Spyfail Foreign Spies, Moles, Saboteurs, and the Collapse of America’s Counterintelligence

From the bestselling author of The Puzzle Palace and Body of Secrets, James Bamford reveals how foreign intelligence agencies are easily bypassing U.S. counterspies and conducting elaborate espionage and covert operations within the country, putting Americans at great risk. 

SPYFAIL is about the highly dangerous and rapidly growing ability of hostile intelligence services to conduct complex clandestine activities within the U.S., draining the country of its secrets, turning American spies into double agents, undertaking psychological operations, stealing nuclear weapons material, sabotaging vast computer networks, and planting moles in presidential elections.  All under the unseeing eyes and unhearing ears of the country’s counterspies. Incompetence that includes leaks that led to America losing its highest-level agent-in-place in the Kremlin, a Russian spy who would have been invaluable during the war in Ukraine. 
 
For decades James Bamford has been one of the country’s leading investigative writers on U.S. intelligence, from exposing how the ultra-secret NSA turned its giant ear inwards on the American public, to uncovering the intelligence failures that led to the attacks on 9/11. Now in SPYFAIL he uses those same investigative skills, confidential sources, and secret documents to expose the covert operations of foreign agencies subverting America.  Operations that range from stealing its cipher-locked secrets; to crashing vast networks; to conducting covert and propaganda operations against innocent, unsuspecting Americans.  At the same time, he explores the reasons behind the massive failures, causes that range from utter incompetence, to greed, to high-level politics, to powerful and wealthy special interest groups.  
 
Throughout this stunning, eye-opening account, SPYFAIL demonstrates again and again the critical role played by America’s spy catchers, and the failures that leave America’s secrets and citizens vulnerable and undefended.

James Bamford is a recipient of the National Magazine Award for Reporting for his writing on the war in Iraq, an Emmy-nominated filmmaker for PBS, and the author of four award-winning national bestsellers. They include BODY OF SECRETS (2001), THE SHADOW FACTORY (2008), A PRETEXT FOR WAR (2004) and THE PUZZLE PALACE (1982).