Author Otis C. Mitchell, a former Army intelligence operative in North Germany, weaves his counterintelligence experiences with newly declassified C. I. A. evidence to paint a broad picture of West and East German intelligence and counterintelligence services. He shows that by the time construction of the Berlin Wall began the intelligence community already had established several fundamental, and long-lasting, systems. This work explores how these systems became anachronistic after the end of the Cold War and were not adequate to face the heightened challenge of Islamic fundamentalism that developed in the 1990s and the early 21st century.