Kirkus Reviews QR Code
I WAS AN AMERICAN SPY by Col. Sidney Forrester Mashbir

I WAS AN AMERICAN SPY

By

Pub Date: Oct. 15th, 1953
Publisher: Vantage

Thirty years of experience in international intelligence work form the source and stuff of this rather rambling but often interesting account. Starting before World War I, Colonel Mashbir had an assignment in the Mexican-Arizona territory. There followed work to uncover a German spy web in the American Army during World War I; assignments in Siberia and Japan for both Army and Naval Intelligence between wars. The author worked out a plan to get information out of Japan in case of war and tried heroically to have it receive recognition. Once in the war, he worked with the Signal Corps and later in the G-2 section of MacArthur's command; he was in on the surrender. The glimpses into the working of the Intelligence Service and the author's anecdotes about particular diplomatic episodes enliven the somewhat clumsy narrative.