Istanbul Intrigues

by Barry Rubin

Book Overview

Previous owner's name on title page. No other markings/notations in text. Spine/binding tight and uncreased. Cover/page edges in good cond, but shows moderate bumping, some creasing, scuffing. This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0070542007
• ISBN13: 9780070542006
• Release Date: January 1989
• Publisher: McGraw-Hill Companies
• Length: 301 Pages
• Weight: 1.45 lbs.

Customer Reviews

Queen of Cities, Queen of Spies

I wrote a previous review of this. However I have aquired a new credit card and user name and wish my review of this book to appear on this profile. Therefore: Istanbul Intrigues by Barry Rubin The guardian shore is under threat, it's waters lit by fire, reflecting off each mineret then leaping up far higher. On drifting unwelcome shipwrecks flee, refugees to doors half shut, and those upon the ramparts fear, that all escape is cut. Councilors heatedly debate, while envoys speak with charm, so none can help but hesitate, between such hope and harm. Spies do gather, purchase, bribe inside the city walls. Can one hope faithfully to describe, that which then befalls? This evocative verse leads into Barry Rubin's masterpiece Istanbul Intrigues. There are many cities in the world which have had conspiracies take place within them. This is the only city that is an adjective for conspiracy. Like a good spy it has had many names. To the Northmen it was Miklagard the Great, where a hardy mercenary had a good job waiting for him battleing the Emperor's foes. In the Middle Ages, it was Constantine's City, greatest in all of Christiandom. To the Ancient Greeks it was Byzantium, from whence we get the well deserved adjective for intrigue, "Byzantine." And to the Turks it is, of course, Istanbul. But whatever name it goes under, it is still the dark Queen of Cities. The crossroads of the world where can be found every race in the Meditteranean, and in which lie secrets, upon secrets and secrets within secrets heaped upon one another every which way. It is a place of splendor and a place of many a tale. So it has ever been. So it still is. And so it was in the days of our grandfathers when the world was in flames. Barry Rubin is a political columnist. But he missed his calling, for he should have been a spy novelist. Istanbul Intrigues is a history that paints vividly the Eastern Meditterranean during World War II, centering on neutral Turkey. It gives a show of the labyrinthine struggle between the many factions contending for influence. From the elegant diplomatic receptions where inpeccably dressed powerbrokers decided the fate of nations over wine and caviar. To the seemy underworld of the bazaars and alleyways where the struggle went on in a less elegant form-but ever refereed by the Turkish Security, the grim and ever vigilant Emniyet whom the author obviously admires. It also shows the politics and warfare in and around the Balkans and Middle East wherein the warring parties nibbled at each other. The descriptions are excellant and a delight to read. They have an aesthetic quality reached by few spy novels even, though it is a nonfiction work. And the book shows well the feel of the constant, ever-changing labyrinth of Power-politics, and covert-warfare, in the greatest of all conflicts. Some will find fault with it's obvious nostalgia and romanticism of World War II. Seemingly an odd fault for someone named Rubin. Perhaps it is, as romanticism of

The Best of the Best

This book is a classic. There aren't many modern books about which you can say this but this is quite simply a Great Book. Curiously it is not written in the normally somewhat harsh tasting Barry Rubin mode. It has a powerful descriptive power and even a bit of Alan Furst style romance mixed with good research. It has a nostalgia that some will find heartless, but in another sense is most fitting. It reminds us of a world that finally passed away in the greatest of wars, a world that with all it's injustice and snobbery had an aesthetic attraction and style that sparkles from a distance. All of that world, good and bad is gone and in some ways this book is a form of mourning. There was enough to mourn for to be sure. Romanticizing war has been criticized often enough and this book is to some degree guilty of that. However it is doubtful that our age needs to be taught that lesson as much as previous. This war was a war that had to be fought, one way or another, and this form of writing is a way of showing gratitude to our grandparents. The authors powers of description is tremendous. You feel you are there, in that labyrinth of conspiracies and counterconspiracies between a multitude of factions. You travel to posh diplomatic receptions where impeccably dressed power brokers discuss the fate of nations over glasses of wine. You go to the bazaars and alleys of Istanbul where the spies carry on their game, refereed by the sinister and ever vigilant Emniyet, the Turkish secret police. You go to the Balkan's and Middle East to meet a devil's menagerie of partisans, bandits, smugglers, terrorists, spies, thises, thats, and the others. Or you visit the "politically unsound" exiled German and Russian aristocrat's, and watch them pine away their sorrows in meaningless luxury, interspersed by those who lend a hand to one faction or another. You meet heros, villains, and ordinary folk trying to survive. And you see the final end where the respective victors and vanquished are told their respective fates. Among the most pitiful of these by the way is that of the Poles and the Czechs who gave so much to final victory only to find they had fought for a lost cause, that victory was vain for them and their homes were enslaved to another conqueror. At least they are remembered for what it's worth. This book is in my opinion the best World War II spy history that has ever been written. Certainly the best I have ever read. It is a pity that I am only allowed to give it five stars. Jason Taylor(son of John Taylor)

Life in neutral Turkey during WWII.

I liked this book because it showed the situation of a country desiring to stay out of the war. Istanbul was only 40 miles from German occupied Bulgaria. British, Americans, Soviets, Germans, and Italians all bumped into one another in this city and the Turkish capital of Ankara. These various groups spied on one another and the Turk military, and they in turn were watched closely by the Turkish secret police. The Soviets tried to kill the German Ambassador Von Papen. Jewish groups tried to get Jews out of Nazi controlled Europe. There were many small memorable stories in this book. One was of a American OSS member looking for the Greek Embassy and knocking on the doot of the Japanese Embassy and being politely told where he needed to go. Another was the future Pope John XXIII being caught with a bust of Mussolini in his personal quarters and explaining to an American Cardinal that sometimes one had to put on appearances even though a person felt differently. Then there was the stories of human sufferings like the Turks and British not granting visas to Jews who could escape. Those not granted visas simply were killed by the Germans. This is a nice read for WWII historians. This indeed was a different city to battle the forces of evil in. The author did a good job detailing a little known theater of war in World War Two.

Espionage in Istanbul in WWII - Bizarre and Byzantine

I quite enjoyed Ellery Queen's remarkable 1932 story, The Greek Coffin Mystery. Noticing a book with a similar title, I next read Eric Ambler's, A Coffin for Dimitrios, a classic spy novel involving intrigue in Istanbul shortly before the start of WWII. A few days later I stumbled across a 1952 movie (Five Fingers) about actual espionage in Istanbul in late 1943. Subsequently, I found a detailed account of this particular espionage case in Barry Rubin's Istanbul Intrigues, a fascinating account of "espionage, sabotage, and diplomatic treachery in Istanbul, the spy capital of WWII".In retrospect, my rather circuitous route from an Ellery Queen mystery to a well-researched military history seems fitting, as Rubin's description of WWII Istanbul was absolutely Byzantine. Seventeen intelligence organizations competed for critical information. Double agents, triple agents, and even quadruple agents were the norm. The Turks were rightly concerned with a possible German attack (Romania, Hungary, Bulgaria, Yugoslavia, and Greece were already occupied), but they feared Russia even more. They considered the United States as foolishly naïve in its belief that Stalin would not continue to occupy Eastern Europe and the Balkans after Germany's defeat. And they did not entirely trust the British either.The Turkish intelligence organization, the Emniyet, was remarkably effective and somehow managed to keep track of the convoluted intelligence operations practiced by the Germans, the Russians, the British, the Americans, and the lesser powers. I was sometimes overwhelmed by the detail in Rubin's account and I occasionally found myself skimming some sections. Nonetheless, I strongly recommend reading Istanbul Intrigues. Not only is this good history and good melodrama, it has immediate relevance to current events in Turkey, Iraq, and elsewhere in the Middle East and the Balkans.We encounter a suicide attack on Franz von Papen, the opportunistic and devious German ambassador. We meet Angelo Giuseppe Roncalli, the Vatican's legate and apostolic vicar to Istanbul's few Catholics. He was in disfavor with the church hierarchy for speeches critical of Benito Mussolini. Later Roncalli becomes the ecumenical Pope John XXIII. Contrastingly, we become acquainted with disreputable characters like Andre Gyorgy who combined lucrative smuggling with espionage services for the Hungarians, British, American OSS, Zionists, and unknown to these four groups, he also worked for the Germans.If you read only one chapter, you might try The Valet Did It (chapter 15), the story behind the English film, Five Fingers. Released in 1952, the movie, a purported true account, was based on a 1950 book by Ludwig Moyzisch, the SD's Ankara chief. (The SD was the intelligence arm of the Reich Security Ministry, one of the three competing German intelligence operations in Turkey.) Barry Rubin's research illustrates that the full story was far more complex than Moyzisch himself realized, and has more