contact Form
Facebooktwitterlinkedinrssyoutube

Watch Videos

videopixCheck out all the videos on FBI Studies related to FBI history and espionage. Video Page

Recent Posts

  • Radio Cloak and Dagger
  • A Response To The Fourth Man by Robert Baer – By Richard Rita
  • The Ghost of Angleton – By Paul Redmond
  • Sometimes the story is about the spies who aren’t there
  • Former CIA Counterintelligence Chiefs Weigh in on The Fourth Man
  • The Charles McGonigal Case
  • The Ghost of Angleton — Review of The Fourth Man
  • Spycraft 101 Podcast Interview
  • Message from Director Wray Regarding Search at Mar-a-Lago, Florida

Copyright 2023 Raymond J. Batvinis, PhD | Website by CJKCREATIVE.COM

 

Loading Comments...
 

You must be logged in to post a comment.