Chasing Spies ─ How the FBI Failed in Counterintelligence but Promoted the Politics of McCarthyism in the Cold War Years

Based on meticulous research in FBI files, Chasing Spies uncovers the FBI’s role in the most important espionage cases of the cold war years. The book shows how secrecy immunized FBI operations from critical scrutiny and enabled FBI officials to mask their counterintelligence failures while promoting a politics of McCarthyism. “Athan Theoharis calmly explores a major paradox of the Cold War: that J. Edgar Hoover, for all his fulminations against communism and his collaboration with McCarthyism, failed to apprehend and convict Soviet spies busily at work in the United States. Chasing Spies greatly illuminates this notable FBI counterintelligence failure.”–Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr.

Athan Theoharis is professor of history at Marquette University. His many books include The Boss, From the Secret Files of J. Edgar Hoover, Spying on Americans, Beyond the Hiss Case, Seeds of Repression, and The Yalta Myths. He lives in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.