Soldiers, Spies and the Rat Line - America's Undeclared War Against the Soviets (Hardcover, New)

The Cold War began in Central Europe within weeks of the surrender of Germany. It had no name, it was not declared, but the soldiers on the front line recognized it. This is the story of the American soldiers who witnessed the beginning of the conflict that dominated world politics for the next 45 years, and did their best to fight it. Jim Milano was chief of intelligence operations for the US forces in Austria from May 1945 until 1950. He led this small group of young Army intelligence officers - the first troops - on a new, clandestine front line. Inventing the techniques of Cold War espionage for themselves, using methods that Milano admits were questionable, he and his men spied on the Soviet forces and arranged for defectors from the East to escape down a "rat line" to South America. This was the same network that later, after Milano and his colleagues had left, was used to smuggle out Nazi war criminals such as Klaus Barbie. This book is an exploration of a unique time in history, and an account of the adventures of young men charged with carrying out the first US espionage efforts of the postwar era.