Three Minutes to Doomsday
An Agent, a Traitor, and the Worst Espionage Breach in U.S. History
by Joe Navarro
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In 1988 Joe Navarro, one of the youngest agents ever hired by the FBI, was dividing his time between SWAT assignments, flying air reconnaissance, and working counter-intelligence. But his real expertise was "reading" body language. He possessed an uncanny ability to glean the thoughts of those he interrogated.
So it was that, on a routine assignment to interview a "person of interest"—a former American soldier named Rod Ramsay—Navarro noticed his interviewee's hand trembling slightly when he was asked about another soldier who had recently been arrested in Germany on suspicion of espionage. That thin lead was enough for the FBI agent to insist to his bosses that an investigation be opened.
What followed is unique in the annals of espionage detection—a two-year-long battle of wits. The dueling antagonists: an FBI agent who couldn't overtly tip to his target that he suspected him of wrongdoing lest he clam up, and a traitor whose weakness was the enjoyment he derived from sparring with his inquisitor. Navarro's job was made even more difficult by his adversary's brilliance: not only did Ramsay possess an authentic photographic memory as well as the second highest IQ ever recorded by the US Army, he was bored by people who couldn't match his erudition. To ensure that the information flow would continue, Navarro had to pre-choreograph every interview, becoming a chess master plotting twenty moves in advance.
And the backdrop to this mental tug of war was the dissolution of the Soviet Union and the very real possibility that its leaders, in a last bid to alter the course of history, might launch a devastating attack. If they did, they would have Ramsay to thank, because as Navarro would learn over the course of forty-two mind-bending interviews, Ramsay had, by his stunning intelligence giveaways, handed the Soviets the ability to utterly destroy the US.
The story of a determined hero who pushed himself to jaw-dropping levels of exhaustion and who rallied his team to expose undreamed of vulnerabilities in America's defense, Three Minutes to Doomsday will leave the reader with disturbing thoughts of the risks the country takes even today with its most protected national secrets.
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Creators
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Publisher
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Release date
April 18, 2017 -
Formats
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Kindle Book
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OverDrive Read
- ISBN: 9781501128295
- File size: 35707 KB
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EPUB ebook
- ISBN: 9781501128295
- File size: 35707 KB
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Languages
- English
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Reviews
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February 15, 2017
Firsthand account of Cold War espionage from the FBI agent who uncovered it.Navarro (Dangerous Personalities: An FBI Profiler Shows You How to Identify and Protect Yourself from Harmful People, 2014, etc.), a founding member of the FBI's National Security Division Behavioral Analysis Program, recounts his dogged efforts to court and prosecute a bedraggled but brilliant young spy in the late 1980s. What began as a routine interview for Navarro, who had SWAT team, aerial surveillance, and counterintelligence responsibilities in the Tampa office, turned into an all-consuming absorption with an unprecedented spy enterprise in West Germany. Over a year and a half, the author met repeatedly--eventually daily--with Rod Ramsay, a former soldier who had been the junior partner of an espionage mastermind at the 8th Infantry Division headquarters. Navarro and his superiors learned that the two men passed along incalculably important information, including war plans, to the Hungarians and the Soviets. At times, the author gets mired in government jargon, but he presents a riveting story of how he earned Ramsay's confidence and slowly elicited a mountain of incriminating information. He was helped by the suspect's loneliness and narcissism. Navarro provides a tutorial on interviewing technique, employing psychology, theater, and a well-honed understanding of nonverbal cues. In fact, several minor aberrations in body language triggered the case that led to one of the biggest spy busts in American history. However, throughout the investigation, Navarro was thwarted by intra- and interagency jealousies and turf concerns. The process affected his family life and eventually his physical and mental health. It took him more than 25 years to write this story of a serious breach in American national security. A fascinating account of counterintelligence in the pre-cyber era and a reminder of how an astute interviewer can be an invaluable asset to law enforcement.COPYRIGHT(2017) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
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